99.9 KOLA-FM Riverside-San Bernardino, Classic Hits. #1 in Market #26
Posted by WYTZZ95FM on June 28, 2024, 2:12 pm
I ran across this gem a few weeks ago. Z, a terrestrial radio gem? Yes! It is Market #26, not a small market. The station is #1 between an 8.3 - 11.7 share. They are an independently owned station, no other sister stations, anywhere that I can find. Man, you want to talk about a rarity?
The AM drive show is tight. Jesse Duran seems to be from the Midwest has made a few references. His 2 sidekicks are awesome and they mesh. The show is totally female aimed, but Men can listen w/o cringing. They take phones, both Male and Female callers. it is *not* staged actors, this is real people, contests, call in to trivia questions etc. The other on air staff is pretty "safe" but they are very interactive with the audience. Yes, phoners on those shifts too. I am pretty convinced the station is NOT run off a VT hard drive.
The music is where it shines. Mind you the ethnic makeup is, Population: 2,166,600 (Black: 188,800) (Hispanic: 1,211,100). More Hispanic % population than Chicago. But, the staple artist are Madonna, Def Leppard, MJ, Journey, Prince, Gwen Stefani and No Doubt, Bon Jovi, Lady Gaga. Focus is roughly 1980 - 2005, which is a wide spread. I have heard all your 80s hits along with Inner City, Soul to Soul, AC/DC, Rick Springfield, Bob Marley, Katy Perry, Expose, Shaggy, Faith Hill, Goo Goo Dolls, Nickelback, Sugar Ray, GNR, Bee Gees, Warren G (Regulate), Black Street (No Diggity).... I can go on. (Be assured, a discussion with Todd @ WLS-FM, which is a nice guy, will tell you that the research indicates these test poorly, like most of the 90s do).
This is a REAL Classic Hits station: Nor is it small market as it lays right up against LA. I recommend you check it out. The stream does not block commercials either due to your region.
Gary Springfield PD & staff, major kudos, your product offered beats Chicago Radio's ass all day long.
Listened all weekend. Great station. Variety is the attention grabber for me. Presentation is solid. Never got boring. Great pool floating music. Thanks for the tip. I downloaded their app and it will be a regular in the car and office!
I haven't listened to them in a long time. Thanks Shizam. I will try it. (Pretty sure you were referencing WYTZ and not me but I'll try K-Earth again!)
Audacy can go to hell. Their future goal is to go "nationwide DJs". Regional or nationwide jocks, with cookie cutter programming everywhere. Nice game plan like EMF except to the masses.
iHeart is just as bad. Their future goal is to turn off ALL AM and FM terrestrial transmitters and serve over apps. Nice game plan to save a ton of money and squash small net casters. Until one smart the idea is a national security threat when the internet goes down one day or we get invaded by foreign entities, via conventional war practices or collapsing our communication grid.
KOLA is an INDEPENDENT terrestrial station serving Market #26 as the #1 station and gave them a shout out because of those facts.
One reason I don't tune in to WLS-94 is that it's too rock-heavy (at least it was). Another reason is that the station always loads a commercial whenever I play the station. I hate when stations do that! I'm not going to sit through a 30 sec ad before the station loads.
Not that I listen to Audacy stations anyway, but I'm not going to their site to listen to their stations when I mainly use a VLC media player to listen to all my online radio stations. At least iHeart URL streams are available (or they used to be). iHeart has several online-only stations on their site. I occasionally tune in to their 90s dance station, freestyle and their classic funk/R&B station but the playlists for each are so stale and repetitive. In comparison, long-defunct addictedtoradio's playlists for their stations were much larger. But all of that is another topic for another day.
on June 28, 2024, 2:12 pm
