Great CHR's!

[The Music Man]

Well, in an attempt to liven up this always-active radio board here at Pulse for the radio freaks among us, I thought I'd start a thread about some of our favorite CHR stations, in no particular order.

1. WHTZ-FM/New York, Z100: The one and only, how can you not love this station? The music selection is kick-ass. They do a great job in spiking in hits from a while back and other stuff that's not neccessarily achieving mega-hit status, while staying up to date with the current hits and not crossing the line into "all over the road." The station is fast-paced and fun, and probably my favorite CHR in the USA.

2. WFBC-FM/Greenville-Spartanburg, B93.7: CHR is at its finest in the Carolinas, and this is the cream of the crop. Airstaff is top-notch, I really like Dino at night...and the music selection, similar to Z100, keeps it interesting but sticks to the hits at the same time. Imaging is hilarious. Some of my favorite liners:

"Licensed by the F-C-C...approved by the F-D-A...and kicking a whole lot of A-S-S..."

and something to the degree of "The call letters: WFBC-FM. City: G-SP. Frequency: 93.7 FM. The owner: in a whole lot of trouble."

3. WFLZ/Tampa, 93-3 FLZ: It's been a while since I've listened to them, and I need to catch up, they've gone through some airstaff changes recently. But who can't love FLZ? They're fun to listen to and I always look forward to checking them out when I'm in the area.

4. KZHT/Salt Lake City, 97-1 ZHT: The Z100 of Utah. I have to admit, I hadn't heard a whole lot about the station before I visited SLC this summer, so I wasn't sure what to expect. I found a great station...music selection was great, actually similar to Z100. They sounded great from every angle, music was right on and I even heard songs like "Nobody Knows" by The Tony Rich Project. Not a song you hear on CHR every day in this day and age. Jocks are pretty good from what I heard...Geller, outgoing night guy, is great.

5. WWWQ/Atlanta, All The Hits Q100: Okay, so the "All The Hits" moniker gets annoying after a while. But still a great CHR nonetheless, in a market where the format is available in numerous places. The Bert Show is one of ATL's biggest morning shows, and the promotions are clever and cool. The "$10,000 Yeah! was pretty neat" and when it came time to find a new night show, they had the "Night Show Showdown", where 4 night shows came in, did their thing, and the listeners voted, which was very cool...and Geller from KZHT won :). One thing I wouldn't mind them doing is broadening the music selection just a bit. Other than that, they're fantastic, and I wish Susquehanna would give them the stronger signal at 99.7 so they could be even more of a competitor.

Those are my top 5 favorites. Time for y'all to chime in!

[tico]

As a former Atlanta, I liked listening to Q100. The Bert Show is one of the best morning shows I ever heard. Even though they don't play a lot of music, the things they do like "Phone Scams" kept me rolling. I don't know if they still do it, but when former cast member Lindsay Brien was there, they used to have a segment called War of the Roses in which someone would call in wondering if their spouse of significant other was cheating, so Lindsay would call the other person pretending to work for a new florist and offering to give free flowers to their sweethearts generate new business. Lindsey would then ask the recipient in question who he/she would like to send the flowers to. There have been a few who've been busted.

I also liked B93.7. For a small-market CHR, they're really good. They had a really wide playlist, too. Sometimes, B would get interference from the Macon station also at 93.7. B does, however, come in really good around the Mall of Georgia.

There's also a CHR I used to like back in the day: WFMF Baton Rouge. It's not nearly as good as it was before Clear Channel got a hold of them.

[The Music Man]

Wow, so much input! Does anyone here listen to CHR?

Caught up with WFLZ this weekend...damn, they're GOOD. Imaging, jocks and music are all top-notch. They play the HITS, and they're not nearly as Rhythmic as they once were...in one break, you might hear Gavin DeGraw's "Chariot" and in another, Big Pun's "Still Not A Player", and of course they play the heck out of Gwen, Kelly, Green Day, Usher, etc., but they sound great doing it. They're going to have to battle it out with Z100 for best CHR...

[MisterVegas]

Cumulus's Hot 101 (WHOT) in Youngstown, OH and Entercom's Kiss 98.5 (WKSE) in Buffalo are both excellent CHR stations that have very wide playlists with a good mix of currents, recurrents, and gold without the repetition you hear on most CC stations. You can listen to these stations for hours on end and not get bored with them which is very rare these days. Very good air personalities as well.

[friday]

Well, I've only listened to two Pop stations, Z100, and KBKS in Seattle. Z100 is great.

KBKS (Kiss 106.1, but they're owned by Infinity not Clear Channel) really just seems like an average station. They don't seem to add songs too early or late, and they don't seem really lean toward either hip-hop or rock. The DJs are just cookie-cutter, though, and I really don't care for them. The morning show kinda sucks though, although every year they hold a week-long charity fundraiser for some children's hospital in the Seattle area, which is cool, even though it does cut into airplay. But I wish they had more livelier, personable DJs, kinda like what Z100 has.

To be honest, though, I really don't listen to Kiss as much as I did Z100. I guess that's just a combination of pop music declining in quality, the station being lower in quality, and not getting it on a clear signal right now, among other factors.

[KelownaGuy20]

There are no CHR stations in my city, and the only CHR station I've listened to in the past 3 years is Vibe 98.5 in Calgary.

I really liked it, but then again, I'm not used to that kinda radio station, so compared to what I have in Kelowna, almost anything would be wonderful.

My friend Natalee Taylor just started working at Edmonton's new Rhythmic-CHR The Bounce, so I'm gonna have to tune into that online sometime.

[Pink Champagne Ricochet]

they used to have a segment called War of the Roses in which someone would call in wondering if their spouse of significant other was cheating, so Lindsay would call the other person pretending to work for a new florist and offering to give free flowers to their sweethearts generate new business. Lindsey would then ask the recipient in question who he/she would like to send the flowers to. There have been a few who've been busted.

Are they Clear Channel? Because Y100 in Miami does the exact same thing. It's funny, but still.

[Slinky]

The "War of the Roses" bits are mostly staged.

[EvanJ]

splitchick59 said:

Are they Clear Channel? Because Y100 in Miami does the exact same thing. It's funny, but still.

Golden Eagle Boy posted about WWWQ Atlanta which is owned by Susquehanna, so the answer is no.