Radio Station Round Up Time
Atlanta radio has changed again…. 97.1 FM had been an oldies station for years. Then it became a station played R&B and Hip Hop. Now it’s become a classic rock station…. AKA “The River“. What does this say? How is it that over the past few years, three different stations have tried this format and can’t seem to stick to it? There can’t be that many white guys in their 40s who want to listen to more Journey can there?
Ironically, Atlanta has always gone it’s own way when it comes to radio. This is the city where Howard Stern and Don Imus couldn’t make it. Yet it would seem that at the moment, the city’s radio stations have lost some direction. Dave FM is clearly the leader of the boomer market. Star 94 gets the corporate women in their 20s & 30s. V-103 and 107.9 fight for Hip Hop fans and the Gen Xers have 99x.
There are at least two kinds of stations missing. Atlanta is one of the largest markets to lack an all Reggaeton station. It’s also one of the largest markets without a roots music station.
A roots music station might be a great thing. Right now, there is no place in Atlanta to hear Arthur Alexander on the radio or even Buddy Holly. Roots music stations tend to attract high income audiences and can provide a broad listening base. They also help educate people about nearly every genre of music because they focus on connecting it all together.
Considering that the last format change didn’t last long and given classic rock is based in a lot of what’s now considered roots music, perhaps the river can start their transition quickly.
Then again, perhaps this is just one more pus toward more satellite radio….
January 6th, 2006 at 9:58 am
When I first moved here a little over a year ago, I was quite impressed with the radio, especially 99x, which seemed to play more out of the mainstream indie rock. Over the course of the year, however, it has become pretty much standard uninspired radio fare and I’ve stopped listening.
I would also say that Atlanta lacks one other type of station: a 24 hour NPR station.
January 6th, 2006 at 9:05 pm
Does anyone know how much of our Atlanta Public School tax dollars go to NPR? They carry so few programs and fill the rest of the airtime with Lois Ritesis’s boring classical music. I won’t contribute until they change their format and stop getting funded from Atlanta tax dollars.
January 6th, 2006 at 10:45 pm
who cares about commercial radio. It died along time ago.
January 7th, 2006 at 11:33 am
Actually, the local NPR station generates quite a lot for the Atlanta Public Schools, not the other way around. But I’ll agree that the format is terrible. If the classic music went away and was replaced by national NPR content, the station would be a gold mine for APS.
January 7th, 2006 at 7:19 pm
FM radio? What’s that? Between satellite radio and the iPod, I see no reason to bother with legacy technologies like that.
January 8th, 2006 at 9:28 am
I agree that Atlanta’s radio station options are abysmal.
I would love an all NPR station. Right now I get my fix with the online shows and podcasts at NPR.org. But I groan every night when I’m driving home and Carl Haas’s dreary monotone voice begins.
WRAS 88.5 is a great station that plays music that most fits my taste.
January 16th, 2006 at 11:07 pm
Why are we trashing WABE? You’re all complaining about a lack of diversity on your radio offering, and simultaniously advocating the killing off of one of the rarest radio formats–classical. Here in DC they have killed the last non-commercial classical station–WETA–and turned it into another droning dispenser of chatter. I can stream the BBC world service any time–I’m doing it right now–what I can’t do is listen to the first 1200 years of musical evolution–talk about your “roots music”. As for the “droning voice of Carl Haas”, that man is one of the greatest musicologists of the 20th century, his career spaning almost the entire history of the medium of radio. But please, lets get him off the radio so I can hear another interview with John McCain, or another quirky, witty, Alex Chadwick personal interest piece!?!
By the way, Lois Ritesis is a MILF–and every day at 5 o’clock I miss Kaedy Kiely, though that’s probably not relevent to this conversation…
February 24th, 2006 at 7:51 pm
As a native Atlantan I have always been partial to “home town” radio. I had my favorite stations that I listened to but if the programming was bad I didn’t hesitate to go button pushing. Where do you go when it’s all a bunch of muck? Too bad all the stations have sold out or been taken over by the big boy’s.
Satellite is the ONLY way to go.
SS
April 7th, 2006 at 12:52 pm
Great reading, keep up the great posts.
Peace, JiggaDigga