With FM100 going away, iHeart isn’t about to touch 101.9 any time soon. They have next to no competition soon for new pop music other than the Flinn translators and the limited new music played on WRVR, and I’m skeptical anyone else will be rushing to fill a void left by FM100.
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Rumor Mill Reports Big Changes This Week
- Thread starter Schroedingers Cat
- Start date
Nope. The Killer Bee/Party Radio-era B96 music (house, freestyle, Eurodance, etc.) or the dance music heard on long-defunct Energy 92.7 & 92.5 and later on the Dance Factory won't be added to B96's playlist anytime soon. In a perfect world, B96 would had acknowledged their dance roots and give B96 a dance-lean while separating themselves enough from 104.3's classic hip hop/R&B lean (assuming 104.3 doesn't flip to 670 the Score though recent events seem to suggest they're heading that direction). If the station could mix together Lady Gaga, Miley Cyrus, Justin Beiber and Britney Spears with 2pac, Notorious BIG, Dr. Dre, Lil Jon, Beyonce, Eminem, etc., then there's no reason why Daft Punk, C&C Music Factory, Stevie B, Real McCoy, Ace of Base, Crystal Waters, etc. couldn't fit as B96 is now considered "Rhythmic Hot AC".
Thank goodness for the Beat Chicago and Dance Beat Radio for keeping the spirit of the old B96 alive. As for current-day B96, the recent changes are a step in the right direction and the bad logo they had is gone. They should get a ratings bump with these moves but how big that bump remains to be seen.
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Well, look at Star 94 in Atlanta, also owned by Audacy and another long time heritage-radio station people are familiar with. Makes me think this type of playlist they have, could also benefit b96. Granted it’s not the most exciting station in ATL but maybe people will give B96 some needed life.
Also if WBMX does go sports in the future, then it would be a more strategic and smart move to put a Rhythmic AC lean on B96.
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iHeart wouldn't have to move KWNW to Hot AC to do that. It would need to add some of the WMC-FM castoffs and do a marketing campaign for the first time, and tweak maybe one or two songs per hour considering how close CHR and Hot AC are nowadays.
But, KWNW is programmed from iHeart's national programming group. There's no local input. Does FM100's demise change that with iHeart freezing expenditures and with that format changes?
At the moment it's an interesting duo that the ownership group has in Chicago:
Classic rhythmic on 104.3 and classic-based pop on 96.3. There is definitely overlap in playlist. Would be no surprise at all to see 104.3 go to sports, especially after this recent change. 104.3 exiting music would give 96.3 agency to fully cover many throwback realms including hip-hop, pop and maybe a few dance titles that could be spliced in as a nod to the station's rich heritage. Remaining with a few new tracks will probably also be important for them to keep the sound fresh overall.
Classic rhythmic on 104.3 and classic-based pop on 96.3. There is definitely overlap in playlist. Would be no surprise at all to see 104.3 go to sports, especially after this recent change. 104.3 exiting music would give 96.3 agency to fully cover many throwback realms including hip-hop, pop and maybe a few dance titles that could be spliced in as a nod to the station's rich heritage. Remaining with a few new tracks will probably also be important for them to keep the sound fresh overall.
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It's an interesting subject. Normally a format seeks to narrow the genres and styles to create a consistent sound. But what we've seen with this format, at least in New York, is that it has a wider range of music than other popular stations. The music library at iHeart's WKTU and Audacy's The Block is larger than Z100.
That makes three stations so far that has adopted a Rhythmic AC model under Audacy (KTWV, WSTR and now WBBM). Wouldn’t be surprised if they try to adopt it elsewhere, and it could work.Well one of the rumors has so far come true, B96 has shifted its presentation to skew older... also the hideous logo is gone:
B96 Moves Back To Its Roots - RadioInsight
Audacy began the revamp of CHR "B96" WBBM-FM Chicago today as the station moved to a 50/50 gold to current/recurrent presentation with a Rhythmic lean. With sweepers proclaiming "Chicago's favorite radio station is back," B96 is now positioning as "The music you've always loved and the best of...radioinsight.com
KTWV began morphing into it's current format or blend decades ago... as the Smooth Jazz format died, they started broadening the playlist into more rhythmic vocals that made many call it "Urban AC". In fact, with the market less than 7% Black, the move was to make the format appeal to a broader spectrum, including everyone from Armenians to Hispanics.
