Rock 100.5 now Atlanta's Classic Rock

Their website use to always be atlantasrockstation.com but now is atlantasclassicrock.com. In addition, 99X page is redirected to atlantasclassicrock.com. For years, 99X page was still up (the shell anyway).

Based on the latest, looks like ROCK 100.5 has not intention on going modern and seems to find some room for growth under classic rock. The few 90s rock songs they were playing have been taken out from rotation.

I know many don't like this move for personal reason but I have noticed an increase in ratings. Curious to see how 97.1 reacts.

BTW - You oldies folks haven't posted a thing about Shannon moving to CBS RADIO. How about 92.9 going to oldies? Something CBS hasn't tried in Atlanta..... yet.

acheron82 said:

BTW - You oldies folks haven't posted a thing about Shannon moving to CBS RADIO. How about 92.9 going to oldies? Something CBS hasn't tried in Atlanta..... yet.

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Not a chance. The Game is now splitting Falcons PBP rights with Lincoln and will probably end up getting full-time rights next year. CBS is keeping sports for the long haul.

From what I heard, I don't think The Game is splitting the rights with Lincoln Financial. Star 94 wanted the Falcons off the air so badly that they gave the games to 92.9 free of charge (and are still carrying them on 790 this season). However, Lincoln Financial gets all the ad revenue. However, you are correct that CBS is very, very likely to get the rights next year.

acheron82 said:

Their website use to always be atlantasrockstation.com but now is atlantasclassicrock.com. In addition, 99X page is redirected to atlantasclassicrock.com. For years, 99X page was still up (the shell anyway).

Based on the latest, looks like ROCK 100.5 has not intention on going modern and seems to find some room for growth under classic rock. The few 90s rock songs they were playing have been taken out from rotation.
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100.5's on-air branding has also changed to "classic rock". Their playlist does include some 90s and even some 00s material, stuff that could arguably be considered classic by now. They have also added some 60s (Doors, Hendrix, Who, Guess Who) to the playlist.

Despite being the same format as River they sound quite different. While River has been going deeper lately, Rock 100.5 has also been going deeper--as well as including harder stuff that River generally doesn't touch (although River has also been heading in that direction, with the return of the "this is River music" promos but with AC/DC and a lot more harder stuff than when they first hit the air). River almost sounds like the station that Z93 wanted to be but never succeeded.

With Radio 105.7 and X107.1 Cumulus may have decided there is no there there anymore with newer rock.

Since oldies has gone I'm surprised nobody has tried adult/variety hits. If you want 60s, 70s, or even 80s music, about the only place you will find it these days is on a classic rock station (besides the ever-dwindling 80s cuts on B98.5, and of course NASH ICON).

jabba17 said:

With Radio 105.7 and X107.1 Cumulus may have decided there is no there there anymore with newer rock.

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I think you are correct about what Cumulus may have decided, but it they made that decision, they're dead-bang wrong. There is a wealth of great, classic-sounding new rock out there. It's just never, ever played on the radio anywhere other than maybe some college stations.

Well the hole in rock radio for Atlanta is active rock but the format is not doing that well across the country. It seems like every day I go on radio insight, I see another rock/active rock station changing formats to Alternative. Now personally, I like Alternative but not the ALT TOP 40 crap you hear on most big corp radio. Alternative is not meant for a cookie cutter radio station but they are attempting it.

In St. Louis, there is KPNT which is a harder version of alternative. Even does a little Metallica from time to time. I really think X107 should have went in that direction and positioning itself between the two formats (alternative and active rock) and like a pendulum, swinging in one direction or another depending on which format is doing well.

Classic Rock is also dying on radio across the country. Cumulus should have went oldies or variety with 100.5. I'm not fond of that style of music but I'll admit that there is a need for one of those formats and I'm not understanding why it hasn't been attempted. I do believe Variety HIts will do better than oldies based on previous attempts of oldies in the last 10 years but I think Variety Hits with a focus on 80s would really satisfy many that are wanting oldies.

acheron82 said:

Well the hole in rock radio for Atlanta is active rock but the format is not doing that well across the country.

