Many of the soft AC stations during the format's heydey during the 80s were highly successful stations. The former beautiful music stations moved to the format en masse during that time, but many other stations aired the format as well. Soft AC's typically did very well in the ratings and made lots of $; one such example was WDLT in Mobile (98 Lite). WLTB and WYSF were exceptions to the rule, and my thinking on why that was the case (and I'll provide my synopsis on it, since I listened to both stations, primarily Lite 99) had more to do with how those particular stations were programmed and marketed. In WLTB's case, the station was at a disadvantage from the onset, having to compete with WMJJ, which had already been in place for more than two years at the time. Another problem for WLTB: no station promotion to speak of, other than a few TV commercials when the station debuted. The station had a strict policy of "no contests" which I always thought put them at a huge disadvantage competing against Magic as well as the other stations in the market. I'm not really sure what precipitated that decision, but I would imagine most of WLTB's listeners, including myself, would have been willing to put up with contests in order to hear the programming we wanted. Magic 96, on the other hand, was spending truckloads of money on the "Magic 96" lottery, lol. The ratings for WLTB were never terribly great, but less than a year or so with the soft AC format, the ratings took a nosedive and the station's format had to be re-tooled, and Lite 99 never fully recovered in the ratings...although I do remember a few times when WLTB did place 5th in the 25-54 demo with a fairly good share, albeit nowhere near the share WMJJ had at the time. Once the station's owner (REBS?) went bankrupt, that was the end and, of course, the station, along with the other properties in Birmingham, Nashville, and Knoxville were sold off to Dick Broadcasting, and the rest is history...
In WYSF's case, the station started off well, but after a period of time, the format morphed to mainstream AC. WYSF, of course, experienced the same problems competing against WMJJ, being the established AC in the market. At the end, the station was basically
floating/being propped up with the "Rick and Bubba Show" and once that "house of cards" collapsed, so did the station.
Another station which aired soft AC was WLBI (98 Lite), which really never had any chance of surviving, with their very limited class A signal at the time, which barely covered Birmingham. How is a 6 kw station going to compete against an established 100 kw class C FM??
The traditional soft AC format has been making a comeback in the last few years, although much remains to be seen as to how long that will last and if such a station here would be successful. As much as I would LOVE to see a traditional soft AC format along the lines of WDUV, WFEZ, etc land on 97.3, I believe it would be rather foolish to move Y'all to the 102.1 translator. I really don't care for the Y'all format, but it is GOOD for Birmingham radio, and something different that the listeners appreciate. When the format first debuted, I thought it was merely a stunt, and once I realized it wasn't (some might attest it is still a stunt..just a very loooong one), I thought Summit Media had lost their mind. The Y'all format, however, has really taken off and 97.3 finds itself in a good situation...success the station has never really been able to attain to the degree it now has. Why tinker with moving the station to another frequency? As the old saying goes.."If it ain't broke..." Placing the soft AC format on 102.1 makes more sense...keep the format at 97.3 as is so it can continue to grow. Most of us who appreciate and want to hear soft AC wouldn't mind listening to a soft AC station on 102.1 (I'm in southern Shelby county here, and I can receive 102.1, although not very well). I'd still listen to it, however. A soft AC on 102.1 wouldn't have huge ratings, but it could siphon off some of Magic 96's listeners to make it worthwhile.
Moving Y'all off of 97.3 is a BAD idea. Many of the Y'all listeners, especially in adjoining counties, are already complaining on the station Facebook page that they cannot receive the 102.1 signal that well, if at all. In addition, many of them are getting confused about the new frequency, assuming Y'all is replacing WDRM in Decatur or the FM translator in Tuscaloosa on 102.1. Once the format is officially moved to 102.1, I believe Y'all will be toast, unfortunately, given the fact that many of the listeners will no longer be able to receive it on the much less powerful 102.1 frequency. As far as "Easy 97.3" is concerned...that all might be "much ado about nothing" since it wouldn't surprise me if the "Easy 97.3" domain registration, trademark, etc is just a cover before another format debuts on WZNN. It's happened before with other stations in other markets, so it's not out of realm of possibility that it could happen that way.
