100.7 Changes Format

Here’s a solution to bland commercial-laden radio – SIRIUS. Well worth the 43 cents per day, and the choices are unlimited (Howard Stern included). And no, I don’t work for Sirius.

The only upside I see in all this is that 96Rock will HAVE to cut back on its airing of all things Nickelback.

^ hahaha. good call. Careful tho, they may just replace them with all Disturbed.

Triangle radio has been pretty hopeless since the mid 90′s (and some say the mid 70′s). One of the root causes of this is the fact that few stations are locally controlled or owned. I have always wondered why our market can not support any kind of “Adult Alternative” or just plain “Alternative” stations. Maybe there is no imagination when it comes to marketing these kinds of stations. Maybe the way stations are rated is totally flawed (it is but that would be a much longer discussion. Email me it you want to get deep into that mess).
In a place that has so many college grads (which usually means that people are exposed to different kinds of music due to college stations or dorm life or whatever) it is inconceivable that people want to listen to the same 100 worn out songs over and over and over.
I took an admittedly small and unimportant stand on this issue back in 1996. I worked part time at a triangle radio station as a DJ. The station was sold to a big corporation and the new music stopped being played. I was not happy playing “Free Bird” and “Stairway to Heaven” for the thousandth time, so I quit. Maybe we all need to quit listening to commercial radio.

I think there are some GREAT comments, so far on this. You may recall our post last year when rang the deathbell for this format at this station. I think their ranking improved, but not enough to satisfy the big bucks that ClearChannel shelled out to get the station and operate it.
The loud and clear message on this topic that I get by reading the comments is the ABSENCE of people saying,”Yeah! I like classic rock.” Usually there is opposition to point made, but not so far on this subject.
My two cents? I think this is all Washington’s fault. The deregulation of the industry which allowed a company to own several stations in a market set up an oligopoly. Now we pretty much have two companies here fighting several one-on-one battles instead of each finding niches and growing them. Also, because only big money is at the table, there is no opportunity for a small startup in this industry.
The problem, in my eyes, is that it is too difficult to start up in this field. Equipment is not cheap, but the big problem is the FCC. Given our modern radios’ abilities to fine tune frequencies these days, there is no excuse for any market not having 50 signals wide open and available. I blame the Carter, Reagan, Bush, Clinton, and Bush administrations for keeping these signals locked down so tightly that only an oligopoly can exist. If we opened things up, imagine the selection we would all have.
Until then, XM and Sirius are excellent and require little effort. My favorite music source, though, is the leased music service called Rhapsody To Go. If you have a PlaysForSure-compatible mp3 player (iPods cannot be used with these services – look into getting Creative Zen Vision or hold out for a Zune player), you can subscribe to Rhapsody ToGo and download from a library of over 2 million songs and play them as much as you want. It’s like a downloadable, unlimited Netflix-for-music concept.
Since I like alternative and adult alternative music, I look at these three sites each month,
http://tinyurl.com/kearm
http://tinyurl.com/fkm5v
http://tinyurl.com/htdd7
download all of the songs, and shuffle through them. If there is a song I really like, I’ll download the rest of the CD. If I miss, for instance, that old REM CD that my friend used to have but I never bothered to buy (and don’t want to go spend $15 to buy in 2006), I’ll download it and listen to it. The services all run about $15 per month.

too bad we dont have a station for the 40-60 crowd with diverse musical tastes who like to hear new releases by established musicians and NOT moldie oldies.
A station like KGSR in Austin or KPIG in Santa Cruz would be just fine.

I just don’t understand why the Triangle doesn’t have a decent alternative station like Richmond or Charlotte (yeah, I know KNC, but it isn’t the same and doesn’t support a music scene like a commercial alternative station). There is a large enough population, not to mention college/under 30 population. It is the largest radio market without an alternative station. 96.1′s “new” format, is worse than their mediocre former format. That drove me over the edge to almost always listen to CDs or my MP3 player.

I just emailed the four people listed a few posts above, and have already gotten a response from one of them. I believe that they may agree with everything already said here, but just don’t have any control over the situation.

Here is the answer to Raleigh: A radio station like WXRT in Chicago, IL. Check out there web site for an idea of their programming: http://www.wxrt.com/.

When the morning mindless patter started multiplying,and the music became more scarce,it was time to move on…3 years of XM = No Regrets.

There is a yahoo group that has been started to save The River. http://groups.yahoo.com/group/savetheriver/
Please sign up! We need to get let someone in the radio industry in this area know that we are tired of the choices on the air.
I also sent emails to Brian and Sybil at the station. I don’t know if it will help but at lest someone knows how I feel.

Weird how people see things from different perspectives. I read things like:
[quote]
I just don’t understand why the Triangle doesn’t have a decent alternative station[/quote]
and
[quote]96.1′s “new” format, is worse than their mediocre former format. [/quote]
and I just want to bust out laughing. I mean, I thought 96.1 was an alternative station before they changed (arguably one that sucked, but I wouldn’t know, I don’t really do alternative). Before I was the guy sitting around going:
I don’t know why Raleigh doesn’t have a decent rock station…
Now, I find that 96.1 is SO much better… they’re almost a good rock station. Certainly the only station around here where you can hear Twisted Sister one minute, Godsmack or Disturbed a few minutes later, then catch “Symphony of Destruction” by Megadeth followed by some Tom Petty. It’s like they finally decided to embrace variety instead of a mind-numbingly boring continuous stream of “modern rock” and alternative crap.
That said, 96.1 still isn’t the station I really want (I want to hear Iced Earth, Pantera, Dimmu Borgir, Children of Bodom, Slayer, Testament, Exodus, Nocturnal Rites, and so much other stuff) but they’re a damn site better than they were, IMO.
Wow, all of those words to basically say “musical taste is pretty subjectve and varied and no station in the Triangle is going to make everybody happy.”

