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WQLT And Florance – Muscle Shoals rating

  • Thread starter theradioguy2004
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theradioguy2004

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began in radio in the 1970s. Although I worked my way up to being a major market PD in Houston, some of my best radio memories are of working at Q107 WQLT in Florence/Mussel Shoals, Al. which was owned by Sam Phillips of Big River Broadcasting at the time. We were a small market station, but there were several other CHR stations in the area, which make the format very competetive. It was truly a team effort with everyone having the same vision for what the station should be.

Many times management would tease us by not giving us details on promotions until just before the audience was told. There were lots of crazy things we did. Once we had a promotion where we played the sound of waves crashing. The audience was told that there were 15 minutes until a major announcement at 1:00 pm. We then ran 5 more minutes of water sounds and then told the audience there was 10 minutes until the major announcement, etc. It built until we played a promo announcing that everyone who owned a Q t shirt was eligible to win a swimming pool. I was on the air for this and did not even know what the announcement was until I played it for the audience. There was a lot of that type of thing at that station, it was a really fun place to work.


Recently I looked at the markets ratings, via Inside Radio and did not even see the 100,000 watt station mentioned. I found their web site and was not really sure what the format was. I saw something on one of their sites that said they are classic rock, another one that said they are AC and another that gave a play list that looked like it is jamm'in oldies.


Could someone tell me how this station is doing and why they are not listed in ratings results? I did see them listed at the bottom of ratings for Huntsville, Al. but that is to be expected since the markets are so far apart. Not seeing them listed at all in the Florence/Mussel Shoals stations was a shock. Does anyone know anything about them?


I am also wondering if anyone knows why and how the station abandoner its to 40 that was going on in the might to late 70's? The staiton had 3 other top 40 statoins competing with it eventualy causing 2 of them to change formats. In ratiogs reuslts I also see nothing about Big Rivers (Sam Phillips) other FN stqtion that as faras I know was and is country.
 
Jeff,

I worked with a guy here In Montgomery,Al back in the mid-late 70's that worked at WQLT. His name: Cliff Clark...Only worked for him a short time and then I moved on....Do you remember him? Did he work for you?
 
I am Cliff Clark but became Jeff Rivers. I also was at WLSQ in Montgomery What was you name and what station were we at. Do you know what happened to WQLT and WQLT's top 40 formats? Also I noticed in my effort to get my original post on here fast I have misspell words so I want to know how to edit my post?
 
Hi Cliff / Jeff:

I am proud to report that I am currently doing weekends on Q-107. Our format is "Great Classics and the best of today" - which still seems to change every few months. When I started there in March that was mostly the equivilant of classic rocK (say 40%), maybe 20% 80s, and 40% the best of today. I actually live in Cullman and can pick up stations in Huntsville, Bham, Gadsden, and I still enjoy Q as what I can take "the most of".

Our best feature is probably Funkadelic Friday...I've noticed a few other stations copying it lately. When I started at Q I did Friday night @ midnight until Saturday morning @ 6 am - and Sunday evenings. The party still continued well until 3 am - although I felt the station should sell more for this particular show - as out of any of the shifts I worked that was certainly the most listened to shift.

As far as I know we're still the #1 station in the florence/muscle shoals market with our sister station Kix 96 falling right in close. Rumor had it Kix actually took the lead for one ratings period but I never saw that reflected on Radio Records...

I'm 30 years old from Cullman Alabama - and i've listened to the station mostly before I went to college in Mobile in 1997...and then picked it up pretty good upon returning to Cullman in 2000. I'm not sure when the great classics and the best of today came to be but I am thinking mid 2006. I started there in March 2007. Prior to that radio duties included weekends at WZEW / 92 Zew in Mobile (still my all time fav station), weekends at the wave (wavh - daphne mobile , now the pirate), and WXXR here in Cullman.

I'll be happy to answer any other questions about the Q.

-jay fuller
[email protected]
http://www.cullmanpc.com
 
Cliff/Jeff

We worked together for a short time...My airname was Charlie Thomas..I don't know if you remember me or not...that seems like a hundred years ago...
 
I looked up the ratings for Florence using 2 different sources. Radio and Records hasen't updated the Florence ratings since the spring of 06 book in which the Big River station WQLT came in number 1 with their sister station Kicks 96 (country) in at number 2. For some reason on inside radio's website, neither of the Big River stations are not mentioned at all in the ratings. That's very odd. I would imagine there is a mistake on Inside radio's website. These 2 stations have dominated that market for a long time now. I believe Q107's official format listing is AC. They are IDing at the top of the hour as "WQLT Florence, Decatur, Huntsville" although their numbers in the Huntsville market are very slim.

I saw their building on the beltline in Decatur. Did they move their studios and offices there or are they still in Florence?
 
After further research, I have discovered that for some reason Big River is not listed as an Arbitron subscriber. That would explain why they are not publicly listed in the ratings. Why would Big River let their subscription laps?
 
That is interesting about Arbatron - maybe that's why I've never wanted to be in station management. LOL. The decatur facility is primarily a sales office but backup studios are there as well. According to Jeff Thomas several years ago they actually used both studios but everything is out of the florence studios at 624 Sam Phillips Street now.
 
jay said:
That is interesting about Arbatron - maybe that's why I've never wanted to be in station management. LOL. The decatur facility is primarily a sales office but backup studios are there as well. According to Jeff Thomas several years ago they actually used both studios but everything is out of the florence studios at 624 Sam Phillips Street now.
Click to expand...

Yeah, when I worked there Nick Martin (The GM) pushed for each airshift on both stations to do one show a week from Decatur. It never worked quite right, and never really sounded that good using a dial-up comrex for voice backhaul and a remote control software for SS32. After 4 hours the SS32 software would just lock up.

