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WZAX 99.3 is the worst radio station Ive ever heard

V

viper452

It was always a mediocre station, but its almost like they are intentionally trying to kill it with its current format. Im not even sure what kind of format it is. It tries to pass itself off as a "jammin" station but the music mix is beyond horrible. Its especially bad when they play something like Simply Red's "I'll keep holding on" that doesnt even fit in with the format to begin with. It seems like they are trying to be like jammin 99.5 down in Wilmington. But thats a far, far superior station. You know this station is horrible when it barely shows up in the arbitron ratings, with stations 60 miles away that you can barely receive get higher ratings. The station use to have an ok AC, Hot-AC type 70s, 80s format. It was not good but it was better than the crap it is now. And that area really doesnt need another urban type station anyway.

I guarantee I could make that station great. I think turning it in to a Jack-FM type station would do wonders for it. Its never established an image in the first place. Its always sounded like a dull jukebox with no personality anyway.
 
I disagree totally! WZAX sounds better now than it did with the old format.
I was traveling through recently and thought their music was GREAT, the mix was right
for their marketplace and it was presented in a VERY professional manner.

This "Jack FM" thing is more of a train wreck than anything else, It's been tried in NYC and
Eastern North Carolina and has enjoyed "MARGINAL" success at best.

You could do "Polka" and have more success.

DP and Mike Binkley do a great job with those stations and are great radio people.
It's easy to sit on the sidelines and say what you'd do and how you'd do it and it's
another to actually perform on a day by day basis.

Ownership, I'm sure, comes into play with how they are operating...the number of toys
they play with, promotional budget, etc.

Try calling their ownership out and maybe you should apply with their company and "really"
make a difference instead of using the cheap shot.

Clay McCauley
 
I don't believe it's the music viper...even Jammin' 99.9 in Wilmington plays flavor cuts that DON'T belong, that's the whole beauty of Jammin' Oldies...if it's an "Urban Gold" sounding song it will work as flavor.

I'm intimately knowledgeable of the Wilmington station you reference and I don't feel "Madonna" or "Player"
or "Looking Glass" belongs on it either.

I do not believe it's the music...I believe that if you don't promote you've made a change or tell folks you are
thee station for them at work or for local information they will not know it...look again at the AM music stations that rank well...are they the only source for the music they play?

Jammin' 99 in Rocky Mount may need to be relaunched as "Jammin' 99" or turn up the heat on the street maybe even an adjustment of the music(tweek) but it's not time to throw the format away as some of the groups in Eastern North Carolina are so quick to do....remember you are, in that market between two major metro markets...kind of a no-man's-land and have to work double hard to distinguish yourselves from the competition that's not in your market. Give it time to work, with Promotion, advertising and some tender loving care.

You want to hear some not so good radio....listen to the Raleigh market...it's as stale as it gets. That's my story and I'm stickin' to it.

I appreciate your opinion...WOW I'm new to this...it's FUN!! Viper, have a great weekend!
 
Eastern NC has some very bad stations - it's all cost cutting and being cheap. And use of these awful canned services like Jones that never sound live and local never tightens the cut-ins. Listeners can hear this crap. The FCC needs to have every station manned 24/7. If not - sell or turn in the license. You can make money - sell local - be A RADIO STATION - not a computer.
 
Jammin in my humble opinion is not the worst station I've ever heard.That honor belongs to several Urban Gospel stations over the past 10 years.Jammin is what it is.For First Media Rocky Mt.Jammin is a distant 3rd on the totem pole behind the Big Dawg and Power 95.5.It has a very small, almost broom closet size studio.The only live deal is DP in the morning 6-9.After that, it is voice track city.Half the time the lights are off and the door is closed to the studio.The is no way to tell if anyone ever calls the studio,no light or buzzer or anything.The music is the same
stuff you hear everywhere else and is very repetative.That's the way the management in Easton,MD likes it.The staion has almost no overhead because the voice trackers are Big Dawg and Power employees who spend maybe 20-30 per day voice tracking Jammin.Nothing is live on the weekends except when Dave Richmond does his Saturday night show live once in a while.I feel for Jammin because there are some talented people there who care and some that could care less.Corporate doesn't want the station to be successful.They want a jukebox that they don't have to spend a dime to run.Very sad, Jammin has potential.If Jammin would go live 6am-12 midnight,open up the playlist and get involved in Nash,Wilson, & Edgecombe counties the station could make money but in its present state its just another same old stuff waste of a decent signal.You can thank the Yankees in Easton,MD for what they have done to Jammin and before that ZAX.

