Anyone anticipate Oaktree making any changes to NJ 101.5 once they take over Millennium? Like, for example, more talk programming on the weekends?
I am just guessing, but I suspect one thing that won't be changing right away is the weekend music, it targets the right demo, likely adds a lot of listeners to the weekly cume, and sets a good upbeat mood for Jerseyan's weekends.
For many stations the largest audience of the week is Saturday mornings at 10-AM, its been that way for decades. And at that time in much of NJ the happy voice on the radio has been Big Joe Henry for years. He is just part of the weekend routine for so many listeners. He's been there when they head for the shore, go out shopping, have a barbecue. He's Mr. Weekend Jersey to a lot of Jersey listeners.
As with Jim Gearhart, Allan Kasper, and Eric Scott, Big Joe is valuable as part of the station brand. It seems that they have all been there from the beginning and listeners just associate their voices, and personalities with the station. The other shifts have changed players over the years and that very strong connection to station identity doesn't exist in those other day parts during the week.
Don't forget Oaktree is in the investment fund business, but it owns Townsquare which specializes in radio station group restructuring. No doubt, Townsquare has been involved in this process already, and will likely take over as soon as regulators allow. They have probably worked out all the numbers and had evaluations done by various programming consultants. I suspect they won't rock the boat too much at NJ-101.5, but with things like this there are always changes.
The music on the weekend is a really smart way to program that station to fit the suburban lifestyle, increase the cume numbers and do it less expensively and more efficiently than local talk shows, and satellite fed shows would limit the number of spots that could be sold. Another problem with taking national talk shows, is how to handle the NJ traffic reports. If there is one major reason NJ residents tune into the station it is for the traffic, and the north and south reports need more than one minute at a time since so much area is covered. Squeezing those reports into commercial slots on a national talk show would further limit the spots that could be sold and the amount of money taken in. National satellite programming probably wouldn't be a good fit for NJ-101.5 with the exception of overnight.
