WYUU flips from Country to "Latin Tropical"

[Perp]

R&R and Billboard lost a reporting station on August 7th when Infinity Broadcasting switched Tampa's WYUU to Latin Tropical.  The full story is here, including an MP3 of the very abrupt switch from English to Spanish-only that came out of nowhere, and some still images from WYUU's on-air webcam taken during the flip...

www.loupickney.com/radio/wyuu.shtml

Our fellow messageboard member Austin was ticked off because he was hoping to hear SHeDAISY co-hosting Lon Helton's Country Countdown USA later that evening on that station. ??? Austin, I have the entire broadcast saved in a lo-fi 22MB Windows Media file and I'll get a copy to you, somehow. 

[Perp]

Here's WYUU's daily playlist if you want to watch the daily progress as more and more songs experience fewer spins each day.  Even with zero spins since the Sunday evening flip, Gretchen had 85 (!) spins there in the past 7 days, but those will all be going bye-bye. 

www.mmr247.com/mmrweb/AllAccess/Stations.asp?c_let=WYUU-FM

All the songs listed will be taking the hit, but the ones with the most to lose are the ones by Sugarland, Van Zant, Brooks & Dunn, Tim McGraw, Toby, Jason Aldean, and Faith.  Each of them have over 40 spins there  Faith is already down a whopping 57 spins from her 99 of a week ago.

I wonder if R&R and Billboard will be adding another station soon to replace WYUU?

[northerncountry]

I noticed that today on the MB chart. When you looked at the "Taking Off" section, there were at least 3-4 Latin Tropical songs on the list with spins coming from WYUU. I'm not sure if its been updated yet to exclude these songs. If not, they'll all be in the Top 5 in that section tomorrow.

And I did see that Gretchen Wilson had 115 spins at WYUU last week, so that is a big loss for her. Considering how quickly she is moving up, it probably won't matter all that much to her anyway.

[Perp]

Interesting to see those spanish songs in the Taking Off chart.... Ay Carumba! Thanks for pointing that out.

Here's a Billboard article about the flip...

Infinity Flips Tampa's 'Outlaw' To 'La Nueva'
Aug. 07, 2005
By Ken Tucker

Infinity has flipped country/rock hybrid WYUU (Outlaw 92.5) Tampa to Spanish as "La Nueva 92.5, Tampa Bay's Latin Music Station." The new format, which debuted following WYUU’s coverage of the NASCAR Brickyard 400 race on Sunday (Aug. 7), features a mix of tropical, salsa, Spanish top 40 and reggaeton, creating a blend the station calls "the best of the Latin music styles."

Oldies sister WRBQ (Q 105) MD Rico Blanco has been named PD for La Nueva, which is currently running jockless.

WYUU had been considered a flanker to mainstream sister WQYK, but its position may have been diminished by Clear Channel’s flip of classic rock WTBT to country as WFUS (US 103.5) in April. WQYK morning man Skip Mahaffey and most of his team defected to WFUS upon its launch, though Mahaffey is currently sitting out a non-compete.

As a country station, WYUU is likely to be missed by the Nashville music community since it was not shy about championing new music. “If it sounds good, I’ll play it,” WYUU MD Jay Roberts recently told Billboard Radio Monitor.

In the same interview, OM Mike Culotta said the station has been among the first in the country to play eventual stars such as Gretchen Wilson and Big & Rich. He said the station often gave labels a "story" to tell to other country stations.

In the spring Arbitron book, Outlaw was tied for No. 19 place in the market 12-plus with a 1.6 share.

Luis Albertini, who had previously worked for Spanish Broadcasting System, joined Infinity/Tampa Bay in June as VP/GM for WYUU, country WQYK and talk WBZZ.

Source: billboardradiomonitor.com/radiomonitor/news/format/latin/article_display.jsp?vnu_content_id=1001010848

[Dustin J.]

perpetualemotion said:

As a country station, WYUU is likely to be missed by the Nashville music community since it was not shy about championing new music. “If it sounds good, I’ll play it,” WYUU MD Jay Roberts recently told Billboard Radio Monitor.

We need more stations with that attitude.

[Zazie]

They did play new music sometimes. But also they gave established songs 100+ spins a week on many occasions, and I can do without that distortion of the charts. Isn't this the station that played Pat Green's Baby Doll 100 times the week after the song went recurrent? Too weird to be useful.

[Perp]

Mediabase removed WYUU from the R&R panel, so the detail chart on that station's playlist is no longer available, and those spanish songs no longer appear on the Taking Off chart.

[northerncountry]

perpetualemotion said:

Mediabase removed WYUU from the R&R panel, so the detail chart on that station's playlist is no longer available, and those spanish songs no longer appear on the Taking Off chart.

If you'd like to what songs will be effected for next week's chart, here were the spin totals for the songs that they played the most last week.

With 106, Gretchen was the clear leader.

These songs had between 49 and 56 spins: Something More, Help Somebody, Play Something Country, Do You Want Fries With That, As Good As I Once Was, Mississippi Girl and Hicktown.

In the 27-30 range were Keg in the Closet and Fast Cars and Freedom.

In the 15-22 range were: Billy's Got His Beer Goggles On, Good People, 4th of July, It's a Heartache, Boondocks, Alcohol, Good Ole Days, You're Like Comin' Home, A Real Fine Plae to Start, Something To Be Proud Of, Redneck Yacht Club, Hillbillies and XXL.

[[upsilon]™]

What a random change; that sucks. I didn't even know Tampa had a country station.

[Pink Champagne Ricochet]

upsilon710 said:

What a random change; that sucks. I didn't even know Tampa had a country station.

when my family has taken road trips up from Miami towards northern Florida, when there's absolutely no other signals you can still get several country stations, so i'm not surprised, especially since Hispanic populations are growing every day.

besides, Tampa still has two country stations; this stations' more mainstream sister station, plus another from Clear Channel. granted, this station seems to have been cool about breaking new music, which is sorely needed in ALL formats. but I don't think at least one of those stations is gonna go anywhere anytime soon; hell if the MIAMI market of the over 50% Hispanic population can support Kiss 99.9 decently enough, so can they.

[northerncountry]

This now has nothing to do with country music - but I found it interesting. In looking at the debuts and re-entries on the Latin Tropical Airplay charts for this week, there are 12 debuts and 2 re-entries in a 40-position chart. That's 35% of the chart that has changed from the previous week. The highest debut is at #10.

I don't normally look at this chart, but I can't believe the changeover is that quick on a normal week. I'm thinking that the playlist at WYUU had something to do with the massive changes on that chart. Don't think that corresponds to much of a difference on the country chart this week, though.