WWVA: iHeartRadio MUSIC FESTIVAL IS ON THE AIR....

[electroboy73]

At least on the way home from work around 11:20, I heard Kelly Clarkson do two songs with a live audience. At first, I had forgot about tonight being the big show in Vegas and thought WWVA was stunting again! But, does anyone know if they plan on airing the entire show? I noticed that yes.com listed some Taylor Swift within the same hour. It does seem quite outdide the format and would be even more bizarre if they air all the other performances.

Any thoughts?

 

[Wildstyle K]

I already delivered a lot of my opinions about the silly idea of broadcasting a festival over the radio in the LA section, and I also brought up how I thought this would not help WWVA at all.

ONE of the major issues I brought up was how WWVA has had an unstable history and people are still "getting use to" this type of hit music sound in Atl. ANY type of weirdness or off the wall / silly, out of the ordinary event broadcast on WWVA could hurt WWVA, because it has not steadily been around long enough for people to have that much gained faith in it.

I'm sure many people heard all the talking that went on during the beginning of the festival and tuned out because of it. Anyone who stuck around or tuned in later, I'm sure eventually became confused and most likely left the station when they realized there were no mixes going on or heard rock and country playing. I'm glad that the festival was scheduled to start at 10pm Atlanta time and not in the middle of the day or earlier when most people in Atl. were listening to WWVA. Hopefully those listeners come back and wont think they flipped formats or that this is some new idea for EVERY Friday & Saturday night.

Yesterday, I saw some girl who posted on some WWVA radio comments site somewhere about how she loves WiLD 105.7/96.7 and it was their favorite station because they play a bunch of pop, hip hop, dance, r&b, and all kinds of music all together, as if this was some new format invention she had never experienced. I know there are many other people just like her in the Atl. area who truly believe that this is some outrageous, out of the norm, clever, unheard of phenomenon to have a station like WWVA, and the LAST thing we need is to confuse those listeners who are still getting used to the station. I also mentioned on the LA board how it took a whole year for WWVA to get to a 3.3 in ratings, and I surely hope this weekend doesn't hurt them. This festival is being broadcast in every city that has a ClearChannel top 40 or rhythmic format. While I believe most stations wont be hurt too much from it, I'm not sure about WWVA...

Now, overall, the festival broadcast has been pretty decent, but with exception to many silly audio and broadcasting mishaps that occurred. The Jay-Z portion of the broadcast yesterday was horrendous since whoever was in charge of censoring cuss words had no idea what they were doing. The Black Eyed Peas and Bruno Mars censoring was tolerable... As a matter of fact, I will post my facebook description of how it sounded over the air here on KZZP:

 

[electroboy73]

Any type of weirdness or off the wall / silly, out of the ordinary event broadcast on WWVA could hurt WWVA, because it has not steadily been around long enough for people to have that much gained faith in it.

I could not agree more, KDM! Was def a bad idea to air so much of the festival. I'm still so totally behind the station, tho and def hope listeners will keep listening. But, I hope even more that one day the whole operation will stay on course, tighten things up (just a little more) and then, finally move to 96.1 or 94.9. Then they can really start making some good, dance-leaning CHR headway that Atlanta has been lacking for almost 20 years! (not counting 95.5 "The Beat" cuz they were so much more urban than "Wild"). Wild DEF sounds much more well rounded.....let's just boost the coverage already....PLEASE! (before giving up)

 

[Wildstyle K]

I think the station will be ok. Notice how out of all ClearChannel stations in Atlanta, WWVA has the highest numbers (on the list). Also notice how much faster and steadily the ratings went up AFTER they took in a new PD and improved their playlist. This only proves that people want (or will be willing to) listen to a proper chr/rhythmic format without any "funny" things and tweaks to the playlist to make it sound as if it's "something else".

Atlanta may be The Hip Hop Capital of The World, but I believe that WWVA will be more successful as a rhythmic chr doing precisely what they are doing now than WBTS was with their "wanna be hip hop rhythmic in disguise" format.

Perhaps, I may have gone a little overboard with my worrying about Iheart Radio festival and how this nationwide broadcast could affect a rhythmic chr in Atlanta out of all places. But in reality, the last thing we need is to give people a reason to flip the channel and go to another station they used to "settle" for and tolerate before and start to.... well, "re-intensify their previous radio listening habits". I guess one Friday and Saturday night of weirdness wont cause THAT much of a problem when you think about the rest of the days, weeks, and months that WWVA is normal. People will still come back to it, especially if it's on any presets.

By the way, Saturday night's festival line up was much better than Friday night!

 

[the golden boy]

This festival is being broadcast in every city that has a ClearChannel top 40 or rhythmic format.

Not exactly. It was broadcasted in Jackson, MS on a classic rock station. Also, CC's rock station in Laurel-Hattiesburg played it too, though there's a CHR there that didn't air it.

 

[Bengalsfan]

This was nothing more than just one big NTR event for Clear Channel.

 

[Paul_Warren]

...It does seem quite outdide the format and would be even more bizarre if they air all the other performances.

Any thoughts?

Woodstock in 1969 became a huge watershed event in pop music culture. It would have made sense, in retrospect, for a station in any format to break format and broadcast it, had such a broadcast been available.

There is certainly an NTR component to a decision to broadcast the IHR festival on individual stations, but it may also be a case of CC wishfully thinking that this festival was in the same league as a Woodstock, or the '67 Monterey Pop Festival.