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The problem is that too many suits programming radio stations just don't get rock music. They simply don't understand that rock isn't about neat little pigeonholes that bands and artists are shoved into. It's not about when a song was written or recorded. Rock is about music. Period. A real rock fan would enjoy hearing Janis Joplin singing "Piece of My Heart" and they'd enjoy hearing Grace Potter and the Nocturnals singing "Paris Ooh-La-La" and they wouldn't give a damn when either song was recorded. But the suits running radio just don't understand that. It's a foreign concept to them. They can't test it out the wazoo, or quantify it, or manage it. And so they keep on keeping on, figuring that anything that was good enough for people like Bill Drake are good enough for them. As long as the ratings companies keep changing their procedures to conceal the fact that fewer and fewer people are turning to OTA radio for entertainment, they'll keep starving the goose and wondering what happened to all the golden eggs.

Avid Listener said:

A real rock fan would enjoy hearing Janis Joplin singing "Piece of My Heart" and they'd enjoy hearing Grace Potter and the Nocturnals singing "Paris Ooh-La-La" and they wouldn't give a damn when either song was recorded.

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You may be right. I was at a big outdoor festival last year, one that had about a dozen artists on it, and somewhere in the middle was Grace Potter. I happened to miss her introduction, so I came in during her show. I saw this skinny young blond girl swirling her hair around, acting a little tipsy, and really thought for a moment that someone was doing a Janis Joplin imitation. Then I started to recognize the music and realized who it was. The problem is that not everyone is a real rock fan. Most boomer who grew up on Janis have memories of the first time they heard Piece of My Heart. They hate it when Faith Hill sings that song, because it insults the original. They also say things like, 'Why would I want to see someone influenced by Picasso when I can simply open a book and see the original.' Are folks who have that point of view not real rock fans? Do their opinions not count? What do you think?

I hear what you are saying but artist like Janis Joplin and Grace Potter are artist that are played on the same radio formatted station. Those stations are AAA or Album Adult Alternative. No, not all AAA stations go as far back as the late 60s but some do like Q105.3 in Savannah.

Now those same stations that will play Grace Potter and Janis Joplin will not touch artists like Three Days Grace (active rock artist) or Death From Above 1979 (alternative artist).

I agree that corporate radio is way too cookie cutter but in my view, a station that plays everything "rock" would play alternative, active rock and classic rock. I believe Leslie Fram tried that in New York City and it simply didn't work. Listen to my IPOD and you will hear all three of those formats but the general Atlanta Ryan Seacrest crotch sniffer won't "dig" that combination because it doesn't fit in to the cookie cutter style radio station.

Avid Listener said:

The problem is that too many suits programming radio stations just don't get rock music. They simply don't understand that rock isn't about neat little pigeonholes that bands and artists are shoved into. It's not about when a song was written or recorded. Rock is about music. Period. A real rock fan would enjoy hearing Janis Joplin singing "Piece of My Heart" and they'd enjoy hearing Grace Potter and the Nocturnals singing "Paris Ooh-La-La" and they wouldn't give a damn when either song was recorded. But the suits running radio just don't understand that. It's a foreign concept to them. They can't test it out the wazoo, or quantify it, or manage it. And so they keep on keeping on, figuring that anything that was good enough for people like Bill Drake are good enough for them. As long as the ratings companies keep changing their procedures to conceal the fact that fewer and fewer people are turning to OTA radio for entertainment, they'll keep starving the goose and wondering what happened to all the golden eggs.

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acheron82 said:

I hear what you are saying but artist like Janis Joplin and Grace Potter are artist that are played on the same radio formatted station. Those stations are AAA or Album Adult Alternative. No, not all AAA stations go as far back as the late 60s but some do like Q105.3 in Savannah.

Now those same stations that will play Grace Potter and Janis Joplin will not touch artists like Three Days Grace (active rock artist) or Death From Above 1979 (alternative artist).

