Radio One company axes Y-100 FM
T.J. Nicolaides
Issue date: 3/1/05 Section: Forum
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If Pearl Jam?s "Alive" was the air raid siren, then the silence that followed the final Y-100 station ID at midnight last Thursday signaled the deafening blast of the atom bomb.
The FM apocalypse hit the modern rock demographic hard last week, as The Power 99 wannabes, 103.9 The Beat, took over the 100.3 WPLY frequency. If the last few years? slow descent into generic programming and advertising overload wasn?t enough, then the sudden format change raised a warning flag concerning the future of traditional terrestrial radio in this country. Alternative rock in Philadelphia was hung with its own guitar string, and those of us that grew up with WPLY and its DJs can distribute the blame for its disappearance liberally among the fools that staged this coup.
Radio One, "The Urban Radio Specialist," saw fit to axe the entire Y-100 staff on Feb. 24, in much the same way they had with Philadelphia cult favorite WDRE in 1996. This outfit, which gears itself mainly towards African-American audiences, informed the staff which had built WPLY up since 1993 that they were being replaced by a computer looping the top 10 songs from a genre that haven?t been listenable for the past five years. If the ?80s were the rap renaissance, and the ?90s its heyday, does that mean we?re suffering through hip-hop?s "disco" phase now?
WPHI?s new 17,000-watt signal now blasts a playlist so generic
and repetitive that even a Linkin Park concert for grounded teenagers would be more audibly appealing.
DJs like Matt Cord and Bret Hamilton, both WDRE alums and longtime Philadelphia radio staples, were let go by the same
company for the second time in a decade so Lil Jon and G-Unit could come in and clean house. Radio One essentially replaced a 12-yearold alternative rock mainstay with Fat Joe, even though there are two other stations in Philly playing the exact same thing already. Welcome to the world of corporate radio, where mediocrity is king.
If you were considering a career move in the direction of this industry, I?d recommend you now think twice before doing so. This activity is becoming quite routine across the country, as even a 25-year run wasn?t enough to prevent Washington D.C.?s legendary WHFS from getting kicked off the air in favor of Spanish Radio, "El-Zol!" last month. In trade magazines such as RadioInk, the soulless suits-and-ties pat themselves on the back for doing whatever necessary to increase advertising revenue in a medium that, seemingly unbeknownst to them, is dying from the radiation leftover from the Telecommunications Act meltdown nearly 10 years ago.
The FM apocalypse hit the modern rock demographic hard last week, as The Power 99 wannabes, 103.9 The Beat, took over the 100.3 WPLY frequency. If the last few years? slow descent into generic programming and advertising overload wasn?t enough, then the sudden format change raised a warning flag concerning the future of traditional terrestrial radio in this country. Alternative rock in Philadelphia was hung with its own guitar string, and those of us that grew up with WPLY and its DJs can distribute the blame for its disappearance liberally among the fools that staged this coup.
Radio One, "The Urban Radio Specialist," saw fit to axe the entire Y-100 staff on Feb. 24, in much the same way they had with Philadelphia cult favorite WDRE in 1996. This outfit, which gears itself mainly towards African-American audiences, informed the staff which had built WPLY up since 1993 that they were being replaced by a computer looping the top 10 songs from a genre that haven?t been listenable for the past five years. If the ?80s were the rap renaissance, and the ?90s its heyday, does that mean we?re suffering through hip-hop?s "disco" phase now?
WPHI?s new 17,000-watt signal now blasts a playlist so generic
and repetitive that even a Linkin Park concert for grounded teenagers would be more audibly appealing.
DJs like Matt Cord and Bret Hamilton, both WDRE alums and longtime Philadelphia radio staples, were let go by the same
company for the second time in a decade so Lil Jon and G-Unit could come in and clean house. Radio One essentially replaced a 12-yearold alternative rock mainstay with Fat Joe, even though there are two other stations in Philly playing the exact same thing already. Welcome to the world of corporate radio, where mediocrity is king.
If you were considering a career move in the direction of this industry, I?d recommend you now think twice before doing so. This activity is becoming quite routine across the country, as even a 25-year run wasn?t enough to prevent Washington D.C.?s legendary WHFS from getting kicked off the air in favor of Spanish Radio, "El-Zol!" last month. In trade magazines such as RadioInk, the soulless suits-and-ties pat themselves on the back for doing whatever necessary to increase advertising revenue in a medium that, seemingly unbeknownst to them, is dying from the radiation leftover from the Telecommunications Act meltdown nearly 10 years ago.