WJGH - Magic 107.3 and Sad Reality

[MicroPhoney]

Just to clarify they are not inserting "their own jocks" locally outside of overnights. Cindy and JoJo are both in the building locally but live on other properties, QIK and V respectively. The other talents are not local at all and are part of what CarolinaRadio explained. It's my understanding that Cindy and JoJo are both PC talents too, VTing outside markets, so that is the reason they survived. They have "Value" outside of just this market and as long as that's true, they'll continue to survive. It would be my guess that Cindy Spicer, who just arrived locally, is involved in the day to day of Magic since she had programming experience with CC in San Diego at their recently flipped country outlet.

 

[nfladxer]

While it was a real bummer that most of the local on air staff at Magic 107-3 got the ax last week, at least Clear Channel kept some kind of "personality" presence alive. And I agree with a previous poster, some of the Premium Choice content doesn't flow nearly as well as what JT and Tony were doing locally. From what I've observed, in it's short history, Magic 107-3 started out as kind of an AC/Classic Hits hybrid, then following the loooong Christmas music presentation last year, the re-imaging, the energy level, and the music, all seemed much more focused. But, over the past few weeks, the music, does indeed, seem to be taking on more of a Classic Rock edge, obviously for competitive reasons. The end result of this competitive strategy: more stations sharing more of the same songs on their playlists. When properly conceived and executed on the air, the "Oldies/Classic Hits" format has the potential to be wide appeal, and is a win-win-win situation for the stations, the advertisers, and the listeners! If this sizable audience is underserved, and become musically starved, they'll begin to seek new venues to satisfy their appetite. Hello iPod!

 

[carolinaradio]

Just to clarify they are not inserting "their own jocks" locally outside of overnights. Cindy and JoJo are both in the building locally but live on other properties, QIK and V respectively. The other talents are not local at all and are part of what CarolinaRadio explained. It's my understanding that Cindy and JoJo are both PC talents too, VTing outside markets, so that is the reason they survived. They have "Value" outside of just this market and as long as that's true, they'll continue to survive. It would be my guess that Cindy Spicer, who just arrived locally, is involved in the day to day of Magic since she had programming experience with CC in San Diego at their recently flipped country outlet.

I haven't listened to them extinsively since the layoffs, but I meant that they are more than likely voicetracking for WJGH and including local references/station name and not just the generic PC talents that don't make any local references.

At least some of the VT'ed talent has some local ties and it isn't all out of market. The reason for the musical changes is simple - they didn't have a PD anymore, so they went to Premium Choice (whose classic hits format has more of an "edge" to it). I don't know if it's for competitive purposes as much as it is for cost cutting/convienence. CC also has a more oldies-based Premium Choice format, that's used sometimes on KLOU/St Louis, WODC/Columbus, WRIT/Milwaukee, etc. - it's mostly 70s with more 60s, no 80s - but that would have made them less competitive in Jax.

 

[MicroPhoney]

They have the PC talents cut local mentions to "give the impression" they're local. Example, a talent might cut three or four different ad libs of hey it's so and so on magic, don't forget you can win X in the morning with (other PC talent). That x will no doubt be a trip to the latest iheart festival or some other big ticket national contest. It's a natural extension of smoke and mirrors.

 

[carolinaradio]

Just a heads up....
Magic 105.3 WVMA in VA Beach has gone CHR, which was a CC classic hits station. They were quite similar to Magic 107.3 and were doing decently in the last book. It wasn't around long, though.

I guess anything is possible.

 

[upstate29651]

Or....bring back Planet.

X is proving to be not as advertised & Rock has become a trainwreck. A well placed active could take both out.

G

 

[JH_Radio]

what is CC's premium choice?

 

[MicroPhoney]

It's a closed circuit network where they provide not just the announcers via voicetracks but also the music. In other words all the music and all the announcer content is fed in with the only local element remaining being the commercials. Used to be the outside market voicetracks were all "point to point" meaning an announcer would be hired to voicetrack another station in a remote market, i.e., one point to another point. The difference with PC is their "best talents" create generic voicetracks over a generic nationally tested playlist and it's then distributed to multiple stations in multiple markets leaving in less room for market specific content. A PtoP voicetracker can still focus on call letters and local content whereas PCs can't because their audio goes all over the country. It's quite similar to what Dial Global does as a network vendor for smaller markets other than the sales and control is all internal to the company rather that somewhat shared with an outside vendor. Plus with Dial they pay the talents and the local stations subscribe to the service, with CC it's all internal. Some stations, like Magic, use a mix of a couple P to P announcers that just happen to be in their building on other stations along with PC talents in other dayparts.