I agree that corporate radio is way too cookie cutter but in my view, a station that plays everything "rock" would play alternative, active rock and classic rock. I believe Leslie Fram tried that in New York City and it simply didn't work. Listen to my IPOD and you will hear all three of those formats but the general Atlanta Ryan Seacrest crotch sniffer won't "dig" that combination because it doesn't fit in to the cookie cutter style radio station.

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As I've posted in the "alternative" forum, when "alternative" first came on the scene, it was nothing more than the newest genre-fad in rock, no different from punk before it. Sure, punk ended up getting cleaned and polished into "new wave", just as grunge was cleaned and polished into "alternative". But like all fleeting genre-fads, alternative came and went and is over, except in the minds of the suits running radio who still think it means something.

As for what Leslie Fram did in New York, I wasn't in New York to hear what that sounded like. There are some things I'm sure of, and some things I'm not sure of. One of the things I'm sure of is that how well an idea is executed is at least as important as the idea itself. And, if any project intended to attract an audience will never succeed without adequate and well-done promotion. So, any time a radio station tries something, if I don't know how well the idea was actually implemented, nor how well it was promoted, I don't accept a failure as proof that the basic idea isn't fundamentally sound.

acheron82 said:

Classic Rock is also dying on radio across the country. Cumulus should have went oldies or variety with 100.5. I'm not fond of that style of music but I'll admit that there is a need for one of those formats and I'm not understanding why it hasn't been attempted. I do believe Variety HIts will do better than oldies based on previous attempts of oldies in the last 10 years but I think Variety Hits with a focus on 80s would really satisfy many that are wanting oldies.

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It's not dying in Atlanta...look at River's ratings, even with Rock100.5 horning in on the space.

I understand why Cumulus dumped oldies (as in 60s and pre-disco/new wave 70s). What I don't understand is why they didn't learn their lesson from AGH (which centered on the 70s) and recenter an "oldies" station on the 80s like the variety hits stations do. I would think that such a station would do well in the money demo, at least for the next 5-8 years, with little competition.

That all said, I heard "Rock & Roll Band" by Boston the other day on Rock100.5--a quintessential classic rock song. That song is 38 years old (1976). My little brother had that on 8-track. When classic rock stations started coming into their own in the mid-late 80s, only nostalgia stations (as in 104.1 Joy FM, which carried MOYL) were playing stuff that old (i.e., stuff from the late 1940s), if then. That song is closer in time to World War II than it is to today. Last night, I heard "Foxy Lady" by Jimi Hendrix. That song is almost as old as me, and the number of years left before I get my AARP card I can count on one hand and have fingers left over.

Classic rock still brings in the ratings (at least in Atlanta, and Cox has done a good job with River, vs. say, CBS with Z93 or CC with 96 Rock near the ends of those respective stations), but this does raise the question of how much longer it will. The boomers have aged out of the money demo and smaller GenX doesn't bring the cume.

acheron82 said:

Classic Rock is also dying on radio across the country. Cumulus should have went oldies or variety with 100.5. I'm not fond of that style of music but I'll admit that there is a need for one of those formats and I'm not understanding why it hasn't been attempted.

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Classic Rock is about as close to oldies the advertising agencies in Atlanta will buy commercials on, and then not as much as one would think. If you look at the top revenue stations nationally:

http://www.allaccess.com/net-news/a...is-once-again-the-top-billing-station-in-the-

you will not see WCBS FM did not make the list, even if it might be one of the most listened to station in the nation (#1 in the #1 market):

http://ratings.radio-online.com/cgi-bin/rol.exe/arb001


If you factor out the spoken word formats and CHR, the only stations left are "lite" which B98.5 has covered and Alternative. The "suits" at a for profit company had better be making the money or show his / her plans on chasing down the money, or the shareholders will fire the CEO and find a "suit" who who will.

jabba17 said:

That all said, I heard "Rock & Roll Band" by Boston the other day on Rock100.5--a quintessential classic rock song. That song is 38 years old (1976). My little brother had that on 8-track. When classic rock stations started coming into their own in the mid-late 80s, only nostalgia stations (as in 104.1 Joy FM, which carried MOYL) were playing stuff that old (i.e., stuff from the late 1940s), if then. That song is closer in time to World War II than it is to today. Last night, I heard "Foxy Lady" by Jimi Hendrix. That song is almost as old as me, and the number of years left before I get my AARP card I can count on one hand and have fingers left over.

