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Has Buffalo's new Star 96.1 faded already?

T

Tall Thin One

Here we go again! Checking their website this morning, I discovered it's now "The NEW 96 point 1" displayed graphically with a Santa hat lopped over the 9 of 96.1 in Red and Green letters along with "Your Christmas Station" even though "Star" is still mentioned in some of their promos on the air. The morning show guy is making no mention of "Star" - only "The NEW 96 point 1".

Are they simply pre-selling their upcoming Christmas programming or will "Star" disappear from their audio logo in early January?

So how early will Christmas music be apparent on the radio this year?
 
It's called staking your turf. You want to own the brand before anyone else grabs it. That's what this whole thing is about. First claiming the Star brand, and now Christmas. They probably won't change for another 5-6 weeks. But they want you to know where to go when they do.
 
What was the point of “Star 96.1”, then? Doesn’t seem very smart to drop the brand they just adopted a handful of months ago. They can promote Christmas music as Star…
 
101tm said:
What was the point of “Star 96.1”, then? Doesn’t seem very smart to drop the brand they just adopted a handful of months ago. They can promote Christmas music as Star…
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It seemed to be a hasty response to 102.5 going "off air". I truly don't think it was planned very far in advance.
 
Well, well, well ... could this have been a radio throwdown? You know, a juicy legal dust-up between competing broadcasters. Brings back memories of McLendon vs. Storer, Heftel vs. RKO, ABC vs. Taft, CBS vs. Westinghouse, ABC and NBC radio divisions going toe-to-toe. Maybe not the exact match-ups, but you get the idea. Then again, maybe you young 'uns here don't. See, there was a time when radio was ... as the NAB or RAB called it, "Red Hot."

Did Townsquare in fact purchase the intellectual property, that being the moniker and formatic and promotional rights of the "old" Star at 102.5, or did it simply squat on the Star name? Was there a duel between corporate attorneys running up billable hours?

This switch to "The New 96.1 is most interesting, especially given that there was plenty of print and bus station media promoting Star 96.1. Townsquare could have done a deal where they leased the name only for three months. But what sense would that make?

Then again, the Townsquare brass may have done all the right thing$ to $secure the $tar IP, but the research may have raised red flags that caused them to walk away from the Star brand. "The New 96 point 1" isn't a half bad moniker... has a ring to it... but still. Star 96 point one becomes an answer to another Buffalo radio trivia contest. Call the printer! New letterhead and business cards. Stat!
 
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Rusty Bridges said:
Well, well, well ... could this have been a radio throwdown? You know, a juicy legal dust-up between competing broadcasters. Brings back memories of McLendon vs. Storer, Heftel vs. RKO, ABC vs. Taft, CBS vs. Westinghouse, ABC and NBC radio divisions going toe-to-toe. Maybe not the exact match-ups, but you get the idea. Then again, maybe you young 'uns here don't. See, there was a time when radio was ... as the NAB or RAB called it, "Red Hot."

Did Townsquare in fact purchase the intellectual property, that being the moniker and formatic and promotional rights of the "old" Star at 102.5, or did it simply squat on the Star name? Was there a duel between corporate attorneys running up billable hours?

This switch to "The New 96 point 1" is most interesting, especially given that there was plenty of print and bus station media promoting Star 96.1. Townsquare could have done a deal where they leased the name for three months. But what sense would that make?

Then again, the Townsquare may have done all the right thing$ to $secure the $tar IP, but the research may have raised red flags that caused them to walk away from the Star brand. "The New 96 point 1" isn't a half bad moniker... has a ring to it... but still. Star 96 point one becomes an answer to another Buffalo radio trivia contest. Call the printer! New letterhead and business cards. Stat!
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Sounds to me like a nice hot and juicy C&D letter showed up in the certified mail. Especially since they don't appear to have a Plan B. "New" is not a format descriptor.
 
topsound said:
Sounds to me like a nice hot and juicy C&D letter showed up in the certified mail. Especially since they don't appear to have a Plan B. "New" is not a format descriptor.
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Heh, heh ... lawyers. WBNY, WJYE, WMSX, WTSS ... WBNY, Joy, Mix, The Breeze, Star, and now, New.

Big A said:
Will they keep the call letters?
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Anybody's guess. Just heard a VT that used "The New Star 96 point 1" ... could be everything is cool with "Star" as an on-air descriptor and only the print is changing.
 
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Then there's always "The ALL New 96 point 1" or "The EVEN NEWER 96 point 1"waiting in the wings for future consideration.

