RE: Playlists of Oldies er... Super Hits Stations

["elipolo@earthlink.net" <elipolo@earthlink.net>]

>Date: Mon,  6 Jan 2003 14:19:44 -0500
>From: "Roger Kirk" <rogerkirk@ttlc.net>
>Subject: Playlists of Oldies er... Super Hits Stations
>
>After listening to The Wave for a few days, I feel that
>their playlist seems musch deeper than Oldies 103's...  

I think the reason for this is that WODS, with their flamethrower signal 
coming in practically like a local over most of the NH seacoast market, is 
WQSO's main competition, and they know that they have to provide something 
musically different in order to distinguish themselves. 

In the last Portsmouth-Dover book (published July 2002), WODS and WQSO were 
both tied at 3.0 shares in the market (9'th and 10'th place respectively 
overall), though WODS is over 60 miles away from the center of the market! 

(Any other competing NH oldies stations in the area that showed up, such as 
WMEX and WQLL, were far behind those two, at 0.7 and 0.4 respectively, so 
countering WODS's extremely narrow oldies playlist is probably much more of 
a concern for them than countering WMEX's eclectic, more retro oldies
format).

I think that this is probably why all of the oldies stations all around the 
portions of New England that are within WODS's large footprint have much 
more variety and deeper playlists than 103, whose list is so narrow that it 
doesn't take much, certainly not risking playing real obscurities, to beat
it.

The success of WWBB "B-101" in the Providence market and WQLL "Cool 96.5"
in  
Manchester are largely due to offering more musical variety than WODS,
along 
with local community identification. Though out of market, both of those 
stations have had to consider "Oldies 103.3", coming in like a ton of
bricks, 
to be as if their local competition for the format. That's why neither one
of 
them identifies as "Oldies 101.5" or "Oldies 96.5".

WODS was high-rated in both those markets (trouncing defunct local AM
oldies 
stations such as WICE and WKBR) until "B-101" and "Cool 96.5" established
and 
defined themselves in the early-to-mid 90's and eventually beat WODS on
their 
home turfs, though WODS still shows, trailing a ways down, in both markets.

As of the last published Worcester book (July 2002), WODS is still blowing 
away WORC-FM for oldies there. WORC is playing somewhat of a wider variety, 
but WODS's signal and air sound blows away WORC-FM's in Worcester proper.

Eli Polonsky



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