There's no Zionist conspiracy at play here. Just people in charge who didn't have a clue what they were doing. They knew that they had to take a stab at an alternative rock format since WHTG was the only one in the area, but there were some big problems - specifically, management/ownership disliking the format very much, and hiring people who also didn't care for alternative rock.
I've listened to Hit 106 enough to know that the passion that was sorely lacking from all but the on-air personalities in the G Rock days has now finally surfaced. I guess the employees at Press are into the banal, vacuous pop music, and the execs probably have children or grandchildren that are into it as well ... heck, some of the pop tarts out there today might even get their mojos going.
The sales team that merely treaded water a year or two ago now implements new strategies and actively solicits advertisers. The management at Press actually foots the bill for promoting and advertising the station, something they failed to do with G Rock. I talked to people who thought G Rock was gone when they made the frequency swap in Ocean County, which tells you what kind of job they did on getting the word out. We're not seeing any abrupt personnel changes, like the way Brian Phillips & Jen Ursillo were unceremoniously dropped from the station, to be replaced with a morning show that was several notches inferior (the one with Kramer ... Matt Murray & Erin Vogt were better).
From thinking alternative rock fans wanted to hear John Mayer and Avril Lavigne to completely changing the format (which turned out to be temporary) after one disappointing ratings book in '04, and from the sudden permanent format switch this year (staff wasn't even notified until less than two hours before the flip took place) to spitting in the faces of their former listeners by not even launching an online G Rock substitute, Press Communications' 8+ years of running WHTG (and later WBBO) provide a textbook example of how NOT to run a radio station. The only good decision they made with WHTG/WBBO was to hire Terrie Carr and finally stop micromanaging the stations, but they even figured out how to screw that up as well. As much as I'd love to see G Rock return, I'm convinced that it would ultimately lead to disappointment again because management and ownership just wouldn't have their hearts in it. Our area definitely has the audience, but the only way an alternative rock station will succeed around here is if the people in the board room have the same passion as the personalities, and they don't treat it like the red-headed stepchild of their cluster. Better yet, perhaps it should be a stand-alone station, with a consortium of WHTG personalities purchasing and operating it. Ah, but of course that's just wishful thinking.
