Saturday, November 04, 2006

Another Attempt To Fragment Country Bites The Dust


Entercom's
WGVC-FM "106.3 The WALK," in Greenville-Spartanburg, SC, which positioned itself as "God And Country" never got above a three share 12+ over the last year. When it dropped almost a full share in the summer ARB (four book trend = 2.4-2.8-3.1-2.3) as it played a mix of "Contemporary Christian Music & Positive Country Music," they finally pulled the plug. It had been the brainchild of contemporary formats expert Dan Vallie and we admire him and owner Entercom for being willing to experiment with new ideas.

The station is now Greenstone Media's "Talk The Way Women Want" and is in the midst of a 'name the station' contest.

You'd have to say that if "positive country" couldn't make it in Greenville, it probably won't make it anywhere. Maybe someone in the bible belt will give it another try on an HD Radio side channel at some point?

A&O thinks that could be quite viable from that perspective. We have been prepared for several years now with a spectrum of country niche approaches based on a low cume/high passion-driven brand model that won't hurt a mainstream analog country leader. When it's time to program your HD side channels, A&O can assist.

1 comment:

Anonymous said...

The Walk- country and Christian music was the best station around. I have alot of friends who are very upset that this program has been taken off the air.