Month: June 2007
“Free-FM” KZON becomes Rhythmic CHR “101.5 Jamz”
With the Memorial Day weekend flip of WFNY New York back to Rock and the relaunch of KFRC in San Francisco, the new management of CBS Radio made it clear that the “Free-FM” network of talk stations would not be long for the world. While many of the stations simply drop the Free-FM branding, speculation built that others would drop the format altogether. At 5:00pm on June 21, 2007 the Tom Leykis show was “taken over” by intern Renaldo proclaiming the station as “Free Paris” playing Paris Hilton’s music with attempts to get her released from jail early. The stunt lasted until 5:00pm the next day when Renaldo’s major announcement was the launch of “101.5 Jamz”. The Rhythmic CHR format was positioned between Clear Channel’s 104....
103.3 KLOU becomes “My 103.3”
With the “Oldies” branding becoming taboo due to the aging of the target audience, broadcasters have looked for new ways to position the format. In St. Louis, when Clear Channel brought on market legend Smash for mornings at KLOU they used the opportunity to reposition the market’s longtime oldies station as programmed by the listeners. The station brought on Bob Costas as the imaging voice as well.
95.3: CKZZ “Z95.3” becomes Rhythmic AC “95 Crave”
The powerhouse that lost its way. From its birth in 1991, Z95.3 (pronounced Zed 95.3) quickly established itself as Vancouver’s top hit music station with its Dance leaning Top-40 format which mainstreamed as the 90’s progressed. In 2002, when crosstown CFBT launched its Rhythmic format as “94.5 The Beat”, CKZZ evolved towards Hot AC. As the 2000’s progressed, Z95.3’s Hot AC format lost more ground to a more mainstream Beat. Finally on June 5, 2007 the plug was pulled and then station was relaunched as Rhythmic AC “95 Crave” bringing back a lot of the music that Z95.3 had originally played in the early 90’s.
