Posted by bamhunter on August 11, 2009 at 10:41:04:
In Reply to: Spanish CHR in Chicago posted by JA on August 11, 2009 at 10:40:21:
Nice thoughts Jeremy..
Although I would say that the best spanish CHR numbers were put out by La Kalle when it was on WVIV and WVIX FM back in July of 2005. Within months they were up to almost a 2.0. Of course this was during the "reggaeton craze" of 05-06. The one thing Univision did back then was it lost its fear of mixing Spanish and English music and Jocks which were encouraged to speak both languages. That soon died out due to "research" which says people supposedly dont want that although what we see and hear daily on our streets says otherwise. Onda 92 didnt work cause SBS just didnt put any thought into it and just rushed it in order to get it on the air before big city radio sold Viva to Univision Radio. CHR traditionally has never done GREAT numbers in Chicago though Id say Clearchannel's doing what its doing in order to capitalize share on a growing audience and im sure they will make more ad revenue in the long run. Kiss is interesting cause one day they want the Latino audience and one day they are not sure..One day they say they wanna be all over the Latino community and the next day they say different.. In the words of one of their recent P.D's "we dont wanna alienate the wanna be ghetto white kid in Schaumburg" so any Latino listenership for kiss is just gravy. As far as actual programming on WPPN and Mega right now, its very similiar. Both stations also play many songs from 1990 through 2003 as recurrents which can be ehhhh. Mega has shorter breaks/less talk which is traditional for a c.c station but ive noticed WPPN is now having shorter breaks. The one thing that always sets Mega apart is its powerful signal and that may be the deciding factor. Bottom line I dont think both stations will be around with the exact same formats for the long term they are in a dogfight right now for a format thats very niche and not a huge number generator to begin with. Interesting radio side note which hasnt been reported anywhere: Rafael "El Pistolero" Pulido which at one point was close to being the most heard morning host on Chicago radio quietly exited Univision radio recently. He had been doing afternoons for WOJO locally and had his show distributed to numerous Univision markets, according to unconfirmed "hear say" his shows didnt do so well outside of Chicago causing some changes in his contract which caused the rift and exit..