WCHI-FM 95.5--How long have they been around? Three years or so? Clearly, Chicago is not responding to their music. How much longer will iHeartMedia tolerate this? Maybe they bill well enough.
WLS-AM and WMVP-AM. Is this as good as it gets?
ADMIN NOTE: Edited link to rating (Thanks Hunter for letting us know)
Posted by Jeremy Andrews on July 11, 2023, 5:01 pm, in reply to "June 2023 PPM Ratings"
100.3 is and has been a flanker for WTMX for a long time
B96 is actually doing better than they have been with the music change. Not much, but it's obvious the current music and lack of a younger audience is a problem.
WCHI does good in certain demos.
Most likely, but they make money. WMVP in particular. Sports stations don't usually need high ratings to make money.
Hunter, 5, 10, 15+ years ago, stations had pride. You were underperforming, you skewed the format (ie: CHR or Urban), you upped the game (promotion, new talent, music research) or you flipped. Period. Today? Mediocre is ok, especially since you have people working 5 duties in an underpaid salary.
SHE is a train wreck. What the heck is that music mix? Is that YouTube's or Pandora's curation AI drunk or after smoking a J?
B is a joke and a shadow of its past glory. The worst part right now? Not the music. Their jocks are PAINFULLY voice tracked. Badly too. It is an attempt to nationalize and go for the "lifestyle" aspect of CHR, which iHeart has it locked up online.
WCHI. Trying to be the "best of both worlds" Hard rock + Alt gold. In a market where the White demos and music tastes have been shifting for years, rock is not what it used to be.
WLS-AM is in a Liberal market. They are more concerned to run the Right leaning political national programming to get national clearance than invest in local live voices that can resonate with local Right leaning listeners discussing Chicago topics. The listeners that listen to Right leaning radio tend to be really older and non ethnic. Again, tough in a large city like Chicago. I am surprised they are doing as well as they are.
Terrestrial radio has ZERO clue. They have missed every opportunity. They need to stop this stupid crap they conducting. When someone has cancer they do not keep smoking thinking they will prolong life unless they want to exit faster. TR needs to focus on who their P1 is. Right now it is 25 - 54. People that will deal with or be forced to listen to 20+ minutes of commercials an hour. Hit on the mass appeal Adult formats. Not an issue doing younger formats, but your younger audience is GONE! (How many years did radio execs say Active/Hard rock listeners were drunk and unemployed while Dance radio listeners were only Trans and Drag queens listening? That is Ok whoever listened to those are now gone to online sources). Also, screw what research says. You can have something online does not have. Called LIVE jocks and a local audience. Put some money in it, you will reap it back. Otherwise, people will check out. I have pretty much. When I scan the dial, it can be 30 days later and it is the exact same nonsense. Why bother?
100.3 is by design. They suddenly got one of the highest books they had in a long time and immediately changed it. Again, flanker for WTMX.
I said this elsewhere, I might have said it here, but B96's problems were always much more than the music. So what did they do? They changed the music.
WCHI is a rarity aside from their music. Their talent is all live and local. That unfortunately doesn't help them all that much. They have a good airstaff in general. Some are Sag-Aftra, some are not. The format is basically modernized Classic Rock. 95.9 The River is somewhat similar lately. Lot of 90s Hot AC and 2000s Alternative mixed in with the Classic Rock. It's all over the place. They however have a 21 year heritage out there in the suburbs and it works fine for that area.
WLS, aside from Steve Cochran and John Howell, it's doing exactly what you said. Clearing programming.
WLS is average. Your typical Conservative Talk station has maybe 1 or 2 local hosts surrounded by the usual network junk. WLS actually has it good. Some are all network. They lease it out to infomercials all weekend, which is actually another common thing with Conservative Talk stations.
Salem always did the same thing with their Religious Preaching stations for years. A lot of those shows had no weekend editions, so they would lease it out to people selling herbal garbage in the form of a fake talk show. Listeners would fall for it too.
B96 is impossible for me to listen to these days. It has been for awhile. The music wasn't too bad when CHR was still tolerable a few years ago, but they were always overshadowed by 103.5 which beginning in 2013 figured out how to present themselves better. 103.5 was AWFUL from 2007-2013.
And yes, people do buy those herbal products they sell on those infomercials. I knew people who did. They believed since it was on, figure WYLL it must have been good. It's good money for the stations that otherwise wouldn't have anything to air other than repeats on the weekends
Jeremy, you are correct again, a lot of people fall for informercials as being legit shows. Even WGN9 news in the AM does a good job (too good), esp in the 9AM hour, bringing on doctors to make it look like it is a guest visitor when they are pushing their own practice as an advertisement.
KISS 103.5 was *really* bad too when they launched and past the point when Energy went off the air. It was really, really bad. The music, the presentation and of course the automation which you recall clearly. Pyke and Java Joel were the only good thing on that station at first. Sorry even Rick Party was out of the demo and just did not fit in.
Jeremy whatever happened to Jill Osterman aka "Silly Jilly" on KISS? I know she ended up in Houston? But haven't heard anything in ages about her.
2007-2013 they were using WGCI's voice guy Dr. Dave. On both stations. They stopped producing imaging for 103.5. Went with dry liners. They would let songs fade to silence before another one would start up. They basically gave up trying to compete against B96 and basically became B96. I have an aircheck from that period. It was literally a jockless shift with the same exact dry liner playing in between each song.
In 2013 they brought a new PD in. They slowly started adding jingles again. They started doing imaging again. Got the station it's own voice guy. Adjusted the music to sound more Mainstream CHR again. B96 quickly followed suit that same year.
As for Silly Jilly, they were recently in Nashville. She's still on there but I would assume she does this show remotely from St. Louis as her husband is afternoons on KSHE now https://1059therock.iheart.com/featured/jilly-music/
WCHI has only one thing the really annoys the s*** out of me. It’s the promo + ID voiceovers (whatever the correct term is). It sounds so sophomoric to me, and not just because I’m an old guy. The guy’s voice is just grating. The voiceovers and IDs for Q-Rock 100.7 actually sound spot on for their format and more professional.
There has definitely been some shifting of the WCHI playlist over the past couple months, but I still feel like they’re trying to figure out if the format can work at all. There is a nostalgic part of me that just wants them to try rebranding as 95½ WMET but instead of pure Classic Rock, stick with an Active Rock and classic/hard rock blend. There probably aren’t enough old farts like me who would appreciate it enough to bring in a viable share, though.
on July 11, 2023, 5:01 pm, in reply to "