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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What is this radio you speak of?

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The real question is why is it so expensive to own a radio station. As the format is dying, you would think it would be filled with independent stations.

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the world will always the world. your entire existence is defined by your response.

I'll have to throw 95.9 on the car presets and give it a tumble.

Slightly off topic and, yes, I know this is long winded. We're friends with a couple, one of whom is from Bangladesh, the other of whom is from India. They both obtained various degrees from various universities in Illinois and, after moving to India, made it a point of returning to Illinois to give birth to all three of their children. Since then, they've gone back and forth and their kids all speak Bengali, English, and Hindi. So, these kids are fairly well traveled and have seen a lot of the world.

They're back in town, their oldest child is 15, we were talking about sports, and my wife pointed out that I listen to a lot of baseball games on the radio. This kid, who is incredibly bright (his dad is a PHD and a computer science professor and his mom has three different degrees and speaks about five different languages) did not understand the concept of listening to sports on the radio. I had to explain to him that someone sits and watches the game (live as it's happening) and describes what they're watching to you.

Classic alternative rock makes sense because there's no one under 30 playing guitar music anymore.

Unless they are going to the game, I really don't know any teenagers that even watch baseball let alone listen to it. Maybe a few innings here and there but not a whole game. So much has changed in the 20-30 years.

I'm up for some more classic alternative as I love 1st Wave on XM, but could use a different variety (hopefully) of classic alternative.