Rome Radio Partners has dumped its Christian pop station Life 93.5 in favor of a country format called Southern 93.5 starting June 2.
"It's going to be a companion to South 107, a fun station" said Howard Toole, owner of Rome Radio. The music will skew older than sister station South 107, similar to the way Eagle 106.7 positioned itself with Kicks 101.5 from 2000 to 2008.
He said it will be mostly contemporary country with more emphasis on the 1990s than South 107. He will also throw in occasional classic from Patsy Cline or Kitty Wells every three or four hours. The station will also share some air talent with South 107.
"I think it will serve Northwest Georgia well," Toole said. "It's designed more for that area than Atlanta. It will have a more local feel" than South 107, which now references Atlanta more often than it used to during traffic and weather reports.
WSRM-FM/93.5 primarily covers Northwest Georgia but can also be heard in Cherokee, Bartow and Paulding counties and reaches into parts of Cobb County as well.
For the next two days, 93.5 will be stunting with all Johnny Cash songs, followed by the top 500 country classic songs of all time over Memorial Day weekend. The station will stay jockless and commercial free until Monday June 2, when the new format will be officially launched.
Moby, who has been the syndicated morning show on sister station South 107.1 for several years, will move to 93.5. The former Kicks 101.5 morning host, who now syndicated on about 10 stations, will simulcast on South and Southern for four weeks. Toole said a new locally-based morning show will debut in early July on South 107.
A few years ago, WSRM-FM was a simulcast of the Rome-based AM news station WRGA but when the station signal was raised to a higher level, it caused conflicts with News 95.5 and AM 750 WSB. Toole was forced to change to a new format. The Christian contemporary Life lasted three years but "financially, it never paid off the way we had hoped," Toole said.
Toole said South 107's translator 107.1 signal in metro Atlanta, which debuted earlier this year, doesn't quite meld perfectly with the regular 107.1 signal. There is still a conflict at points in Cobb County between the two signals. Toole said he is trying to make the transition seamless. "It's a work in progress," he said. He said they may have to "reinstall" the tower. "It's not been one of the easier engineering feats," he said.
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