Format flips

[Bob Nelson]

On this day (New Year's Day) when more than a few stations will switch to a new format, let's talk about format flips: what are the types of flips one would expect these days? Maybe from "oldies" to "classic hits"... maybe more stations flipping to talk, especially Air America. More oldies and standards stations changing to something else.

noticed on 100000watts.com's radio updates:

Thu 12/30:
"WMFG 1240 Hibbing MN flips from sports "The Ticket" to standards."

Switching TO standards? Unusual these days!

Tue 12/28:
"WWMJ 95.7 Ellsworth/Bangor ME has flipped from oldies to classic rock "I-95." 
 WYCL 107.3 Pensacola FL flips from oldies to classic hits "My 107.3." 

Dumping oldies and/or shifting decades (from "60s/70s" to "70s/80s:) seems to be a trend, as well as maybe referring to oldies as something other than "oldies"
(like WDRC-FM Hartford: "Big Hits", or WBOQ-FM Gloucester, MA "Your
Good Time Favorites")

Getting back to the concept of flipping a format on New Year's Day, around Christmas of 2002, WQSO 96.7 started stunting by playing the jazzy tune
"What Are You Doing New Year's?" over and over. On or around New Year's Day, the flip happened (or more of a format tweak) as they went from "oldies" to what they call "Super Hits of the 60s and 70s" (er, not much difference?) and took the nickname "The Wave". (Er, given the tragedy of the tidal wave recently,perhaps
a rather unfortunate name for them...though people are calling it a "tsunami"
more often, though). Anyway, they did use a New Year's song because the new format would be coming out around New Year's Day...maybe other stations have done the same.




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