Another One Bites the Dust

Well, it looks like the volatile Philadelphia radio landscape has claimed another casualty. 94 WYSP has changed formats from a rock station to – get this – an FM talk station. As if this radio market was already suffering from a lack of musical choices, it was dealt another blow. Now, I admit that I haven’t listened to WYSP a lot for many reasons. A big reason is because Stern was getting monotonous with his daily “Sirius Satellite Radio” banter (and Preston and Steve are much more compelling and interesting on 93.3).

But, WYSP’s musical selection has been dropping quicker than Paris Hilton at a sausage convention. The station really should’ve considered naming itself the “Ozzy Osbourne, Led Zeppelin, and Metallica station with a touch of Stained and any other band that sound like Limp Biskit.” I think if WYSP tweaked their music to include a larger variety of groups that didn’t sound exactly the same, they would’ve had more success, but when a company is corporate owned, creativity is usually the first thing to go. It’s all about the bottom line and reaching the common denominator, and that means if Limp Biskit has a great new song, we need to find bands that sound exactly the same, because they will probably produce hits as well.

I like WMMR, but sometimes they play too much Zeppelin and Ozzy too. I wish I had variety. 102.9 is ok for a classic rock fix, but after about 15 minutes, it gets old. I wish somebody would get the balls to put on a station again like WDRE (back in the early 1990’s). Did I like every song that was on this station? No. But, I did like the fact that I could put this station on, and know that I wouldn’t be hearing the “same old, same old” over and over again.

Terrestrial radio is reeling because of the increasing popularity of satellite radio. They don’t know why it is so popular. Maybe, if they just stepped back and looked from an outsider’s perspective, they’d realize that terrestrial radio is no longer creative and all of the channels are starting to sound the same. Niche markets are no longer cultivated like they used to be by terrestrial radio. These niche markets are now being exploited by satellite radio, and people are willing to put up the $12 a month in order to get this programming. This warning sign has unfortunately not been noticed, and the landscape will continue to change to try and get the “new packaged” thing.

** By the way, I though BEN-FM was cool at first, but it sucks. They are obviously competing with other bland stations like B-101 and 104.5. The “variety” they tout is crap. I hate Philly radio.