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Saturday, November 29, 2008
11/29: The Bull goes commercial free for a week
The Atlanta Journal-Constitution
Starting at noon Thanksgiving, 94.9/The Bull has been going 3,000 songs on a row commercial free. The boss Clay Hunnicutt said that this should take about a week, at 16 to 18 songs an hour.
The DJs get the week off, too. (The station got rid of Cledus T. Judd last week but everyone else is apparently still there.) Hunnicutt said this is a present to the listeners. In a sense, it’s a bit of a reboot for the country station which will include some new branding, too. The Bull has been trying to find its footing since its launch two years ago. It hasn’t been able to make a big dent against Kicks 101.5, even with the departure of Eagle 106.7 in February. It started with more oldies than Kicks and even a few Southern rock cuts, a hybrid of Eagle and Kicks. But now it sounds more like Kicks in its music mix.
He said advertisers who can’t advertise on the station for an entire week during the shopping season are being accommodated later.
Radio stations are undergoing some modest changes in the way they are measured for advertisers. Instead of relying on people’s recalls, measurement is now based on actual listening. The preliminary numbers were very poor for the Bull. Early evidence is also showing less talk on music stations and fewer ads help generate more listening. That isn’t a big surprise. The Bull appears to be trying to draw some listeners at this time of year by going commercial free even at the expense of revenue.
And the station is not going all Christmas, the first time 94.9 has skipped this format since 1999. (It was all Christmas from 2000 to most of the way through 2006 as Peach/Lite and did a country xmas a year ago). In fact, Atlanta will only have two Christmas stations (B98.5 and 104.7/The Fish) instead of three for the first time in several years.
Instead, Hunnicutt said they are airing three/four Christmas songs an hour.
Here was a typical hour today at 2 p.m.
Kenny Chesney “She Thinks My Tractor’s Sexy”
Jason Aldean “We Laughed Untl We Cried”
George Strait “River of Love”
Jose Feliciano “Feliz Navidad”
Sammy Kershaw “She Don’t Know She’s Beautiful”
Sugarland “Already Gone”
Toby Keith “Who’s Your Daddy”
Rodney Atkins “Cleaning This Gun”
Trace Adkins “Ladies Love Country Boys”
Martina McBride “Hark! The Herald Angels Sing”
Tim McGraw “Just To See You Smile”
Taylor Swift “Love Story”
Luke Bryan “Country Man”
Brad Paisley “Little Moments”
The Lost Trailers “Holler Back”
Brooks & Dunn “Rock My World”
Elvis Presley “Blue Christmas”
Kenny Chesney “Keg In the Closet”