So the KTWV format has been developing for about 15 years into what it is now. And most of the development was done before Entercom took over the CBS stations in late 2017.
The Atlanta market is 35% Black while Chicago is around 17%. Both are capable of sustaining multiple stations with Black core audiences. LA is not.
And WSTR/Atlanta hasn't been an overwhelming success, as far as I understand.
There's nothing in common between the three stations. And I surely wouldn't call WBBM-FM a Rhythmic AC at all. If you notice in my story I eschewed a format classification completely as an argument can be made its still a gold leaning CHR. And I'm waiting to see what the record labels say before reclassifying.
WSTR-FM is a Rhythmic leaning Hot AC in the vein of a WKTU. KTWV as David explained is mostly a Hispanic targeting Adult R&B (but much broader).
What most people here don't realize is that format classifications have as much to do with the demographics they are targeting as they do with the music they play. Rhythmic AC has become a catch-all right now for multiple products all targeting non-black audiences with mostly black artists in order to sell the more "sellable" white audience to ad buyers.
My brother got married in Chicago in the Mid-90s [I don't remember what exact year] but I remember stumbling across B96 and was pretty impressed with what I heard. I even ended up finding out what some of the tunes were and physically hunting down some 12" singles of them and bringing them back to my area and gave them to some club DJs to play. They hadn't even heard some of them and they were supposed to be at the top of their game.
Ok, so I will give David and Lance a pass on what defines Rhythmic AC and especially pointing out that B96 is still a Top 40. I do admit that the three do sound good but that’s my opinion.
I'd personally call it Rhythmic Hot AC. I don't have any other term for it. Basically Pop hits and Rhythmic hits from the 2000s with a sprinkle of 90s in there. Some 2010s. Only the biggest current hits (Taylor Swift, Harry Styles, Ed Sheeran, The Weeknd, Jonas Brothers, Miley Cyrus, Drake, and Jax - Cinderella Snapped which is guitar based) The Rhythmic hits from the 2000s are mostly Hip-Hop, although Rhythmic CHR stations also had Pop for a period in the 90s and 2000s, so they do have some 2000s pop.
At this point, WTMX (Chicago's technical Hot AC station) plays more current music than B96 does. Most of their music is either current or from the past few years. Very little older songs. They've leaned more toward CHR at times. Was Modern AC when that format was a thing. I rarely hear anything 90s on there. Sometimes on an occasion I'll hear a 2000s song.
At this point, WTMX (Chicago's technical Hot AC station) plays more current music than B96 does. Most of their music is either current or from the past few years. Very little older songs. They've leaned more toward CHR at times. Was Modern AC when that format was a thing. I rarely hear anything 90s on there. Sometimes on an occasion I'll hear a 2000s song.
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WSTR is doing about what it did as Hot AC, or a bit more poorly. Audacy has adjusted the musical direction multiple times. It’s not a smash, but I don’t think it could be called a failure. It’s been an underperforming frequency for a long time.
B96's playlist sure looks Rhythmic Hot AC to me. I agree with Jeremy. I honestly don't care if the station is on some CHR reporting panel somewhere. Panel changes sometimes trail format changes by many months.
I think they'll decide what it is over time. If current music eventually gets better, which I doubt, they could easily shift back to regular CHR if they wanted.
umm It wil be on 105.9 FM since 104.3 Jams is going stong and B96 is going on low ratings due to high rates to WKSC-FM and if WCPT may need one FM simulcast so 92.7 WCPY will be WCPT Simulcast and the callsigns will be WCPT-FM and PolskiFM will be on it's HD2 Subchannel and it's translator on 96.7 W244BQ