Couple of interesting things happening with the old NextMedia cluster. WXLC started simulcasting WCCQ out of Joliet and they're now "Free Country," the third or fourth attempt to go after US99. However, this time, they're using the old Kiss FM/Energy FM/Nine FM strategy of cobbling together a station out of suburban stations, a strategy that didn't work for any of them, either. XLC had been simulcasting Star 105 out of Crystal Lake for a little while as part of another daisy-chaining strategy, this after they got a heavily subsidized new storefront studio at Gurnee Mills from which no live/local programming originates anymore.
More interesting is that 95.9 The River in Aurora is now doing classic alternative to go up against XRT and Q101 rather than the Drive and Rock 95.5. I'll be listening, but probably not over the air:
If Alpha Media (their logo is a big dog...an alpha dog, if you will) wants to pare down their cluster and go the simulcast route, it would make much more sense for that signal to simulcast our butt-rock friends to the north, WIIL Rock, which has very little overlap:
That would give you pretty much full coverage of the exurbs and your whole target demographic for bands called Dungbucket and Hungergunk.
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Molly Lambert wrote:
The future holds the possibility to be great or terrible, and since it has not yet occurred it remains simultaneously both.