Atlanta’s Got Riddim!
This radio station came on the air a few days ago and word on the street is it’s a pirate. If you’re driving around the metro area, tune your radio on over to 94.5FM and get a taste of the tropics. You can also listen online:
It’s actually pretty good. If it is in fact a pirate, someone needs to buy these guys out and make it legit. I think this type of station would do well in Atlanta given the large Caribbean population.
It might not be a pirate though. If you catch the station near the start of an hour there are commercials for night clubs and real estate agents. This is what I’ll be listening to this weekend!
Big CC Atlanta shakeup
I just found out that there’s going to be a big shake up at Clear Channel Atlanta tomorrow morning. For those that didn’t hear, Clear Channel went private today and is going to sell off over 400 of its radio stations and revamp the rest to become more profitable. They’ve waisted no time in doing this either. As of 9am Friday morning, heritage rock station 96.1 is no more. Taking its place will be the younger skewing Active Rock station 105.3 The Buzz which will inherit the 96.1 frequency. Also it’s rumored that their annoying morning jock Whip is not making the move. Look for all of this to go down at 9am. Rumors are that 105.3 will become Spanish and more changes are on the way. I think Atlanta is in need of a good radio shakeup. I may even press the tuner button in my car tomorrow and break away from the iPod!
Which station is most likely to change formats? Survey Says…
Normally I hang up on unsolicited phone calls but more and more I’ve found myself hanging on the line for the three seconds that it takes to remove me from the bulk dialer and transfer me to a minimum waged call center drone. I know it may be wrong and maybe a little sick but I’ve started to turn their scripts against them when I’m in the mood to. This post isn’t about one of those calls though. Over the weekend I was contacted by a market research firm conducting a survey of radio listeners in the Atlanta market. For the first time in basically my adult life I was able to make it past Question #4 (Do you or anyone in your family work for a radio station?) so naturally I took the survey. 45 minutes later I was thinking, “hell Arbitron pays their samples in crisp dollar bills...where’s my money!). Honestly, this was the most grueling and mind numbing survey that any self-respecting music lover should ever have to subject themselves to. Several montages were played and I was asked how likely I was to listen to that particular format and which radio station came to mind. Being the over-analyzer that I am, I have to call shenanigans on the whole thing and declare that 99x is about to change their format. Find out why after the jump.
The “lost” KLPI sessions
Back in the day, I worked at the small (officially 4kw) college radio station, KLPI. While most of its former members went on to careers in engineering and business, working at KLPI helped springboard me into the KNOE radio stations. When I left KLPI, I took all of my show content with me. I have already archived a lot of my work from those years in the “fish bowl” on this site. All you have to do is click on Audio and Interviews to hear such classics as the Nickelback, Alien Ant Farm, and Flaming Idiots interviews. These interviews were saved onto a computer or burned onto cd, making them very easy to archive. The rest of the content has been sitting in MiniDisc form and hasn’t been accessed since my last day at that radio station. Since the MiniDisc format never really caught on, I had no way of getting this content off of their discs. Recently I bought a MiniDisc player on eBay and was able to extract some of this “Lost Content.”
James A. Noe Jr has died
Longtime KNOE owner dead at 77
I’ve just learned that KNOE’s owner, Jimmie Noe has died of cancer. Although Mr. Noe lived in New Orleans, I often saw him around the building during my 3 years at KNOE radio. Station General Manager Roy Frostenson sumed it up by stating that “Jimmie Noe really was KNOE.” It is amazing, if you think about it, that despite numorous offers, Jimmie Noe never sold out. He continued to run the broadcast group that was started by his father, former Governor James Noe. My most recent memory of Jimmie Noe was at the 60th aniversary of KNOE AM 540. He arrived to receive a proclamation from Mayor Jamie Mayo and stayed for the party later that afternoon. I thought it was very nice of Mr. Noe to stay and share stories with the employees after the morning ceremonies. I hope whomever takes his reign will have as much interest in the radio side of things as their predecessor.