Remember the days when the use of the word "New" had a limited period of time for usage when introducing a new product to the market place set by the FTC or some other gov't bureau?

I think it was probably the radio business and certain stations that used "New" way beyond whatever the set expiration date was.
 
topsound said:
Sounds to me like a nice hot and juicy C&D letter showed up in the certified mail. Especially since they don't appear to have a Plan B. "New" is not a format descriptor.
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"New" might as well be "Death Warmed Over". What an exercise in futility.

What's amusing is that if Audacy really wanted to keep STAR they could have put it on 98.5 and avoided this debacle. At least the lawyers are making money while Audacy circles the drain. Meanwhile, Town Square ends up with Egg Nog on their face and a worthless brand...
 
tbolt909 said:
Meanwhile, Town Square ends up with Egg Nog on their face and a worthless brand...
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Eggnog ... Christmas ... I see what you did there. Chortle. It's only "eggnog" to us on this board who enjoy the intrigue and speculation ... and how the 27 upper demo posters her do enjoy it. Yeah, sure ... some ripple of minor embarrassment, but the whole thing passes very quickly in the real world because there are far more important things. It's not like a format change from Smooth Jazz to Alternative (oh, wait, that would be WSJZ to WLCE on 92.9 years ago.) The sales reps may have some 'splaining to do to their clients, but beyond that the clients' primary concern is their ads getting customers into their stores. I doubt clients are running around with their hair on fire wailing, "OMG, you used to be Mix, then the Breeze, and then Star and now you're 'New' ... what's become of this world!"
 
Rusty Bridges said:
The sales reps may have some 'splaining to do to their clients, but beyond that the clients' primary concern is their ads getting customers into their stores. I doubt clients are running around with their hair on fire wailing, "OMG, you used to be Mix, then the Breeze, and then Star and now you're 'New' ... what's become of this world!"
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Sure, the goal is to make money. That's harder to do when you're constantly changing the identity due to low ratings.
The question is who approved the idea to flip to STAR? Obviously, they thought it would be of some value to increase revenue. It ended up being a pointless exercise...
 
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tbolt909 said:
Sure, the goal is to make money. That's harder to do when you're constantly changing the identity due to low ratings.
The question is who approved the idea to flip to STAR? Obviously, they thought it would be of some value to increase revenue. It ended up being a pointless exercise...
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The ratings in context were not "low." They weren't near sister stations WBLK or WYRK, but they were ... ARE ... far better than WBUF (then again, that's a low bar) ... and they're inching up ... at least from what we can tell by monthly Persons 12+posted here.

bolt said:
The question is who approved the idea to flip to STAR?
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And that's the intrigue. Who and how ... and why did it not work out.

A few posters here in earlier threads posed questions about Star as it applied to its use by Audacy on 102.5. Was Star protected by service mark or copyright? Did Audacy retain control and possession of Star as a name, brand and/or moniker? Was there an Intellectual Property ("IP") agreement between Townsquare and Audacy to transfer the assets of the brand?

Corporations employ attorneys whose job it is to know the law, and if they don't know the law, they're supposed to know where and how to get the answers to questions based on the law. Don't expect Townsquare to tell the inquiring minds here why the Star moniker was abruptly dropped.

It could be that there was no IP deal in effect, that Townsquare seized the Star moniker and WTSS call letters at will. The call letters are the domain of the FCC, unrelated to IP. Audacy may have threatened legal action. Townsquare attorneys looked at Audacy's C&D, the legal standing, and concluded that a legal fight to retain Star as an identity for 96.1 wasn't worth the time, expense and effort. "There are bigger fish to fry and better ways to spend our money."

It appears the doors to the Speculation Suite have been thrown wide open.
 
WTSS appears to have recovered into the 4-share range without the help of Kris Kringle and it's listed under the current owner of those call letters. That's all that really counts. They're up about a share from the WMSX days. WKSE is also up about a share, so it looks like former Star 102.5 listeners may be split between Kiss and "The New Star." We're likely less than a month away from 96.1 going Jingle Rock, making whatever appellation they prefer moot anyway. As noted above, listeners are far less likely to car about "Star" or "New" than radio geeks. Not only that, but the 12+ "beauty contest" numbers have little relevance if 96.1 is grabbing significantly larger share of 18-49 females.
 
TheBigA said:
Will they keep the call letters?
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The call letters are irrelevant. Why Town Square bothered to acquire them is baffling. STAR was the name they wanted to use. It appears that they quietly have dropped the moniker at their lawyers instructions. It's all very odd because once EMF took over 102.5, that removed a format competitor. They may have benefited anyway without making a single change...
 
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