Radiowiz wrote:

1) Buffalo not Toronto
2) Wait and see what Cumulus is up to first.

It would target Toronto. 

Last edited by RadioAaron (February 18, 2023 11:21 am)

They must have $ to spend, the K Love Network sponsors a race team in Nascar that won the Daytona 500 a few years ago. 

paterson1 wrote:

RadioAaron wrote:

Radiowiz wrote:

1) Buffalo not Toronto
2) Wait and see what Cumulus is up to first.

It would target Toronto. 

Is K-LOVE out of Chateaugay NY making any inroads in Montreal and Cornwall?  This was the old 94.7 Hits FM that tried for years to have an impact across the border.  Does 102.5 Buffalo have much of a signal in Toronto anymore?  They should maybe concentrate on Hamilton, St. Catherine's, Welland, Niagara area where the signal is consistent and strong.  Hamilton and south is considerably larger in population than Buffalo and area. Like the old WYUL Hits FM, it's hard to appeal and build an audience if the signal isn't the greatest. 

They mostly don't participate in ratings. It's all about donations.

102.5 is pretty good in cars in Toronto, but you're right about the signal being better in the larger area. But with their unique model, they don't have to concentrate on any specific market. Anyone who can listen is equally valuable. A lot more potential ears north of the border for that signal though.
 

Last edited by RadioAaron (February 18, 2023 5:40 pm)

RadioActive wrote:

I, for one, will be sorry to see such a powerful signal given over to a religious broadcaster if that's what happens. They can be successful through fundraising and advertising, but in the end, barely anyone listens to that format. And what a waste of wattage - super-powered wattage, at that.

They don't sell advertising.

And I think we can't say hardly anyone listens to the format. K-LOVE generally doesn't participate in ratings, but they make huge money through listener donations. Those don't come without a solid listener base. In markets where other operators do participate in ratings, the fromat often does quite well. KCMS Seattle is #8 6+, ahead of both of the market's CHRs and Country stations. KWPZ in northern Washington gets good numbers in Vancouver.

I'd never listen to K-LOVE 102.5, but WTSS is a shell of a radio station and EMF is a good operator.

Last edited by RadioAaron (February 18, 2023 9:28 pm)

RadioActive wrote:

Still hate to see such a wonderful signal used for such a (sorry, but it's true) boring format.  

WDCX @ 99.5 FM has served Buffalo area for what seems like forever. 
Is K Love a threat?

 

A big reason that Rock 102 was popular here and in Buffalo was the fact it was easy to record the music and make tapes.  No announcers or talk, dead air in between songs so recording the whole tune was easy, no talking over intros of songs and few commercials.  Best of all the music was in sets of three and in stereo. 

The station itself sounded dreadful to my ears and really wasn't a radio station at all, just a juke box.  In terms of the actual music, yes they did play the hits and they also played a lot of mediocre music as well. 
http://rockradioscrapbook.ca/wbenfm-76.mp3

In terms of all of the "cross border prohibitions" let's be clear.  If any Toronto station had been actively soliciting advertising in Buffalo, a much smaller city that was in deep decline in the 70's, the FCC would have stepped in quickly.  The FCC regulations are protective of territory and any outside station, especially from another country impacting revenue in a depressed market would have dealt with promptly. 

Toronto and Southern Ontario were booming economically in the 70's and Toronto radio had no interest in selling to Buffalo or WNY, especially at deep discounted rates.  Toronto broadcasters and the CRTC had every right and a duty to protect their turf.  Buffalo and the FCC would have done the same. 

Finally, I am suspicious after the initial flurry of listening in Southern Ontario how popular Rock 102 actually was here.  Reading BBM ballots twice in the early 80's when WBEN had become a real radio station and much slicker with decent announcers, the station showed very poorly in the ratings with only a couple of ballots filled out.  CHUM FM, Q107, CKFM, CHFI, FM 96, CHAY, CKGL and a few others all were way ahead of Rock 102.  The most popular Buffalo station was WYRK which was country music. 

However all of the above is not to say that WBEN FM wasn't popular for a time in Toronto and Southern Ontario.  It definitely was. It is odd though when the generous the tax write offs were discontinued for advertisers advertising on WBEN, the ads stopped.   Any business person would have continued with some advertising on a station if they were getting results whether there was a write off or not, and the ads were not expensive.  This didn't happen.  So the "better bang for the buck" claim is also questionable. 

