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WISX to Flip Again?

AbrahamJSimpson said:
I listened to San Francisco’s Breeze shortly after launch, and it was interesting. Haven’t done so since, but curiosity had me go look at the playlist. It could be what Sunny could have evolved into in some alternate dimension. Setting aside a deep-in-the-weeds debate over localization, if that represents the broad direction we’re talking about....well, it depends on what they can monetize. Are there that many More FM and WOGL listeners they can peel off with a softer mix,long term? I’d love to know what the research says.

I mean, at the upper end of the demo, this seems most appealing. But...what’s the marketing? Set it and forget it isn’t going to do much. Some strategic focused digital marketing might get some awareness going, and curiosity. But inertia remains a powerful force. You need to be more than “not More”—or you’ll just end up being, well, less.
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Fancy station names and logos are all the rage these days (well, except on 106.1 in Philadelphia) but in my mind, radio marketing can be a LOT simpler. I mentioned a couple songs earlier which I don't think WOGL is touching and I really doubt WBEB has played them in at least a couple years. Perhaps they're being played on BEN-FM occasionally...but along with a lot of stuff that doesn't appeal to a Soft AC fan. If they're gonna launch Sunny 3.0, advertise it with clips of the songs and telling folks that they're gonna hear a lot of favorites they're not hearing anywhere else. With an ad like that, someone who likes the Bonnie Raitt song (and I'm assuming there are still lots of them) might think "I love that song and dammit, they're right: I haven't heard it in ages! I'm gonna try this new old station that's been on twice before!" Or something to that effect.

And remember: These fans are older. They are LOOKING for a place on the radio to hear what they want because they're not as tech savvy as the whippersnappers who can take or leave Q102 because they have all the music they want literally in their pocket. (How's that for a run-on sentence?)
 
The logo and name...meh. I mean, those are important to be done well, sure. But I both agree and disagree a bit about the marketing. A simple message, yes. Absolutely. But complex is how to reach the right audience if their proverbial dials are pretty much set to 98 and 101.

Sure, you could buy oodles of TV, but that money isn’t being spent in this day and age. I think the people you want, to the extent they will be receptive, are not technology impaired as a general principle. So you do need a smart and carefully targeted strategy to reach them. Easier said than done, assuming for the sake of conversation your budget is less than bountiful.

The cliche about a tree falling in a Forrest seems applicable.
 
AbrahamJSimpson said:
The logo and name...meh. I mean, those are important to be done well, sure. But I both agree and disagree a bit about the marketing. A simple message, yes. Absolutely. But complex is how to reach the right audience if their proverbial dials are pretty much set to 98 and 101.

Sure, you could buy oodles of TV, but that money isn’t being spent in this day and age. I think the people you want, to the extent they will be receptive, are not technology impaired as a general principle. So you do need a smart and carefully targeted strategy to reach them. Easier said than done, assuming for the sake of conversation your budget is less than bountiful.

The cliche about a tree falling in a Forrest seems applicable.
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I agree but I think what you're saying applies more to younger listeners. Run TV ads for Sunny during "Blue Bloods" or...well, almost anything on CBS. haha
 
Ha. Poor CBS. Lol

But to the larger question...are they going to have the money? I see the bumpers for the iHeart stations on channel 6 for the weather reports, but am hard pressed to recall what the last significant TV ad buy from a Philly radio station was. And I do watch a few CBS shows, so maybe I’ll see them there. Or Jeopardy, perhaps.

I do recall WOGL spots on CBS 3 when they were corporate siblings, but don’t remember seeing any since Entercom entered the equation.
 
AbrahamJSimpson said:
Ha. Poor CBS. Lol

But to the larger question...are they going to have the money? I see the bumpers for the iHeart stations on channel 6 for the weather reports, but am hard pressed to recall what the last significant TV ad buy from a Philly radio station was. And I do watch a few CBS shows, so maybe I’ll see them there. Or Jeopardy, perhaps.

I do recall WOGL spots on CBS 3 when they were corporate siblings, but don’t remember seeing any since Entercom entered the equation.
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More good points. They could get a lot of advertising just from their existing in-market media synergies.
 
The billboard network will be a help. No song clips, but rely on visuals and you may still trigger their memories. Side note: I think it was an ad for The Breeze that mistakenly ran months ago here instead of San Francisco. An amusing coincidence IF this all is a real thing and not a ruse.