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The thing that most folks just cannot (or will not) grasp is that younger listeners are exposed to classic rock from sources like the record collections of their parents and grandparents. To a 20-something who grew up listening to his parents and grand-parents collection of classic rock, it doesn't matter if a classic rock song was recorded ten years before he was born, or twenty years, or even thirty years. The younger listeners who like the sound of classic rock don't give a damn when it was recorded, but they care intensely about whether or not it sounds good.

acheron82 said:

I hear what you are saying but artist like Janis Joplin and Grace Potter are artist that are played on the same radio formatted station. Those stations are AAA or Album Adult Alternative.

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Since this is the Atlanta radio forum, I have to ask. Are there any AAA stations in Atlanta?

Avid Listener said:

The thing that most folks just cannot (or will not) grasp is that younger listeners are exposed to classic rock from sources like the record collections of their parents and grandparents. To a 20-something who grew up listening to his parents and grand-parents collection of classic rock, it doesn't matter if a classic rock song was recorded ten years before he was born, or twenty years, or even thirty years. The younger listeners who like the sound of classic rock don't give a damn when it was recorded, but they care intensely about whether or not it sounds good.

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My main point was that classic rock has proven to be unusually sticky as a format and genre. Most music leaves the air after one or two decades. The only 25+ year old music you will generally hear on the radio is classic rock. Lots of folks air and listen to classic rock. The stuff from the pop side of the dial (AM gold and MTV-era pop), not so much.

jabba17 said:

My main point was that classic rock has proven to be unusually sticky as a format and genre. Most music leaves the air after one or two decades. The only 25+ year old music you will generally hear on the radio is classic rock. Lots of folks air and listen to classic rock. The stuff from the pop side of the dial (AM gold and MTV-era pop), not so much.

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That's why they call it "classic".

This station is a REDNECK station imo. It caters to beer bellied blue collar sloppy men. It is not classic rock to me. They still play way too much heavy metal, sans, Ozzy, Metallica, etc.

max100 said:

This station is a REDNECK station imo. It caters to beer bellied blue collar sloppy men. It is not classic rock to me. They still play way too much heavy metal, sans, Ozzy, Metallica, etc.

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Rock radio didn't spin off the heavy metal until the early 90s. At the time when the classic rock songs were being played, it wasn't unusual to hear southern rock and metal.

Re:

Rock 100.5 has already been down this road. This isn't the first time the station has been 100% Classic Rock. The last time they went this route, the best they could do was about a 2 share.

Even when Rock 100.5 and Bone "merged," 100.5 wasn't really a full fledged Active Rock station. It was a tightly playlisted Mainstream Rock outlet that happened to play a handful of currents and recurrents. A lot of the heavier artists that are staples of the Active Rock format (Tool, Korn, RATM, Disturbed, White Zombie, A7X, etc.) were seldom played or only had their most radio-friendly single played. It was a really watered down product.

A full-fledged Active Rock station -- or an Active Rock station that mixes in a small dose of alt rock -- would be able to perform better vis-a-vis a station such as Radio 105.7. All one has to do is go back ten years and observe how 105.3 The Buzz gained on 99X, and later, how Project 96.1 consistently beat 99X in the ratings.

I doubt 107.1 has any affect on that programming decisions Cumulus is making with 100.5. They are simply looking at 97.1's success and want a piece of that action. They will never come close. Cumulus has a knack for building perennially underperforming stations.