WGER flips to 106.3 The Core

[bmw]

It came in surprisingly well up here in Tawas City, on my car tuner anyways (106.1 causes strong adjacent interference on most radios).

The few times I tuned in, I heard HOLY CRAP LONG COMMERCIAL breaks....like, on the order of what seemed like 6 or 7 minutes long. I drove from work to Wal Mart, commercials the whole time, then sat in Wal Mart's parking lot waiting to hear a song for about 3 minutes, then finally gave up and left the car.

The online stream sounds good. I'm not in love with the playlist (a little too much Godsmack and Alice in Chains and the like for my taste), but thankfully no Kate Bush, Gnarls Barkley, Harry Styles, Billie Eilish, etc like Alt 98.7 plays regularly. Overall I like it.

[Mega Hertz]

Are they maybe running the back log of spots from Mix? It doesn't seem like a format flip should have 13 minutes an hour or more of spots...

[bmw]

I just timed the recent commercial break. It was 6 and a half minutes.

Not one local spot other than arguably a 0:30 spot for Kroeger. The remaining 6 minutes were 1:30 of Michigan statewide spots (1 minute of which was a pro-Whitmer spot) and 4:30 of national spots.

[Matt]

Very interesting choice - will be interesting to see how the format does up there. I know that station hasn't been soft rock in years, but I'll always associate sitting in the orthodontist chair hearing that awful "Sofffffttt rockkkk 1.......O.....6POINT3.... W-G-E-R!!!!" jingle. I'd like to see Alpha utilize the 100.5 frequency as something other than a simulcast of WSGW-AM.

[bobhuge]

heh, heh, heh.... playing music seemingly forgotten by other rock stations.... where have i seen that before.... heh, heh, heh.... oh, that's right, WIDL in the thumb. WGER, you flatter me.

[bmw]

Why do we all have such strong memories of what station was playing in the background at the Doctor's or Dentist's office? That such a strange phenomenon.

And MW - you beat me to it regarding 90s rock being much similar to 2k's rock than 80s rock, which, re: Bob H***, while I love some of the deep 90s cuts WIDL plays, there's just too much obscure 80s stuff in WIDL's playlist to keep me around for more than a song or two at a time. Personally, I'd love to see a station that plays 90s/early 2000s rock and alternative with a tiny bit of currents sprinkled in along with some old-school rap and hip hop.

And Matt, not sure why Alpha would even consider doing something different on 100.5 given their ratings. If anything, they need to find something more creative to do with their AM frequency.

[Realist]

Streaming them currently at work. 5-7 minutes of commercials aren’t going to cut it and I’d think there will be a lot of tune out based on that.

Other than that, this exactly the genre of music that Z93 should have been playing, with some currents and almost zero recurrents from the past 10 years

[Realist]

And play 2 or 3 songs before going into another long commercial break?

[Colonel Flagg]

Very interesting choice - will be interesting to see how the format does up there. I know that station hasn't been soft rock in years, but I'll always associate sitting in the orthodontist chair hearing that awful "Sofffffttt rockkkk 1.......O.....6POINT3.... W-G-E-R!!!!" jingle. I'd like to see Alpha utilize the 100.5 frequency as something other than a simulcast of WSGW-AM.

Some of you are too young to remember that WGER was originally on 102.5...a flamethrower signal with dentist office/elevator music!

In any event, Active Rock is an interesting choice. It's not the first time rock has been on 106.3. WIOG was originally a pure AOR format, using the old TM Stereo Rock service.

It'll be interesting to see how much current Active Rock is played on WGER. Rock is due for a resurgence. And I concur, WKQZ seems to have been out to lunch on this one.

[TC Talks]

If WGER can get its commercial load under control, this station definitely has some potential to take wind out of Z93's sails.

An old trick throwing up format flip is to run as many commercials as you can before the client contacts you to stop their contract.

I remember Commodore Media getting in trouble in Florida for doing something like this with national ads. The buys were for a certain format but they had changed and "forgot" to notify the buyer agency. By the time the stop order came through, an awful lot of spots had run and were invoiced.

The good old days of radio huh?

[Realist]

I've heard no currents or recurrents. I've not heard or observed (via log) anything more recent than 2008 or 2009 so far. Material from 1993 to 2005 probably comprises 90 percent of the playlist.

And like you said, if the idiots running Detroit’s Alt 98.7 would have had the playlist Core 106.3 does when they started the station, their ratings would have been way higher….

[bobhuge]

Been Caught Stealing: 9/20 12:32pm
Been Caught Stealing: 9/21 6:34pm
Been Caught Stealing: 9/22 7:43am

It's the same rotation scheme that Westwood uses. Consecutive days, different daypart.

How long before people get sick of repetition? Same Sh*t, Different Station.

[bobhuge]

Kind of figured it wasn't the only one, and there are others.

Firewoman – 9/20 4:49pm
Firewoman – 9/21 3:54am
Firewoman – 9/22 8:13am

The Unforgiven – 9/20 2:20pm
The Unforgiven – 9/21 2:39am
The Unforgiven – 9/22 8:26am