re: WHOB Nashua

[coachkd@worldnet.att.net]

At 10:45 AM 5/10/98, Steve Ordinetz wrote:

>Wasn't it Paula Stone who took B-106 from a 6 share to a sub-1 share in
>only a couple of books by dumping a successful CHR format for a weird
>Alternative/Classic Rock hybrid?  It definitely happened on her watch.  In
>the early 90s B-106 was becoming a serious challenger to Rock 101's market
>dominance...I doubt it was coincidence that 'GIR began doing a lot more
>promotions in Nashua around that time.  I never understood why they threw
>it all away.  Granted, the early 90s were a pretty sad period musically
>with most CHR-oriented music being either rap or alternative...very little
>mass-appeal music, but becoming intentionally obscure was not a good
>programming move...one the station has yet to recover from.
>
>If the Ever-Newer-B-106 wants to succeed as an 80s Gold station (assuming
>that's what they're trying to be), they're gonna have to play a significant
>number of real hits (pun intended), and not a bunch of mid-charting songs
>that only radio people & music geeks (is there a difference?) are gonna
>like.  So far they're not.  Keep in mind that the 70s format tanked pretty
>fast.  
>
>I hope they keep up what they're doing...it helps the rest of us in this
>market.

The station dropped the CHR format in 1991 because the owner heard rap music
on the air one night. So rather than just remove some of the more in your
face rap titles, the General Sales Manager told him to go "Pop Alternative".
Now, in my opinion "Pop Alternative" would be something along the lines of
what WBMX is doing today, however when I asked what it meant I was told, and
I quote, "You know..., we play both pop AND alternative! Isn't it great?"
Anyway, all titles with even a slight beat were taken out and by the end of
Paula Stone's era all that were left were mostly mid and slow tempo
alternative tracks with some odd 80's titles that did not fit thrown in (Def
Leppard, The Bangels and Eddie Money). 

The most bizzare moments came in June of '96 when for a week the station
went to a full blown CHR at 5pm and back to "Pop Alternative" at midnight.
This was another creation of the owner who then stopped it after the GSM
threated to leave. It was at this time Paula left, and the GSM started doing
the music logs. THE GSM! The PD position was eliminated at this point (if
you beleive that one) and everthing just hit complete rock bottom from that
moment on. 

While I was there almost all of the jocks used the music log as "suggested
titles" and played whatever they wanted. Most of them knew that there was an
unwritten rule that said as long as you stay away from mainstream pop, dance
and r&b you were ok. 

Working at WHOB has given me some great radio stories to share but that was
about it. The station is a model small market horror story and will be until
the day it is sold.


Derek Weston 
Hudson, NH 

------------------------------