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WOGL Rebrands at Big 98.1

Classic Rock station "99.9 The Hawk" in the Easton/Allentown, PA market still has the call letters WODE from their former Oldies format, and it hasn't seemed to hurt their success. Like WOGL does now, it is only used for the hourly ID.

Plus, "OG" is urban slang for "someone or something that is an original or originator and especially one that is highly respected or regarded". So I think they could've rebranded from WOGL to "OG 98".
 
Miguelito said:
I never thought about this before: How much effort and expense (if any) is involved in getting new calls? If it's as simple as completing a form and sending in a few hundred bucks, it might be worth it ...
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It's done online at the FCC website and there is a $170 filing fee.
 
Audacy could hide the calls even more if they wanted to just put them in a quick 5 second “WOGL, WOGL-HD1 Philadelphia” blurb during a stop set when people aren’t paying as much attention as between songs.

If they were going to change the calls, or saw a need to, I think that would have been done by now. To bring up WMXJ again, they didn’t change their calls when they rebranded to “102.7 The Beach.” WOCL in Orlando still has its calls from when it was “Class 105.9” and then oldies “Cool 105.9” in the mid 1980s, and held on to them during a rock period and its re-launch as classic hits to this day. Audacy doesn’t seem to think they matter there either, I don’t believe the WOCL calls have ever been used on air and have been irrelevant for 20+ years.
 
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K.M. Richards said:
It's done online at the FCC website and there is a $170 filing fee.
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Stations that have a regular communications attorney will generally have the attorney file the call change, so count on at least one billable hour for that. There are some lawyers, I am told, who specialize in small market stations or small operations elsewhere and who have a flat fee for simple filings, such as a call letter change, an address change and so on.
 
In todays ppm world inwhich call letters are meaningless to the stations bottomline I dont see any point in spending a dime to change something you only have to mention real quick once an hr. I hope they don't change it, since they've had it since the 80's.

However considering iheart spent money to change 106.1's calls from something that merely spelled out the frequency, and had nothing to do with any format to something that fits in with the branding of the station. I think its safe to say call letters is still something these big radio companies think about.
 
It's hard to understand why sometimes companies change call letters and sometimes they don't. One weird example is how WODS Boston didn't change calls when they flipped from Classic Hits to CHR, but then did change them when they flipped again to Big. Maybe they wanted to minimize any possible perception of Big as the reincarnation of "Oldies 103.3"? In which case, with 98.1, it's probably a matter of how much they want to emphasize that this isn't your father's WOGL (or your grandfather's Oldies 98).
 
mjb1124 said:
In which case, with 98.1, it's probably a matter of how much they want to emphasize that this isn't your father's WOGL (or your grandfather's Oldies 98).
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Also just because they didn't change the call letters with this rebrand doesn't mean they won't change the letters if the rebrand isn't effective. A company doesn't have to do everything all at once.
 
And since I might as well make something actually worth its sault on this thread again,
We're going on two months.
No new jocs on WOGL yet I see.
 
But then again

I heart never bothered to change the WISX call letters during all those formats the station had

Mix 106.1
Real 106.1
106.1 the breeze
 
JH_Radio said:
Good lord lol.
This is the biggest thread I've seen here with a rebrand in this market.
Even format switches haven't gotten this much attention around these parts.
John
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Only on a geeky radio board can a station go from playing:
  • Journey
  • Madonna
  • Bon Jovi
  • Whitney Houston
...to playing
  • Journey
  • Madonna
  • Bon Jovi
  • Def Leppard
...and have it generate a 500-reply thread. :)

I think the challenge for 98.1 is how to make anyone walking down the street care. This should be a #1 preset for my wife and her friends, but getting them away from saying "Alexa, play iHeart 80s..." or "Alexa, play Gen-X radio on iHeart Radio..." feels like a tougher behavioral change than you'd think.
 
kevtronics said:
Classic Rock station "99.9 The Hawk" in the Easton/Allentown, PA market still has the call letters WODE from their former Oldies format, and it hasn't seemed to hurt their success. Like WOGL does now, it is only used for the hourly ID.

Plus, "OG" is urban slang for "someone or something that is an original or originator and especially one that is highly respected or regarded". So I think they could've rebranded from WOGL to "OG 98".
Click to expand...

You're really trying to get your money's worth out of this attempt at some remote sliver of humor huh? It was silly the first time you mentioned it and coming back for a second-helping hasn't had any more favorable an effect on anyone... glad you're not programming any stations!
 
kevtronics said:
So you're glad they picked the guy who recommended the name "Audacy", even though it sounds like "Odyssey" when said on the radio, forcing them to spell it out?
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You'll love this, Kev.

At the time of the name change from Entercom, a friend who is not in the business asked me why the new "name" for the station she listens to often, when typed into her browser, took her to a travel agency website.

Yes, at that time "odyssey.com" belonged to a cruise broker.
 
mjb1124 said:
It's hard to understand why sometimes companies change call letters and sometimes they don't. One weird example is how WODS Boston didn't change calls when they flipped from Classic Hits to CHR, but then did change them when they flipped again to Big. Maybe they wanted to minimize any possible perception of Big as the reincarnation of "Oldies 103.3"? In which case, with 98.1, it's probably a matter of how much they want to emphasize that this isn't your father's WOGL (or your grandfather's Oldies 98).
Click to expand...
WODS is now WBGB maybe WOGL might become WPBG
 
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