If you wanted to listen to "The Hits" back then in stereo, 102.5 was your only option until WKSE  arrived in September 1984. If you wanted Top 40 in Canada, you were stuck with AM because of the 49% hit rule imposed by the CRTC on FM stations. It was my go to station for a large part of the '70's because of this rule.

We need to remember as well that FM album rock mid 70's to mid 80's was more popular than top 40 FM radio. Likely because AM was still a factor playing the hits here and across the lake.  Advertisers liked the album rock format since listeners tended to listen for long periods of time. Stations like CHUM FM and Q107 were doing very well in the ratings in the early 80's.  They attracted the right demo and lots of hours tuned.   

Maybe, and they're not my taste, either. But the Dec. 2022 Nielsens had it 6th overall in the ratings with a 5.5, 12+. Not great, but someone's listening to it. I very much doubt if a religious format would do as well in a 25-station market. 

RadioAaron wrote:

RadioActive wrote:

Still hate to see such a wonderful signal used for such a (sorry, but it's true) boring format.  

Star 102.5 is the dictionary definition of boring.

In today's times, yes. I used to love the Saturday night Retro Mix on the late great Q102. 
It aired back in 1994. Live and local too.  
They could have just as easily tossed on Gary Spears, but they didn't...instead, that was the Sunday night retro mix, which was vt'd and aired coast to coast.
 

paterson1 wrote:

A big reason that Rock 102 was popular here and in Buffalo was the fact it was easy to record the music and make tapes.  No announcers or talk, dead air in between songs so recording the whole tune was easy, no talking over intros of songs and few commercials.  Best of all the music was in sets of three and in stereo. 

The station itself sounded dreadful to my ears and really wasn't a radio station at all, just a juke box.  In terms of the actual music, yes they did play the hits and they also played a lot of mediocre music as well. . 

I don’t know.  I think by 1979 and into 1980, the mix was quite good.  Mind you, I like some of the softer hits of the late 70s and 80s.  By 1981 through 1983, I’ll bet that aside from CFNY, some of the better earlier synth pop songs from the likes of Talk Talk, Thompson Twins, and lesser known but good songs from Naked Eyes (... Lights Go Out)  and ABC (Poison Arrow) were only heard on Rock 102 .... ahem.... Stereo Rock, in this market.  The sound quality was phenomenal for the time too.

So what is going to happen to Star 102.5? I don't understand the article at all. Is Audacy selling Star 102.5? Does not make any sense to me.

Jody Thornton wrote:

paterson1 wrote:

A big reason that Rock 102 was popular here and in Buffalo was the fact it was easy to record the music and make tapes.  No announcers or talk, dead air in between songs so recording the whole tune was easy, no talking over intros of songs and few commercials.  Best of all the music was in sets of three and in stereo. 

The station itself sounded dreadful to my ears and really wasn't a radio station at all, just a juke box.  In terms of the actual music, yes they did play the hits and they also played a lot of mediocre music as well. . 

I don’t know. I think by 1979 and into 1980, the mix was quite good. Mind you, I like some of the softer hits of the late 70s and 80s. By 1981 through 1983, I’ll bet that aside from CFNY, some of the better earlier synth pop songs from the likes of Talk Talk, Thompson Twins, and lesser known but good songs from Naked Eyes (... Lights Go Out) and ABC (Poison Arrow) were only heard on Rock 102 .... ahem.... Stereo Rock, in this market. The sound quality was phenomenal for the time too.

CHUM FM billed themselves as Toronto's Ultimate Rock and I don't recall how much of the new music or new wave they played. They must have played a fair bit since CHUM/City seemed invested in current music so much. 1050 CHUM was another story, they definitely played the artists and songs mentioned  above and many more.  Fall of 1979 until the end of 1983 the AM station focused on new music, new wave and some album cuts from new artists.  They were the only major AM station in North America doing this and other than CFNY were ahead of everyone else in the market for this style of music. 

I do agree that Rock 102 was a much better station into the 80's than in the 70's.  Even more so when they had announcers and sounded more like a radio station.  Stereo is always better sounding than mono but in the early 80's  I was still listening to a lot of AM radio for music.  I guess part of this was the fact that most of my career was on AM rather than FM and I enjoyed the tempo and busier sound of AM radio.
 
The 1970's version of Rock 102 to me was not very interesting especially since they had no announcers or personality and their music was mediocre in my opinion with too much dead air.  I know lots of people liked this type of station, but it was not for me.  I wanted to get into announcing and programming so I didn't have a lot of reasons to tune in Rock 102.

Little did we know however that Rock 102 being automated back in the early 70's would sadly become the norm for a lot of stations today.