🚀 go-pugleaf

> I've already called them and emailed them, I cant believe the new
> owners (same as Magic 102) changed the format to classic rock
> in a college town....  They insist it's not an April fools joke,
> and I insist I'm switching to 99X if it's not.... Anyone else
> have a take on this?

   99X can be a bit hard to pull in around here. But what's wrong with UGa's
own student rock station? Noncommercial college radio is as alternative as
radio gets.


> I was under the assumption that it would still be the same old lovable
> alternative, just new owners, and maybe a new name.  I don't think 99x
> could hold a candle to 103.7, only because of the extreme diversity of the
> Bulldog and the flexibility and enthusiam in playing local music. 

   Well, alternative is dead anyway and this is just another superfluous
nail in the coffin. Anyway it's always been beyond me how anyone can feel
all cozy and alternative while listening to the 110 decibel ads for
Screamin' Larry's Dodge-O-Rama, of which Bulldog had just as many as anybody
else. To paraphrase Gert Stein, commercial radio is commercial radio is
commercial radio.
   You want local music? Buy local-band CDs (or cassettes, for those bands
which haven't made it to the CD level yet) and go to local-band gigs. Or
(egad, what an idea) get a guitar or a synth or an oud or whatever and plug
into something.

 
> Oh, I think if enough students complain not only to the new management
> endlessly, but as well tell the management at the places that advertise
> under the new format that they will stop shopping there if they dont
> pull ad spots, they'll take notice and maybe even change back...

   Yeah, it WOULD happen IF. But you're talking about students who
won't even register to vote. Don't hold your breath.


> Assuming that an alternative music station will make more money, or be
> more successful that a classic rock station because its located in a
> college town is... well, your living in a dream land.  A minority
> of the 30,000 college students want to listen to alternative music,
> what maybe 20%?  Half of them probably have 96rock and z93 dialed in half
> the time anyhow.  And don't forget the other 70-80,000 people that live
> in the Clarke,Oconee,Madison county area...  lots of 20-45 year old
> people that enjoy classic rock.

   I'm sure they were telling the truth about the market survey, because
that's how businesses like this operate. If they don't have good reason
for thinking a given move will make money, they don't make the move--
mainly because they probably won't be able to line up financing. You can
protest all you want but nothing speaks to commercial radio but $$$.
Sorry, no tears for the Bulldog. Commercial stations come and go and
none of 'em are the sort of thing which merits anyone's loyalty.

   It could be worse. Imagine you were a certain Olde Farte(TM) for whom
"alternative" means Celtic folk (30 min. total airplay per week in all of
Athens) or guys such as Webern, Cage, Stockhausen, et al. (or at the other
extreme Palestrina, Ockeghem, Josquin and friends) who never ever get
*any* airplay in Athens and never ever will, not even on our toothless,
middlebrow PBS station. Karl Hass, vomit. Oh well, Mozart is still Mozart.