Allen
 
I think I was wrong.Ron Eric Lundy may do some live on Jammin on Saturday mornings.He used to be live on the Big Dawg & Zax or Jammin at the same time.
Ron is a fabulous guy and one of the great radio people in our business.My frustration with Jammin is the fact there is alot of talent at First Media but its the typical one staff having to operate 4 stations.I blame the cheap butts at corporate.Mike Binkley and David Perkins are extremely nice guys.I wish they were more aggresive with some programming ideas.They seem to be happy just doing the same old stuff.Who knows they may have very little say as the suits in
Easton,MD may not let them do much.I just hate to see the potential of Jammin go to waste.First Media simply needs more bodies and to make better use of some of the people on staff.You have got to run the stations as seperate properties so
all of them will have a fair chance to succeed.Its simple,you cannot run 4 stations
with one staff and expect maximum productivity from the staff. If they would hire
some air and sales staff and a PD just for Jammin and they were allowed to make some adjustments Jammin would be in the top 5 in Rocky Mt,Wilson within a year.
BTW Clay I enjoy your show on Jammin and Kool 94.1 and I hope all is well with you sir....

Allen
 
Clay McCauley said:
I don't believe it's the music viper...even Jammin' 99.9 in Wilmington plays flavor cuts that DON'T belong, that's the whole beauty of Jammin' Oldies...if it's an "Urban Gold" sounding song it will work as flavor.

I'm intimately knowledgeable of the Wilmington station you reference and I don't feel "Madonna" or "Player"
or "Looking Glass" belongs on it either.

I do not believe it's the music...I believe that if you don't promote you've made a change or tell folks you are
thee station for them at work or for local information they will not know it...look again at the AM music stations that rank well...are they the only source for the music they play?

Jammin' 99 in Rocky Mount may need to be relaunched as "Jammin' 99" or turn up the heat on the street maybe even an adjustment of the music(tweek) but it's not time to throw the format away as some of the groups in Eastern North Carolina are so quick to do....remember you are, in that market between two major metro markets...kind of a no-man's-land and have to work double hard to distinguish yourselves from the competition that's not in your market. Give it time to work, with Promotion, advertising and some tender loving care.

You want to hear some not so good radio....listen to the Raleigh market...it's as stale as it gets. That's my story and I'm stickin' to it.

I appreciate your opinion...WOW I'm new to this...it's FUN!! Viper, have a great weekend!
Click to expand...


I agree that Raleigh is a stale market. 100.7 was a GREAT station until they switched to classic rock. And the morning talk show on 99.3 is by far the best thing about it.
 
allenv said:
Jammin in my humble opinion is not the worst station I've ever heard.That honor belongs to several Urban Gospel stations over the past 10 years.Jammin is what it is.For First Media Rocky Mt.Jammin is a distant 3rd on the totem pole behind the Big Dawg and Power 95.5.It has a very small, almost broom closet size studio.The only live deal is DP in the morning 6-9.After that, it is voice track city.Half the time the lights are off and the door is closed to the studio.The is no way to tell if anyone ever calls the studio,no light or buzzer or anything.The music is the same
stuff you hear everywhere else and is very repetative.That's the way the management in Easton,MD likes it.The staion has almost no overhead because the voice trackers are Big Dawg and Power employees who spend maybe 20-30 per day voice tracking Jammin.Nothing is live on the weekends except when Dave Richmond does his Saturday night show live once in a while.I feel for Jammin because there are some talented people there who care and some that could care less.Corporate doesn't want the station to be successful.They want a jukebox that they don't have to spend a dime to run.Very sad, Jammin has potential.If Jammin would go live 6am-12 midnight,open up the playlist and get involved in Nash,Wilson, & Edgecombe counties the station could make money but in its present state its just another same old stuff waste of a decent signal.You can thank the Yankees in Easton,MD for what they have done to Jammin and before that ZAX.

Allen
Click to expand...

Ive noticed 98.5's ratings is going down. Probably has to do with 106.1 the rooster. This area has too many country stations.
 
