Chicago's Fresh 105.9 on it's way out.

[musicfanpete]

FYI it was annoucned today that Chicago's Fresh 105.9 will be dumped by August 1st to make way for a simulcast of its powerhouse sister news station WBBM AM. Fresh ranked 22nd with a 1.9 overall rating in the latest PPM ratings, but did have a decent cume of over 1.4 million listeners a week. They obviously did not spend a lot of time listening though. This move will give more people the opportunity to listen to the news format on an FM signal, something that was difficult for many people in the downtown Chicago area on an AM signal that was difficult to penetrate through all the skyscrapers. But at least in Chicago, the Fresh "experiment" did not go over so well.

[dth1971]

Remember the 1991-1995 simucast of WLS Talkradio 890 AM on 94.7 FM in the Chicago area?

[musicfanpete]

Jul 15, 2011 22:50:37 GMT -5 dth1971 said:

Remember the 1991-1995 simucast of WLS Talkradio 890 AM on 94.7 FM in the Chicago area?

Yeah, I don't think that worked out too well as far as ratings on the FM side were concerned, but that was an all-talk format versus an all-news format. Also once that "experiment" in 1995 ended, 94.7 FM tried a younger skewing talk format that failed miserably and was gone within a year or two. They had a former Peoria, IL DJ, a former Chicago morning DJ in Robert Murphy who ironically was the morning guy at Q101 in the 80's and early 90's when they were still a Hot AC station (Q101 was blown up this week to make way for a possible news/talk format), and Richard Roeper who back then and still now is a columnist for the Chicago Suntimes.

The only one of those three amongst the others that were on this station that is still in radio is Roeper in afternoons with Roe Conn on their sister station WLS 890 AM. And they just extended their contracts for quite a few more years as they get great ratings and are about to change ownership.

But to tie all of this into the AC thread, it will be interesting to see if this upcoming WBBM news simulcast will work out. According to management, Fresh 105.9 was profitable and had a very solid cume of 1.4 million listeners a week despite their very mediocre 1.9 rating that was tied for 20th overall in the market. My gut tells me that the FM side will be a 2 to 3 share station, but perhaps cutting in to the 5+ share on the AM side, though those who work in downtown Chicago now can actually pick up the station on the FM dial as the AM signal has trouble penetrating the buildings down there. But will the FM side be more profitable than Fresh FM was? Only time will tell, especially if Q101 does indeed flip to news/talk in the next week or two.