When will they learn?

Sorry to seem like a broken record, but it needs to be pointed out -- all these flips from rock to talk (alt stations aren't the only ones to feel the brunt of this)have been a total disaster. The Merlin stations in Chicago and New York City are both struggling to get above ratings above 0.5. WKRK has slid to about 1/3 of its prior audience and in Buffalo WLKK has slid to -- wait for this 0.0! This from a station that was getting over 2.0 on a signal that barely came into the city.

BRING BACK ALTERNATIVE ROCK RADIO!

KVGS Changes formats to Adult HIts

Not exactly a shocker, as Las Vegas' KVGS struggled with its identity and with making headway in the ratings with competitor KXTE, and now a new "Jelli" formatted station, whatever that is. Hope that's the last for a while -- most of the weaker alt stations have been culled from the herd. Hope someone comes to their senses and compares the ratings for the Merlin owned news stations compared to WRXP and Q101's prior ratings and gives alt a chance in New York and Chicago.

WHAT IS CBS RADIO THINKING!?!

CBS Radio is blowing up a perfectly succesful alternative station WKRK -FM to start an FM sports station

Let me count the ways this is an incredibly stupid idea.

1) The current station is jockless, so it doesn't cost a fortune to run
2)I've looked at the Top 50 radio markets and all sports stations are a hit in only 2 markets -- San Francisco and New York.
3) Neither one of these stations are an FM
4) Where the markets have an alternative and a sports station going head to head the alternative station wins in nearly all markets, whether you're measuring ratings points and cum. For example, KROQ and KYSR are both beating KWKW in Los Angeles, KDGE is beading KTCK AM and KEJN FM in Dallas KTBZ is beating KILT in Houston
WRFF is beating WYSP-FM in Philadelphia abd WWDC is beating both WTEM and WJFK in D,C.
5)In markets were a sports AM and a sports FM, the Sports AM generally wins the fight.
6)Cleveland already has an all sports station.
7) WKRK just overtook the all sports atation in the last rating period.

So what happens now? Does the format go HD2? Will WMMS add more alternative to their playlist to pick up KRK's audience? Will WNWV go a little harder to pick up their anemic ratings? What will become of the station when the new format crashes and burns?

Simulcasting AM: Still a Dumb Idea

While WLKK was not a station to my tastes. I probably would have been tuning it out a lot even in the mid 70's when the bulk of the stuff they played was popular and like all virtually jockless stations it was faceless. But it played enough good stuff that I had it on my presets. So when the station went to simulcasting the right wing blather on WBEN. The theory is that AM is a dying spectrum and putting talk radio on the FM will help them grow their audience and they will no longer have to pay staff to run two radio stations.

How's that working? WLKK's ratings have tanked -- they have lost nearly half the audience. When you add the two stations ratings together they have roughly the same ratings they had this time last year. Combined the two stations lost two ratings points and one revenue stream all in order to save the salaries of the Lake's skeleton staff -- oh wait, they're still on HD-2, (the signal of which doesn't quite make it to me) does that mean someone's still getting paid to run that operation?

Now if you'll excuse me I'm setting up my lawn chair so I can watch WRXP (whose ratings had been slowly but steadily improving prior to the Merlin takeover and switch to female-oriented news/talk) crash and burn.

Time to Get Your HD2 radios!

Or go streaming -- the much anticipated Emmis massacre is upon us! Q101 and WRXP are both biting the dust. RXP is going female oriented news talk despite the fact that two prior attempts to bring talk to New York City FM were miserable flops. Not sure what Q101 is going to become. Not sure I care, as I wasn't a big fan of what that station had become -- I prefer WXRT myself -- I had a lot less trouble finding a cool song on that station. Both will continue streaming if that's any consolation and there may be two competing alternative on HD radio in Chicago. The new owner of Q101 is continuing the format on another HD2 frequency, at the same time selling the Q101 name to another entity. Nevertheless two big holes opened up in terrestial radio

Black Friday

Another one bites the dust, another one bites the dust, another one bites the dust...

Memorial Day week 2009 was a disastrous one for the Alternative Rock format. First WMFS in Memphis goes down on Wednesday Then WSWD gets shoved into the HD2 ghetto. Worst of all, not content with killing WMFS, Entercom pulls the plug on KWOD in Sacramento

Let's see what the formatting geniuses came up with to replace these stations. WMFS is going to be simulcasting the stations' sportsradio feed. Because apparently the Memphis area is eager to hear drunken 50 year olds bitch about the local college basketball teams in high definition. WSWD is going to play feel good 80's music, because, according to the suits at Bonneville, nobody in Cincinatti has heard Billy Joel, Madonna or Prince in years (ummm somehow I doubt that)Sigh, at least they're keeping the website up. KWOD is moving to an all 90's format because we know what a raging success the all 80's formats have been.

It's all about the layoffs, if you ask me. If anyone's reading this, send the stations an e-mail and maybe they will relent. (It's happened before with CFNY)In the meantime, if you want to hear Franz Ferdinand, Muse or Silversun Pickups on the radio, start listening and if Arbitron calls you, make sure your voice gets heard.