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The Beat moves to 96.1
- Thread starter Huff
- Start date
It's up to the record labels to police that sort of thing. If they have a song that they feel is being hurt by a national playlist, they can complain about that reporter. In fact, something like that happened with this particular station:
Atlanta clears for Jubal, Seacrest, and other national shows. The Bull replaced the local morning show with Bobby Bones for the same reason.
A big owner should never trash a successful station just for the sake of clearing a national show, in my opinion.
By the way, in WUBL's case, it must be said that the local show was performing poorly in the ratings. So, in that instance, a legit reason existed for dumping the incumbent local show.
Whether another local show should've been attempted as opposed to installing Bones is certainly a worthy point for debate.
Seacrest doesn't really do a national show per se, does he? He just records a handful of voicetracks, does he not?
Someone pondered above if iHM might only be using TBC as a temporary placeholder for 96.1 mornings. I don't think that's the plan at all; the plan is to keep that show there long term. It has already aired for years in a number of major markets where iHM owns hip-hop stations. In my home market, I want to say it's been on the air at the same station for about a decade already.
By the way, in WUBL's case, it must be said that the local show was performing poorly in the ratings. So, in that instance, a legit reason existed for dumping the incumbent local show.
Whether another local show should've been attempted as opposed to installing Bones is certainly a worthy point for debate.
Seacrest doesn't really do a national show per se, does he? He just records a handful of voicetracks, does he not?
Someone pondered above if iHM might only be using TBC as a temporary placeholder for 96.1 mornings. I don't think that's the plan at all; the plan is to keep that show there long term. It has already aired for years in a number of major markets where iHM owns hip-hop stations. In my home market, I want to say it's been on the air at the same station for about a decade already.
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I agree with everything you said and also think some big dominoes could fall in the coming year.
As you mentioned, could Hot really compete with 96.1's signal? And if not, what will happen? I don't see a lot of other options for Radio One with that signal.
I'm really getting ahead of myself here--this is by no means even a rumor at this point--but I'm wondering whether 96.1 will push V-103 into more of an Urban AC/Adult R&B direction. And if that happened--and I'm playing Fantasy Football here--you would have a big signal, V-103, competing with a somewhat inferior signal, Kiss 104.1. Would that force a change at Kiss? I think Majic, with its 2 signals, would survive. I guess my imagination is running wild.
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Not every station exists to be #1. Power is still in use to sell in packages with Beat and Bull, to chip away at Q99.7, and to clear syndication. It serves many purposes even if just sitting there.
Yes still gives Atlanta a home for American Top 40 and the iHeart Radio Countdown. Plus On the Move with Enrique Santos and KPOP with JoJo.
I’m not sure what Cox’s long term plans are with WALR. They’ve been in cost cutting mode and that’s led to Frank Ski leaving after only 3 years, and the PD retiring in December. Their numbers are down, and I can see an opening for a potential competitor.
Radio One’s options are limited with their signals. I don’t see them making any changes even if The Beat gets more competitive.
Depends on what you mean by successful station.
iHeart is a national company, and there is a national strategy.
iHM's M.O. is to incrementally eliminate local air talent, incrementally eliminate local programming staff, and incrementally eliminate local sales people and centralize those functions to the extent practicable in hopes the cost savings will outpace revenue decline.
They then hope to become a "digital first" company over time. Time will tell if that strategy pans out.
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They then hope to become a "digital first" company over time. Time will tell if that strategy pans out.
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That may be your view, but not the actual situation. The real issue that predates iHeart ownership is the decline in revenue. That has already been documented. We know that even the most successful radio stations with local talent are making on average 60% less money than they did 25 years ago. Meanwhile basic operating costs have increased. These stations have no other revenue stream other than commercials, and the commercials are hurting ratings. So they can't increase the number of commercials. What else can they do? The local stations are not an area of growth for the company. Even if they ran the stations like EMF, it's hard to imagine savings would outpace revenue decline.
With Steve Harvey already doing great on Majic 107.5/97.5, I doubt iHeart would want to go Urban AC here. Remember, originally The Breakfast Club was on Streetz 94.5 then launched 92.3/96.7 The Beat to have the show “in house” company wise.
Kiss 104.1, Majic 107.5, Classix 102.9 and OG 97.9 all cater to the urban 25+. In my opinion, Kiss and OG needs a major work.
It's an ugly logo
Why not? All depends on the money. Heck, iHeart gave Cox Rush and Hannity, which was pretty much the death knell for WGST. Guessing WSB was paying more for Rush and Hannity than iHeart could bring in keeping them on WGST.
If it's that important to clear the show, they will find a way. And it may not be on one of their stations. How many non-iHeart ACs carry Delilah?
Well iHeart only has 1 AM station which is BIN so theres room for iHeart to buy 2 more which they might look at WCNN and WDWD so they have it's own sports and talk stations in the ATL market in terms of power and reach.
Keep in mind that, if those clusters had the same number of salespeople they had 25 years ago, everyone would starve. One of the reasons radio revenue is down significantly when adjusted for inflation is that a large number of customers went out of business in one of the two recessions we've had in the last 15 years. The advertiser pool is just smaller. To paraphrase John Madden, people who went out of business aren’t coming back to radio. The big box retailers who survived the recessions either don’t buy radio or buy it sparingly. Plus, TV units have gone down in price, which means radio has to compete with TV in ways it didn’t before. Clients who went to radio because they couldn’t afford TV tend to no longer have that barrier. TV also usually delivers more easily quantifiable results, which tends to make it more desirable, especially to those who can’t afford sophisticated analysis and surveys. As a friend of mine who owned a roofing company said, after he switched from radio to TV, he got calls with people asking, “Is this the guy on the roof?”, since they could see him on TV. He knew exactly where those callers got his number and didn’t have to ask a single question. Radio can’t offer that, and he was getting on his local NBC affiliate and the top station in town for the same exact price. The sales manager from the top radio cluster called repeatedly to try to get him back, but he kept saying no until the calls stopped.
The roughly 60 salespeople Cox had in Atlanta 20 years ago couldn’t survive selling radio in this environment. Last I'd heard, Cox has about a dozen salespeople for radio today, and it has always had about a 1:6 ratio of managers to staff. So, it also went from about 6 sales managers to two.
Call letters have officially swapped.
In the car, it was clear last night when i visited Sugarloaf Mills and traveled down 316 to Lawrenceville Suwanee Rd. Meanwhile, 96.1 The Beat ads are all over the continuous changing digital billboards on I-85.