After listening to Cox's new Urban Oldies station "Hot 106.5" for the past two weeks, I noticed there is one critical flaw with this station, the station's playlist is TOO limited. In fact, they basically play the same 50 songs in rotation, which is not a good sign if you are trying to compete with the heritage Urban AC "V101.5". Eventually, the listening audience, which is growing rapidly now because it is the first new station for the adult urban audience in a long time in Jacksonville, will get tired of hearing the same songs over and over and then the number of listeners will start to decline as a result. Right now, Radio One's "Old School" Urban Oldies stations have a deeper playlist than "Hot 106.5", which isn't saying much because their playlist is fairly limited as well. If the new "Hot 106.5" wants to be successful Urban Oldies station in Jacksonville, they MUST deepen their playlist and play songs that have not been heard on urban radio for 20 or 30 years so that the station will continue to sound "fresh". A good template for an excellent Urban Oldies station is the noncommerical, low power KDEE in Sacramento, CA, which I listen to online occasionally. I was first introduced to this station by someone who posted about how great this station is on this board about a year or two years ago and I concur with him because this station plays R&B music that hasn't been played on the radio, in some cases, for 20 years or more. However, I still believe there is potential for this station to be a success in Jacksonville but they need to deepen and add more variety to their playlist so they won't become a failure in Jacksonville's Urban Oldies vs Urban AC battle.
BTW, the Program Director of "Hot 106.5" is Mr. Clarence Natto, a radio veteran who has worked at Cox's other Urban AC properties, WALR "Kiss 104.1" in Atlanta and WCFB "Star 94.5" in Orlando, where he served as the Marketing and Promotions Director for those stations.