NorthEast Radio Watch 3/11 & 3/18/2024: A Wolf Howls on LI

In this week’s issue… JVC flips “Max” to country – Kerr celebrates 50 – Cormier out at Radio VT – Sound of Life donates network – Remembering NY’s Jorgensen, New England’s Knight – Big tower down in Hamilton

By SCOTT FYBUSH

Jump to: ME – NH – VT – MA – RI – CT – NY – NJ – PA – Canada

Programming note: we were doing some much-needed traveling over the last few weeks, and now we’re deep in preparation for the big total solar eclipse coming this way April 8 and then the NAB Show right afterward. So once again, we’re grateful for your patience if our publishing schedule remains a little irregular for the next month or so – we will catch up on everything you need to know!

*Roll over Dierks Bentley, and tell Beyonce the news – while country music remains a tough sell in the heart of the NEW YORK City market, the format has a new toehold in the suburbs.

As our colleague Lance Venta first sussed out a few days ago on RadioInsight, Connoisseur Media pulled the plug on its classic hits “Max” WBZO (103.1 Bay Shore) at 10:31 on Wednesday morning (March 20), changing calls to WWWF and relaunching as “The Wolf.”

Like Max, the new Wolf is jockless so far, but it at least brings country back to most of Long Island, where the only other option in the format until now has been JVC’s WJVC (My Country 96.1), with a limited signal reach over only the eastern end of the island.

Connoisseur tells advertisers that it saw an opportunity to fill a void with the country format in the rest of Long Island, promising to “aggressively promote The Wolf in a multimedia campaign. We’ll run a blended video campaign using CTV and pre-roll, display advertising, paid social advertising, guerilla marketing, and more. We’ll be at every significant country concert on Long Island, hosting amazing tailgate parties and handing out goodies.”

The move to country takes 103.1 out of what had been a fairly robust competition for a rock-based audience; the rock-leaning classic hits on WBZO steered a narrow lane between Cox’s heritage classic rock WBAB (102.3), Connoisseur’s oldies clustermate WHLI (1100/104.7) and its harder rock WWSK (94.3 the Shark), not to mention competition from New York’s WAXQ and WCBS-FM.