Access Atlanta > Entertainment > Radio Talk > Archives > 2006 > May > 04 > Entry
5/4: The story on the River for Friday’s paper
The Atlanta Journal-Constitution
Here’s what I wrote for Friday’s paper on the River’s mondo opening:
A flood of listeners jumped into The River, the new rock station at 97.1 FM launched on New Year’s Day this year.
The station — which plays rock hits mostly from the 1970s and 1980s by acts such as Fleetwood Mac, Elton John and Aerosmith — had one of the biggest debuts in recent Atlanta radio history, opening in fourth place in this winter’s ratings. It finished behind only R&B/hip-hop powerhouse V-103 FM, news/talk mainstay WSB-AM and gospel station Praise 97.5 FM.
More than 540,000 metro Atlantans, on average, tuned in during any given week this past winter, according to the Arbitron ratings covering January 5 to March 29.
“It was incredible,” said Chris Wegmann, market manager for Cox Radio Atlanta, part of Cox Enterprises, which also owns the Atlanta Journal Constitution. “Now our challenge is to maintain the momentum.”
To draw new listeners, Cox spent several hundred thousand dollars advertising the River on TV, and the station broadcast its first month with no commercials. It now runs just eight ads an hour, far fewer than other music stations in the market. The River also is DJ-free at the moment, but Wegmann said the station plans to add morning and late-afternoon jocks — though they won’t talk much.
He said the station filled a gap among 30- to 54-year-olds for a music-heavy rock station focused on familiar songs. The River tends to be more female friendly than testosterone-driven 96rock and much less eclectic than 92.9/Dave FM. It also features a relatively small playlist of about 300 songs, a formula replicated from successful Cox radio stations in other markets.
The River’s debut appeared to ding a host of rival stations to various degrees, including 96rock, Star 94, Lite 94.9, the Fish 104.7 and Dave FM.
Buzz Casey, program director at 96rock, played down the new station’s success. He said music-intensive stations in other markets have made splashy debuts before. “They’d be absolutely huge for six or nine months,” he said, “then taper off quickly and settle in the middle of the pack.”
The FM signal 97.1, which covers the north side of metro Atlanta well, used to be Fox 97, the “good times and great oldies” station that was hugely popular in the 1990s. But it stumbled in its final years under Cox Radio ownership as the audience aged and tired of the station’s tight playlist. Former Fox 97 morning show host Spiff Carner joked in 2003 that it was “good times and eight oldies.”
Cox dumped Fox in early 2003 and launched Jamz, an R&B/hip-hop station targeting blacks in their 30s and 40s with a mix of hits from the ’80s, ’90s and today. It ran without jocks and spent a lot of airtime bashing rival V-103. In the end, it never gained any real ratings traction.
“It was a noble experiment,” Wegmann said. “It didn’t work.”
Comments
By surftrip
May 5, 2006 01:13 PM | Link to this
My wife loves the station …and so does everyone that I know that digs classic rock. Rodney expressed it well - sandwiched between the howard wanna-be’s at 96Rock and the Jam band fanatics at DaveFM. …less talk, more tunes.
Plus Cox simply knows how to manage. No denying it …despite some failures.
Personally, I’m all about satellite radio but professionally I advertise in Radio - or used to - I wouldn’t touch a local station with a ten foot pole right now. Maybe 790, but their egos have grown larger than their demo and pricing is outta sight…
Good advertisers know radio is DEAD …it’s all about the ‘net. Pay-per-click, search engine optimization and co-brands are actually measureable and effective…
By bud
May 5, 2006 02:32 PM | Link to this
Brave words from Buzz Casey…The River is at a 5.0 for Winter ‘06 and 96 Rock is down from a 2.5 to a 2.1 and finally a 1.9 for the latest period. You’ve got to shell out big bucks for the Braves and the Regular guys and your revenue is going down, down, down.
I wish you the best in all of your future endeavors, Mr. Casey…
Bud
By jg
May 8, 2006 03:38 PM | Link to this
this station is good if all you like is fleetwood-mac, elton , and the beatles, and only those bands. plus the river runs through every other station ,from 88 - 101, espcially in north gwinett, i fight this problem every morning at work, i finally just put in a disk.