WTCB Columbia Now #6

[Gregg.]

Folks on this website have been talking about the poor ratings for WTCB. It's a Cumulus AC station in Columbia SC known as B106.7. Columbia only has three full-power commercial Class C stations, WTCB, Country WCOS-FM and Top 40 WNOK. Those two stations, both owned by iHeart, are healthy. But B106.7 has sunk fairly low after it got rid of most of its veteran DJs and went with a syndicated morning show. Even for its December ratings, when AC stations shine, B1067 was near the bottom.

It had tried getting hotter, deleting all 70s and most 80s songs and rarely playing anything too mellow. That didn't work, so it went back to mainstream AC.

The syndicated morning show is gone now and I suppose the new DJs are catching on. For February, WTCB is ranked #6. I don't think it's been that high in years!

 

[CrazeeCarroll2]

WTCB has not had decent ratings in 5 plus years. My fiancee listens to B106, and they have amped up their 80's music which makes me wonder if WOMG may be OMGone!

 

[StormKlowdz]

WTCB has not had decent ratings in 5 plus years. My fiancee listens to B106, and they have amped up their 80's music which makes me wonder if WOMG may be OMGone!

WOMG has been leaning older it appears, but I may be wrong. They have added some 60s back into rotation (Beatles, Rolling Stones) every now and then. But, they are still heavy on the 80s.

 

[tylerSC]

Was the syndicated morning show Bob and Sheri? They have historically done well in their neighboring home base of Charlotte, however their longtime flagship station 107.9-WLNK dropped them a few years back and they moved to WKQC-104.7. Which can't be heard much south of Charlotte due to short spacing with WNOK on 104.7. But they must not have caught on much in the Midlands. They used to have some listeners in the Upstate part of SC when they were on 107.9, although not a factor in the Charlotte ratings.

 

[Al Timiter]

Cumulus moved Bob and Sheri off B106 and foisted it upon WOMG. I assume it was due to poor ratings, which makes me wonder, "if B&S didnt work on B, what makes them think it would do any better on WOMG???" As far as I know, that where it still resides.

 

[genius]

As I said before in a previous thread, WOMG sounds like it’s programmed by a 90 year old man. Bob & Sheri also sound very past their prime these days as well, so it’s a natural fit. 😂

Good for WTCB, they do sound a lot fresher these days than they have been in years.

And did I see right that 99.7 has doing a whole lot better than 93.5? LOL! Further proof that the idiots in charge didn’t know what they were doing when they flipped WARQ from alternative to CHR. 10 years later Karma has come back with a vengeance l see.

 

[Al Timiter]

When a station starts sinking, its like sinking in quicksand, it happens fairly quickly and in today's environment, it's near impossible to arrest. B has been trying for years to stop the slide to little avail with several new program directors, morning shows and different jocks. It will be interesting to see if this anemic recovery will hold.

 

[101tm]

I'm curious to see if they're on a solid upward trajectory as well, or if we could be seeing a fluke. It seems some of their gains have to be coming from 98.5, so it's almost like rearranging the deck chairs. WNOK has also taken a big fall, so they could "B" getting some listeners from there as well. Until now, WNOK seemed to be fairly immune from the CHR issues we're seeing in so many other markets.

Side note, 96.7 is remarkably stable. Has been for quite some time. Pretty sweet deal for iHeart. Consistent ratings, next to no operating cost as far as DJ's, etc. They have the pop Premium Choice adult hits programming with 102.9 in Charlotte, while 102.5 in Greenville has the rock leaning, more 90s heavy variety.

 

[Gregg.]

96.7 is remarkably stable. Has been for quite some time. Pretty sweet deal for iHeart. Consistent ratings, next to no operating cost as far as DJ's, etc. They have the pop Premium Choice adult hits programming with 102.9 in Charlotte, while 102.5 in Greenville has the rock leaning, more 90s heavy variety.

I wonder why there are two versions of Adult Hits in the iHeart Premium Choice package? Why would Columbia and Charlotte get a more pop-leaning playlist? And why would Greenville get the rock-leaning playlist? They're all within 75 miles of each other.