The best part of it was that the receiver we used for remotes from Decatur would pick up the Burger King drive thru headsets. You wouldn't believe some of the funny stuff people say at a drive-thru!

Funny that they aren't Arbitron subscribers... I wonder what that says about them now?
 
ehh...i would think they've been at the top so long they don't really care anymore? That'd be my guess...no pride intended. (i knew what kind of station it was went i went up there...) yup, nick's still the man. i've actually never met him (i do weekends) - but he's complained to charlie enough about my music mix (i like to put in some live cuts every now and then) and, well, i've calmed down some...

the scott still seems to lock up about once a day...it's common practice to reboot it at midnight every night. it was quite a change from whatever it was i used in mobile...
 
i think that dialup comrex is getting some pretty good use now from jimmy oliver handling UNA sports, btw. i don't go over to the AM much (i try to just stick to the Q - afterall, i'm 50 minutes away most of the time) - but i see the college guys running in and out quite a bit working on it. The most useful guy there now (parttimer, that is) in my opinion is the overnight guy at the Q now. He's helped quite a bit going above and beyond the call of duty to help out with the sports and stuff ...NOT to say everyone else isn't a vital part of the station.....lets just say Brandon is the least burnt out :)
 
jay said:
ehh...i would think they've been at the top so long they don't really care anymore? That'd be my guess...no pride intended. (i knew what kind of station it was went i went up there...) yup, nick's still the man. i've actually never met him (i do weekends) - but he's complained to charlie enough about my music mix (i like to put in some live cuts every now and then) and, well, i've calmed down some...

the scott still seems to lock up about once a day...it's common practice to reboot it at midnight every night. it was quite a change from whatever it was i used in mobile...
Click to expand...

LOL I dunno if that's the reason or not, maybe, but I wouldn't think so. They need their numbers to be public so advertisers can see it and descide to spend money with them. I'm surprised there are still stations that let their DJs add music into the log and play what they want! Most stations' logs now are pre-programmed for the whole day and they don't allow any changes unless you're the PD or MD. We can thank corporate radio for that lol.

That scott system system sounds terrible. Is it the old doss version or the windows version? Windows version is much better in my opinion. Sounds like they need to invest some money in an upgrade to new computers before they crash for good, which may be very soon from the sound of things.
 
Without decent competition in the Florence market, these two weak stations will continue to be #1 and #2.

Sorry, they never have impressed me! :-\
 
hmmm...i don't consider myself saying this solely cause i work there...but, hmm, didn't corporate america (CC or cumulus or something...) try to make a stand in florence and wound up selling off the clusters? yah..i think they did... : /
 
That's very true! But where you that good, or where they that bad?

I support your stations, with a local family, for generations. You do a good job. Great, maybe not.
 
Re: WQLT And Florance – Charie Thomas

Charlie Thomas.

Yes I remember you. I was brought in to WLSQ and you were in afternoon drive. I did nights. Then if my memory is right the PD was fired soon after my arrive and thy hired a guy named O' Henry Allen as PD and he made the much more like a Q format station should sound. I think you went to middays or left to go to an adult conterminous station then. I was hired by the upper management. They had a station in Little Rock and I was doing afternoon drive at their competition. A few years later I wanted to get in to a Q format station. In case you do not remember or know the Q format was created by Buzz Bennett at KCBQ in San Diego and swept the country. My first Q format station was WQLT in Muscle Shoals. When the owners of WLSQ offered me the job in Montgomery I thought it was going to be like WQLT but in a bigger market that would open the door to working in Memphis or San Antonio or some other market that size. When I visited the station to decide if I wanted to take the job and discovered it was in a trailer outside of town O turned it down.

Management told me they would move it to downtown Montgomery. Well they did move the sales people but left is in the swamp. That was the first of many lies and broken promises.

I did get some benefits from working there. As I mentioned not being hired by the first PD but by management and knowing how the Q format worked I was not surprised they were planning on getting rid of him. When the bought the station a WRMA and changed the call letters to WLSQ the just keep the PD and looked for a replacement.

O; Henry came in as his replacement and really developed me and I learned much about programming as he not only told us what to do but why we were doing it.

About 4 months later management fired him and brought in a guy named Brother Ely who O worked with later when he was GM at Q99 Jackson MS under thane name Kirk Sherwood.

He made massive changes. One of them was to see that engendering put in a mike compressor and made other changes to the audio processing that really helped. He also got the ball rolling with the Super Bowl of Rock and Roll which really was a big hit. Prior to that we never got calls and after that the phones lit up a lot. I understand that in the ratings results before the station when to the Q format they had .8 and a year later had an 8.0. I was opposite the Birdman at WHHY. He called me son after I got there and told me we should go country. I guess it was a head game to mess with my mind. I told him once we bet them in the top 40 format battle and they went country we could go country and beat them at that format also.

My email address is cliff2004@sbcgloba;.net. O am paternally interested in what happen to WLSQ after the winter of 1977 when I got a better job. If you want you can post that here on radio-info but I would appreciate an email telling me were you have been all these years and what happened to you afte5r WLSQ
 
Jay,

I helped install those SS32 machines, and they have been problems from the beginning. They were installed in a hurry after a lightning strike took out the old SS-dos systems. The SS32 machines were being prepped in the engineering shop at the time and went in before they were really ready. I have since run much larger SS-32 networks that were MUCH more stable and functional than those at Big River.

I think there is a measure of arrogance there about their long-time reign at the top, and if they aren't careful they will fall.

Take good care of "Elvis" and "Sam". I'm sure they got a good workout today with all the severe weather!
 
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