DON'T FORGET TO "LIKE" BEE-OTCH OF THE DAY ON FACEBOOK!
Name: Cumulus Media
Age: 16
Occupation: media Goliath
Last Seen: Atlanta
Bee-otched For: effing up
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If you ever wanted to know what was wrong with radio, leave it up to the three C's: Clear Channel, CBS and Cumulus.
Some wonder who is the lesser of the evils, and personally, I don't care. They're all evil, IMO, but since Cumulus I think needs to be ribbed by me more often, they're my target for today.
Case in point: the fact that their sports station here in Grand Rapids, WBBL is one big fucking abortion.
Last week, the Neilson ratings were released, and The Ball was the second-lowest-rated station of those still getting ratings. The station is at a dismal 1.3.
But that's not the only problem Cumulus has in GR; their talker, WJRW 1430 has a dismal .5. Some, like myself wonder how a station with lots of local hosts can survive with that rating. Most of their other stations, like country Thunder 94.5 and 105.3 Hot FM are also barely breathing in comparison to their competitors.
However, their bright spot here is WLAV 96.9, which is back to being the #1 rocker in Grand Rapids with a 7.7. WGRD also improved to a 7.2, but then again, WLAV's ratings are in part due to the fact that they carry the Detroit Tigers.
Even with the late Matt Hanlon out the building, the old Citadel stations are still a giant waste of electricity here in Grand Rapids. Even worse, the company as a whole isn't doing much better elsewhere.
Case in point: New York City. I shake my head at the fact that Cumulus flipped a crappy religious station at 94.7 to an equally-crappy country outlet with a crappy name called Nash FM. So far, the ratings for Nash are bland, especially for a market like New York. Right now, they're at a 1.9, and they've peaked at a 2.1 a few months ago. Even more, I'm pissed that New York, the biggest market in the country HAS NO NEW ROCK STATION! The last several new rockers the city had, i.e. both incarnations of WRXP all did way better than Nash FM. New York is a rock town, especially since CBGB's (which stood for "Country, Blues and Bluegrass") was a failing country music club when it went punk in 1976 or so. How a town like New York be without a new rock station is beyond me.
But in Detroit, Cumulus is a joke there, too. WDVD's ratings have slid over time, Doug FM is, well, Doug FM and WJR is a true laughing stock over the fact that in January, they're moving Michael Weiner from late nights to afternoons. Funny and unusual since WJR is supposed to be the old geezer station and Weiner's music beds are all hard rock tunes (bear in mind that his theme song is "Master of Puppets" by Metallica). I thought that 50 years ago, WJR promised their listeners that they would never play a rock record. Boy, have times changed. Personally, I would rather hear death metal on WJR over the right-winged bullshit they air now.
Sadly, that's Cumulus for ya. They only care about profit and the listener comes last. It's sad that they haven't undone all of Hanlon's problems since he was canned when the merger happened, and it's killing them. When will they realize that nobody in Grand Rapids likes "Huge" Bill Simonson? How does this prick get to have a radio show and sponsors like Brann's and his station is at a 1.3? Hell, the station did better when it was at 1340! ESPN 96.1 has made WBBL its bitch, and they don't carry any of the Detroit teams. They get ratings - and not much better ones - just by having better programming.
In other news, damn is Slacker awesome!
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