THE MOST ECLECTIC ROCK RADIO SITE:
http://www.radioparadise.com/
(No ads either!)

This sucks. It took me a day of in and out of the car to realize that nothing produced after 1970 was played. What a shame.

Just tuned in to WRDU and found it all country. YUCK! Well, I didn’t know Clear Channel owned this and the River. I just hope they will carry Bob and Tom show. Can only handle so much of the John Boy and Billy show.

So RDU is country, JB&B; are back on Monday, the River is TOR (tired old rock) and 96.1 is now Uncle Bill’s Rock (they raided the vinyl from across the street). WKNC’s announcers sound like they don’t want to have anything to do with radio after they graduate, and you can’t get news about Apex evacuating on any fifty cents per day satellite raio, price of radio extra. I try to follow Mr. Radio, Mike Railey, on WQDR and WPTF AM. He’s on the most inoffensive program stations, and knows more about Raleigh than anyone.

My email to 100.7 River PD Brain Taylor yeserday:
Please take me off your River VIP Alert Email list. You almost had a chance to be a great station here. However- in the past 6 months it seems lke you gave up too easily letting something, or someone oversaturate your play list with 80′s music rather than playing a real Adult Alternative format. If I wanted to hear the Thompson twins, or Winwood, or Dexys Midnight Runners every 10 minutes I would have listened to uggghh..Mix 101.5.
For a brief few months I thought Clear Channel might change my mind about them, you played the Pixies, the Replacements, the Connells, Death Cab, Pete Yorn. All bands that actually have something worth listening too.
Now I realize it was all just a half-lame attempt at getting some credibility from those of us who appreciate real music, and should have known better than to except anything decent from Clear Channel.
Today you just sound like a watered down version of the now ***old WRDU****, which is fine since they are only footsteps from the River studio. Probably just took a few keystrokes to do that.
Congratulations Mr. Taylor, the same 15 bored housewives that come to your music test every time are keeping things nice and vanilla for everyone.
Back to the Ipod.

Raleigh/Triangle FM has never been the same since 94.7 WQDR The AOR Rock station went to country back in ’84. Bring back the original WQDR format with folks like Bob Walton, Tom Guild, etc., and we’ll have a great FM station once again. Until some station here learns to find music that grabs your intellectual ear and makes you actually want to LISTEN and check out the artist, artists that don’t sound like the current flock, it’ll always be the same scary stuff and undistinquished blah radio around here. Music radio here has been neither fun nor engaging in the last 25 years or so and with competition from the likes of XM and Sirius, it seems like someone would get a clue and do a similar format on FM.

I will miss WRDU but in a way this change is a good thing for me b/c now at work we don’t have to listen to the whiny music format that 100.7 has been playing for the past period of time. Good riddance to that.

It’s not the same as music radio, but I’ve recently gotten into sports talk. Definitely for a male-audience, but it’s much more engaging, without the Sarah McLachlan or Rod Stewart.

Well, so 100.7 is the oldies station now, and 106.1 went country…blech. I actually kind of like 96.1′s format…where else is someone actually going to play one of the old, 5 minute long Metallica songs that don’t fit “radio format” anymore. At least they show some diversity.
But overall I agree the state of radio in Raleigh is was pretty weak, and it just got weaker. Clearchannel could have made things work the way they were, they just need to realize they were recycling the same 15 songs on each of their stations.

WHY?!?!?! Why did 106.1 change their format?!?!? I grew up with WRDU (the home of Ronk-n-Roll)! I believe that changing the format was a STUPID (and “stupid” is a HUGE understatement) corporate decision. “Clear channel radio SUX! (Oh, and ironicly enough, Their stations lack more “clarity” than ANY others. GO xm radio! I hope that 100.7 listeners feel the same way.

Raleigh has not had decent radio since WKIX 850 back in the 60′s and 70′s. When CLear Channel took the oldies off 100.7 and dumped Ron McKay I pretty much knew that they were only interested in a buck.
Ron McKay was Raleigh Radio.
Here’s the solution for Clear Channel.
Fire G105′s morning man. He sounds like a jerk. Donate G105 to The Bible Broadcasting Network and take a tax write off.
Turn the lights out on Sunny 93.9 and donate it to EWTN so that we can have a Catholic radio station in the area that can be heard. Another tax write off.
Now for the best signal in Eastern North Carolina, 100.7. Sell it to Curtis Media at a loss, another tax write off. Then we can have a decent local talk station on FM. Simulcast WPTF.
Now for 106.1. Cook the chicken “Rooster” and convert it to 850 WRBZ so that the sports listeners can have a sports signal on FM.
I have switched to XM about 6 months ago and really don’t care to look back at terrestial radio.

100.7 was the oldies station here for many many years until Clear Channel decided to change it to the River. Now they’ve pulled a half back, not back to the original Oldies 100.7 but between that and The River. Fine, 102.9 has done a decent job of filling in the Oldies 100.7 void.
However, to take away 106.1 WRDU, the was a big mistake. WRDU had been around for over 20 years and was one of the longest running Raleigh based radio stations. Plus we don’t like Dumb Boy and Silly, sorry. They replaced Silva and Bob the Blade (the was someone before Bob also) with Dumb Boy and Silly on 106.1 years ago, and we didn’t like them then. They are idiots.
Bring Back 106.1 WRDU.

Adult alternative blows pecker. I’d rather listen to the same GOOD songs over and over than listen to that watered down sorry excuse for music. Wake up sheep people.