When it comes to Jack-FM, I think they are all programmed in a similar way, mostly rock-leaning.

 

[101tm]

I wonder why there are two versions of Adult Hits in the iHeart Premium Choice package? Why would Columbia and Charlotte get a more pop-leaning playlist? And why would Greenville get the rock-leaning playlist? They're all within 75 miles of each other.

When it comes to Jack-FM, I think they are all programmed in a similar way, mostly rock-leaning.

I would assume it's to offer stations a choice depending on their market's competitive makeup or cluster fit. In Charlotte, the older leaning, more pop friendly playlist makes sense since they compete with WKQC and have classic rock WRFX and alt WEND in the same building. In Greenville, the rock leaning, more 90s rock friendly playlist makes sense to try to keep WROQ down a bit if possible so the two country stations (let's just say WESC) can stay in the top 5. Columbia? No idea, there doesn't seem to be a competitive reason one would be better or worse than the other. I do believe more iHeart stations carry the more pop friendly, older leaning adult hits music log. That's just my speculation.

On the iHeart app, the pop version was recently renamed "Pop Drive." The rock version was recently renamed "Rock Drive." They used to be called The Lake and The River.

 

[genius]

When a station starts sinking, its like sinking in quicksand, it happens fairly quickly and in today's environment, it's near impossible to arrest. B has been trying for years to stop the slide to little avail with several new program directors, morning shows and different jocks. It will be interesting to see if this anemic recovery will hold.

This also had me thinking about WVOC’s collapse over the past couple of years to the point that they recently stopped doing all podcasts…I think WVOC’s morning show is doomed after the election.

 

[Gregg.]

This also had me thinking about WVOC’s collapse over the past couple of years to the point that they recently stopped doing all podcasts…I think WVOC’s morning show is doomed after the election.

Stopping WVOC podcasts is a bad sign. iHeart encourages all its stations to do podcasts. They get people who listen to the station over the air to go to the iHeartRadio website, which the company is trying to grow. (iHeart and NPR usually compete over which website is #1 in the most podcast listens each month.)

I'm not sure this is a sign the morning show is doomed. It could just be that staffing at WVOC is so small that there is nobody transferring the shows over to the iHeartRadio website for podcast listening. Most iHeart talk stations in markets above #100 have a live morning show. Of course, Columbia is Market #90. So maybe Genius is right that WVOC's revenues don't justify a local morning show. Let's meet back here in December, after the election.

 

[101tm]

This also had me thinking about WVOC’s collapse over the past couple of years to the point that they recently stopped doing all podcasts…I think WVOC’s morning show is doomed after the election.

Can the same PLEASE 🙏🏻 happen to WORD? 😭

 

[genius]

It could just be that staffing at WVOC is so small that there is nobody transferring the shows over to the iHeartRadio website for podcast listening. Most iHeart talk stations in markets above #100 have a live morning show. Of course, Columbia is Market #90. So maybe Genius is right that WVOC's revenues don't justify a local morning show. Let's meet back here in December, after the election.

The short staffing is probably the best answer especially given Gary David (Barboza) and Christopher Thompson has faved numerous technical on air issues the last couple of years.

15 years ago when I first arrived in SC to work in the Columbia area at one of their TV stations I found WVOC fairly quickly. At the time WVOC of course had Gary & Christopher but the mornings were a lot more lively than they are now, had their own local news department still, Keven in the PM drive 3-6, and Kornblut 6-8 doing sports and ratings were 5’s-7’s , and it all eventually moved to 100.1 FM by 2011.

That all came to a halt in late 2012 with Keven getting the shaft and getting replaced by superfluous Jonathan Rush & Kelly Nash of WCOS who still provide faux conservative outrage podcasts LMAO. By 2014 WVOC was back on the AM dial and only mornings have been local since minus a brief failed attempt at a 6-8 sports show again in 2018.

Never have I seen a once local prominent and dominant news/talk fail so quickly.

 

[101tm]

And with the recent numbers that just came out today, WORD in Greenville is on an upward trend.

