Orlando: 95.3 Party becomes "Power"

[arkansasmike]

Orlando's best radio station, 95.3 Party, playing dance songs as well as some R&B has switched over to just R&B and Rap. 95.3 gave some great artist's their first step to future success including Rockell and Terra Skye. RIP 95.3

[ct2874]

Sounds like CC bought it (I don't think they were
previously owned by them)and made it another cookie=
cutter station (Similar to the ilk of Kiss and Mix for
Pop and AC, respectively)

[reception]

power953.com

Listen live here
mms://66.250.188.13/wpyo_fm

[EvanJ]

I heard about this a while ago but I didn't hear about any sale.

[reception]

100000watts says WPYO is owned by Cox Radio Inc. It's also listed at the Cox website.

[EvanJ]

I know it's owned by Cox.
ct2874, format changes are much more common than ownership changes. I wouldn't recommend predicting an ownership change based on a format change.

[mst3k]

EvanJ said:

ct2874, format changes are much more common than ownership changes. I wouldn't recommend predicting an ownership change based on a format change.

I think he was basing his guess on the title of the thread (which implied that the station was becoming "The Beat", instead of the correct name "Power"). A Clear Channel station here in Tampa recently switched to Urban/Hip-Hop under the moniker "The Beat".

[RRMusicGuy]

mst3k1 said:

I think he was basing his guess on the title of the thread (which implied that the station was becoming "The Beat", instead of the correct name "Power"). A Clear Channel station here in Tampa recently switched to Urban/Hip-Hop under the moniker "The Beat".

why all this format flopping?

[mst3k]

RR said:

why all this format flopping?

Generally it boils down to money. In the case of the switch in Tampa Bay, Clear Channel saw how successful Infinity's Wild 98.7 (CHR/Rhythmic) was against CC's 93.3 FLZ (which had been a rhythmic-leaning CHR/Pop station). So they decided to take their Hot AC Star 95.7 and flip it to Urban/Hip-Hop 95.7 The Beat. Thus leaving Tampa Bay with no true Hot AC station, and depriving us listeners (a lot of the music on Star was stuff no other Tampa station played).

[EvanJ]

mst3k1, you have two Adult Contemporary stations and a Soft AC. Should one of them switch to Hot AC? The market also has two Classic Rock stations and a Classic Hits stations with low enough ratings that one of them should consider a format change. The biggest two markets and three of the biggest five markets in Florida now have no Hot AC station in the ratings (when Arbitron changes WSSR's format) or a Hot AC station with a rating of 0.5 or less.
Cox has a big market "Beat" station also, WBTS Atlanta. Clear Channel has made "Power" Urban stations so both Cox and Clear Channel have "Beat" and "Power" stations.
I once made the same mistake ct2874 made, I assumed that "The Beat Of The Bay," KBTU in Moterey-Salinas-Santa Cruz would be owned by the same company as "The Beat of New York," WKTU (Clear Channel). KBTU is owned by Mapleton. It was CHR-Rhythmic and was way behind the Clear Channel CHR-Rhythmic so it changed formats and there is now Oldies simulcast KBTU/KTEE. However, I looked up what company owned the station right then.
I have read that the limit for one company in one market is 5 FMs (and 8 total). Clear Channel has five in Orlando so I don't know if they could buy WPYO if they wanted to. Despite the limit, Clear Channel has 17 stations in the Sarasota-Brandenton ratings. Other markets where Clear Channel has more than 8 stations include 8 stations and controlling 5 Mexican stations in San Diego and 11 stations in Cincinnati.

[Lenny]

damn! they quit party?? :'(

that's sooo sad cause i always tuned in to party when i' was in the area. i liked it much more than xl. why they wanna compete with 102 jamz??

i don't get that...

[Lenny]

wow, looks like they made the right choice. bigegst gainer in orlando :o

from 2.2% to 4.8% and they're in 6th position now. even bigger than wxxl :o