A year ago, Radio One was looking to sell its
under performing Charlotte stations.
It couldn’t get a good offer, so the Maryland-based
broadcasting company decided to go all-in and try to make a dent against CBS
Radio’s powerhouse urban duo of WBAV-FM (“V” 101.9) and WPEG-FM (“Power” 97.9).
Based on the October rankings from Arbitron, Radio One hit
its target with a vengeance.
According to a story by Mark Washington at charlotteobserver.com, key to the
strategy was its $7.75 million acquisition of WNOW-FM (105.3). Radio One
switched formats from Spanish to classic hits in September.
This week “Old School” (WNOW) changed its call letters to
WOSF-FM. CBS Radio quickly picked up the WNOW call letters for 92.3 FM in NYC.
“That’s for ‘Old School Flavah,’ says Gary Weiss, who
oversees Radio One’s stations in Charlotte, Raleigh and Richmond. “Spell it
right – it’s F-L-A-V-A-H.”
Radio One’s gains came at the expense of CBS Radio’s
stations. WBAV-FM, which has long dominated radio rankings with its bookend
syndicated shows of Steve Harvey in the mornings and Michael Baisden in
afternoon drive time. It fell to No. 3 behind the city’s two country stations
in October, a 20 percent tumble for WBAV-FM. Sister station WPEG-FM fell 11
percent in overall listeners, landing at No. 5.
In nearly every ratings period since the beginning of 2006,
WBAV-FM has been Charlotte’s the No. 1 station. It lost Tom Joyner’s morning
show to Radio One’s WQNC-FM (and is now on “Old School”) in late 2004 and faded
before landing Harvey a year later. He was an instant success and WBAV-FM has
topped ratings since.
WBAV-FM’s operations director Terri Avery says she expected
some dip because every new station attracts sampling. But she believes that
CBS’s stations will continue to dominate against “Old School,” which plays
music but has no local hosts, because of CBS’s intensely local focus and
popular talents like Chirl Girl, Gary Knight and Jewel Carter.
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