I don’t care for the programming on either, but I find WVOC’s programming better, but I guess I’m in the minority. They don’t have whack job conspiracy local hosts.

iHeart has a talker in Raleigh, NC that’s always #2 or #3, with an almost identical schedule to WVOC. Only local in mornings. So I guess a lot of it comes down to the market. Granted, that station is on a 100kw FM. I’d expect Columbia to be more friendly to conservative talk, though.

 

[vchimpanzee]

iHeart has a talker in Raleigh, NC that’s always #2 or #3, with an almost identical schedule to WVOC. Only local in mornings. So I guess a lot of it comes down to the market. Granted, that station is on a 100kw FM.

1604 feet with 27,500 watts, but I guess that's close enough. It used to be stronger but made some sort of deal so another station could be stronger.

 

[charlestondxman]

The short staffing is probably the best answer especially given Gary David (Barboza) and Christopher Thompson has faved numerous technical on air issues the last couple of years.

15 years ago when I first arrived in SC to work in the Columbia area at one of their TV stations I found WVOC fairly quickly. At the time WVOC of course had Gary & Christopher but the mornings were a lot more lively than they are now, had their own local news department still, Keven in the PM drive 3-6, and Kornblut 6-8 doing sports and ratings were 5’s-7’s , and it all eventually moved to 100.1 FM by 2011.

That all came to a halt in late 2012 with Keven getting the shaft and getting replaced by superfluous Jonathan Rush & Kelly Nash of WCOS who still provide faux conservative outrage podcasts LMAO. By 2014 WVOC was back on the AM dial and only mornings have been local since minus a brief failed attempt at a 6-8 sports show again in 2018.

Never have I seen a once local prominent and dominant news/talk fail so quickly.

They moved the sports station to 560 and that lasted maybe two years. Couldn’t compete against 107.5. Think they had Will Palasczuk (who now does Charlotte FC on radio) doing a show for a few months tops In ‘18.

Amazed that 100.7 signal keeps up. Kornblut’s show still seems stuck in 2005. You hear the same PSAs on the show all the time. The Charleston sports station just simulcasts that feed. The only way that show keeps up is with all the small town stations who have had it since the 80s, even when Learfield closed the network down.

 

[genius]

Well someone at WVOC must have read this post because for Gary David morning show started doing podcasts again this past week for the first time since the end of January. LOL. But I still wonder what happened.

Amazed that 100.7 signal keeps up. Kornblut’s show still seems stuck in 2005. You hear the same PSAs on the show all the time. The Charleston sports station just simulcasts that feed. The only way that show keeps up is with all the small town stations who have had it since the 80s, even when Learfield closed the network down.

100.7 does alright between being backed by Glory still and doing well with local advertising/billing as Keven is still a known popular local radio figure, and his afternoon show discusses non-political topics like 2-3 times a week while the morning show is entirely apolitical. But yeah Kornblut is outdated but still has a loyal following across the state especially on those heritage locals like WKDK, WBCU and WDXY etc.

 

[101tm]

In the latest ratings for Columbia, released last week, WVOC saw a small uptick while B106.7 fell back down a bit to the low 3’s, but still a respectable #7 and beating WNOK!

https://ratings.****************/content/arb183

iHeart’s talk station in Columbia, WSCC 94.3, also isn’t doing what it once was. It is pretty stable in the low 3’s.

I wonder if Clay Travis and Buck Sexton aren’t bringing in the ratings compared to Rush, explaining some of the drops? Or maybe they aren’t creating enough fake outrage like WORD in Greenville which seems to be getting listeners for them, even with a pretty much “never Trump” midday host with Erick Erickson who is the audio equivalent to watching paint dry.

 

[CrazeeCarroll2]

I know it's a "crazee" thought, but Alpha seems to do pretty good with it's pea shooter signal on 99.7 I wonder if a move back to 93.5 could happen? Another thought popped into my mind that Cumulus could try classic alternative on WOMG? It seems that it has just been thrown to the side. Alot of the poppier 80's music has moved back to B106. Thoughts or am I crazee!!!