I agree with the fact their are too many "country" stations in this area of North
Carolina, i wonder if someone in the Rocky Mount/Wilson market has ever thought
of trying a "News/Talk" format on FM?, A few on this side of the band have done
so in our state, such has WZTK, WTIB, WZTK, WNTB, and WLTT.
 
WEED 1390 had a news\talk format a few years ago. I wish they stuck with it. You can pick up the new news\talk format on 94.3 in Greenville.
 
I worked at that station for under three years from the spring of 1983 until the
summer of 1986, and i agree they should have stuck with a "News/Talk" format,
they had a good signal during the day, and even at night, but after the Wynne
family sold it, the current owners decided to try something different, and change
the evening signal pattern, are they still doing a "Spanish" Christian format?
 
tothedj said:
I worked at that station for under three years from the spring of 1983 until the
summer of 1986, and i agree they should have stuck with a "News/Talk" format,
they had a good signal during the day, and even at night, but after the Wynne
family sold it, the current owners decided to try something different, and change
the evening signal pattern, are they still doing a "Spanish" Christian format?
Click to expand...

No, they are a black gospel format now and in English.

Actually the news/talk format for WEED didn't go into effect until after it was sold. I know I was working there from 1986 until 1992. Prior to that it was a music format sort of AC/Top 40 blend. The signal pattern was always the same after the sale this was set by the FCC and unless they changed after I left we always changed the pattern at sundown. It was 5kW and as far as I still is.

I have to step in here on the discussion of Jammin. I have to agree on both sides. Allen is correct with his statements, but I really cannot go any further since I work there and am on the air albeit voice tracked on Sunday Mornings and I'd like to keep my job. So forgive me for not fully revealing my thoughts on the station. I initally wasn't happy with the format change and I felt that there could have been a whole lot more done with the Classic Top 40 format we had. It was management's decision to make the format more "paletable" to a more wider audience. It has sort of grown on me over the months, but as others have stated there really isn't a need for another urban formatted station in this area IMO. That said I HAVE to support the station whether it is good, bad or indifferent since this is where I work. I have heard the gammut of comments and even some I cannot post here for their vulgarity. I agree that it needs more live people in the studio and I for one would love to be one of those, but it is management's decision so I have no say so in it. Yes, it is or was based on Jammin' 99.9 in Wilmington. As one pointed out some of the songs "don't fit" but yes they have a similar "flavor" and some were actually crossover hits on the R&B/Soul charts in the 70s and 80s. I also have to agree with the statement that getting out in the community and letting people know you exsist is a great way of gaining interest in your atation. This can be said for ANY radio station not just Jammin' 99. Yes it is difficult to run 4 stations with a skeleton staff that is unfortunately what corporate radio and especially Clear Channel has done to this industry. Both DP and Mike Binkley are great people and are and have been nice to me over the last 4 years that I have been there (I have worked with DP for over 10 years). I really have no complaints with them or the company as a whole. It's like most companies they have their good points and bad. You have to overlook the bad and try to see the good. It is a job and one that I want to keep and to continue to grow in if I can.

Either way you're listening and that I suppose is the whole purpose anyway.

Speaking of Ron Eric Lundy he too is one of my radio heros and a super nice person unfortunately he doesn't do much on Jammin now since the format change, but when it was Classic Top 40 he fitted perfectly.
 
I'd prefer if 99.9 was just a regular oldies station playing 50s through 70s music with motown, soul and great rock n roll. Have it all mixed in there.
 
I kindof like Jammin 99.3..very interesting format and gets away from the normal cookie cutter stuff on the radio.
 
IMO, the "Worst Radio Station in ENC" award goes to (drum roll)... WGTM. She's part of the Willis fleet. Need I say more?

"Jammin" sounds major-market by comparison.
 
AGREE WGTM is the worst! No upkeep and coverage problems galore. 590 is dead thanks to Willis & family - destroyers & butchers of many radio stations! I wish i'd could buy it and up the power and move it. Have looked into it.
 
Amen Guys.... Willis.. what a joke.The stuff he got away with is mind blowing.
There have been some bad operators over the years but he is far and away the worst ever.He should never be allowed to be near another radio station.This guy
could screw up a soup sandwich..

Allen
 
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