Another Big Market Station Changes To Sports

[EvanJ]

www.radio-info.com/mods/board.php?Post=132569&Board=virginia
WCMS-FM is Classic Country and is eighth and 0.1 ahead of sister Country station WGH-FM. Barnstable also owns Sports WGH-AM so they chose to own two Sports stations. Sports is not that popular a format and I expect their rating to go way down.
As part of a multiple station switch last year, Kansas City Country station WDAF-AM changed to Sports KCSP-AM and they went way down with their rating cut in half in one book and they fell from fourth to tied sixteenth. Their rating is down 60.6 percent in nine months. WDAF-AM is 1.0 behind popular Sports stations WHB-AM. With the two stations combined, Kansas City has the highest Sports rating of any market I know of offhand.
That's two cases of a big market Country station changing to Sports. WCMS-FM changed from Country to Country Oldies last year.

[Slinky]

Good citation :)

I think you misinterpreted the post though.

WCMS (FM) was Country, then Classic Country. At the end of November, WCMS (FM) switched to Mainstream Rock and is now WXMM.

WCMS (AM) is the station they're talking about in the post you linked to. WCMS (AM) was formerly Standards as WFOG. Then when WCMS (FM) became Mainstream Rock in November, the Classic Country format and calls were moved to AM. Now, WCMS (AM) is flipping to Sports.

The R&R Ratings site, which is what I assume you used to find the formats, has not yet updated the calls or format of the former WCMS or WFOG. Take a look at www.vartv.com/hamptonroads.htm for more details.

[ct2874]

I'm still waiting for Pop radio to return to SE VA/NE NC.

[EvanJ]

Classic Country aka Country Oldies has a 0.4 national rating and losing the second biggest market with a popular Country Oldies station (unless I missed a market) I expect will really hurt the format in the national ratings. The biggest market with a popular Country Oldies station is Houston-Galveston.
I guess I should have read more. I had read about changes in Norfolk-Virginia Beach-Newport News before this one but didn't memorize them. The ratings call WFOG-AM Gospel. It has a low rated so it couldn't do much worse changing to Sports. A change to Rock challenges the two popular Saga stations, Number 1 Active Rock WNOR and Number 5 Classic Rock WAFX. Unless the Country oldies listeners start listening to Rock, it will need to take a lot of listeners away from those two stations to move up. I expect numbers two through four in the ratings will happy if WNOR falls and thy can go to Number 1. Clear Channel Urban WOWI was Number 1 for the four books before this one and has now fallen to Number 3. WNOR went from fifth to first and tied for the second highest gain in shares this book. Meanwhile, if WGH-FM gets former Country Oldies listeners they could compete for the top also.

[Slinky]

EvanJ said:

Meanwhile, if WGH-FM gets former Country Oldies listeners they could compete for the top also.

Possible, but there's also a new country station in the market as well. Adult Alternative WKOC flipped to Country right after WCMS (FM) flipped away from it in November.

I'm with ct2874. The closest thing they have to CHR now is Rhythmic CHR Z104, which very occasionally adds a pop track. Norfolk also has, in my opinion, one of the best Modern ACs in the country in 94.9 The Point. There's still a hole though. Clear Channel should flip 92.1 to a Kiss-FM to fill it.

[lessthanscott]

You may get your wish of a CHR/Pop. Sinclair's new 106.1 move-in that was supposed to be a reincarnation of The Coast is banned from being ANY rock format due to an agreement with Tidewater Communications (owners of FM99 and 106.9 the Fox). Unless they skew the new Coast VERY folk sounding then what's left? They tried CHR/Pop on 96.1 a few years ago. Maybe they'll try it again.

[tico]

While we're on the subject of new sports stations, my market just got a third sports station a few weeks ago when news/talk WPBQ changed to ESPN sports. Right now, all the programming consists of ESPN shows and play-by-play of Mississippi College and a local private high school team. This now creates a three-way battle between them, WJDX (Fox Sports Radio) and WSFZ (Sporting News Radio).

[Jeff]

golden said:

While we're on the subject of new sports stations, my market just got a third sports station a few weeks ago when news/talk WPBQ changed to ESPN sports. Right now, all the programming consists of ESPN shows and play-by-play of Mississippi College and a local private high school team.

WPBQ--now better know as ESPN Radio 1240--has a new looks to its web site:

www.wpbq1240.com

WPBQ might've stopped (or will stop) simulcasting WAPT's 6 PM newscasts by now. But I don't think the station needs to do that anymore. After all, the station should be all-sports.

News Talk ESPN Radio 1240
WPBQ