Their co-owned radio inventory would be...less helpful. :cool:
 
This is a great thread, just caught up. And I do agree that WISX would flip before WRFF does, revenue or not. And Hot AC is not a good idea as it has failed on numerous occasions recently. Also, I am not too sure they'll flip really soon. After all, its November 1st, and no need to plug in Christmas when the other stations (aside from Easy in Wildwood) are not in a rush. Why not wait till the 9th-ish?

On the Facebook front, TWO pages were created: https://www.facebook.com/1061TheBreeze-322791948547994/ and https://www.facebook.com/TheBreeze1061-1065297096984031/

On the Twitter front, same thing, but with two different handles, @1061TheBreeze and @TheBreezePhilly. Both were made TODAY.


Also, I randomly made a mock logo for The Breeze, if it does come to fruition.
 

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For those who like to play the format speculation game, I notice the old call letters WWSH-FM are still available. Whooosh!
 
AbrahamJSimpson said:
And what’s “whiter” than soft A/C? :cool:
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Actually, after considerable tinkering, Cox found its way in Miami with WFEZ. They are now #1 25-54 in the market.

They did that by realizing that they had to appeal to Hispanics. A huge percentage of the WFEZ audience is now Hispanic... in fact, for all the books so far this year, the audience has always been over half Hispanic.

So a soft AC is hardly as restrictive among ethnic listeners as we might initially assume. But it took the Cox folks some time to get it right when they initially failed by thinking a WDUV clone would work in younger, more ethnic Miami.
 
Talking about local flavor, I could easily imagine hearing the Philly sound of The Stylistics ( "Betcha by Golly, Wow", "I'm Stone in Love with You", "Break Up to Make Up", "You Make Me Feel Brand New", "You Are Everything") on a baby-soft AC here in town...
 
TheBigA said:
For those who like to play the format speculation game, I notice the old call letters WWSH-FM are still available. Whooosh!
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Your mention of "Wish FM" brings back an anecdote I was told about by the perpetrators themselves.

At Heftel's 13-Q in Pittsburgh, the old WJAS-FM had become WSHH with a Shulke Beautiful Music format. In markets that size, Shulke required stations to be live. But sitting for 15 minutes for a matched flow tape to end so that one could say, "(pause) All day, all night, all nice (pause) Wish (pause) 99.7 FM" was tedious, and invited napping.

The evening announcer was known for believing himself to be above the silly 13-Q jocks.

Well...

The Top 40 AM jocks took a Shulke tape, copied it, and edited an Iron Butterfly album cut into it. It played. The announcer was wakened. As he tried to understand the irate calls, the "real" reel tape was put back on the deck, and the dub was bulked.

Now, back to our thread.
 
Miguelito said:
why not put Soft AC back on? Swap out funeral home and life insurance commercials for the Cash for Gold ads.
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Softer and more gold based AC WFEZ in Miami is now #1 25-54.
 
TheBigA said:
Also consider what we've seen with KSWD in Seattle. In a market that's a bit younger than Philadelphia and Miami.
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And, while WFEZ has 55% of its listening in 55+ demos, it still does well enough in the younger demos to be #1 in the key sales ages.

Miami / Ft Lauderdale average age is 39, Philly 38 and Seattle 37. I don't think that age alone is enough to make much of a difference.
 
Jstnpspck said:
Talking about local flavor, I could easily imagine hearing the Philly sound of The Stylistics ( "Betcha by Golly, Wow", "I'm Stone in Love with You", "Break Up to Make Up", "You Make Me Feel Brand New", "You Are Everything") on a baby-soft AC here in town...
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Oh good lord....please no. :)
 
Miguelito said:
Can someone tell me again why it makes better business sense to flip WISX instead of WRFF? They can surely package-sell WISX with WIOQ, WUSL, and WDAS-FM, no? Meanwhile, I've heard rumors of lots of Cash for Gold commercials on WRFF. (I made that up for effect but, hey, it could be true.) While I suppose they can package-sell WRFF with WIOQ to some extent, could that possibly be as lucrative? If they're going to try Adult Contemporary, why not put it on 104.5?
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While we've heard lots about billing issues at 104.5, my best guess would be one, or a combination of, the following:

1) Too many urban stations in the market (agencies rarely buy more than three deep).
2) Too many urban stations in the iHeart cluster.
 
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