Santa may be back at the North Pole, but he apparently gifted several stations with new formats following several weeks of playing all-Christmas music.<\/p>\n
That\u2019s the case in Salt Lake City, where Capital Broadcasting\u2019s KLO-FM flipped to soft AC \u201cCoast 103.1\u201d after more than two months as \u201cChristmas 103.\u201d That switch followed the final days of KLO-FM\u2019s classic modern\/alternative rock \u201c103.1 The Wave\u201d which began in 2016. \u201cCoast\u201d is clearly looking to take share from Bonneville\u2019s soft AC \u201cFM 100.3\u201d KSFI, which tied for third in the market in Nielsen\u2019s November survey, and Cumulus Media adult contemporary \u201cB98.7\u201d KBEE. Capital boasts the top-ranked station in the market, hot AC \u201cNow 97.9\u201d KBZN.<\/p>\n
Meanwhile in New Orleans, iHeartMedia\u2019s \u201cVoodoo 103.7\u201d WFFX, which was hot AC before its move to all-Christmas music, returned as rhythmic AC with the tagline \u201cNew Orleans\u2019 Feel Good Station.\u201d WGNO-TV anchor and 40-year market veteran Lebron \u201cLBJ\u201d Joseph has moved to \u201cVoodoo\u201d middays from iHeart urban AC WYLD-FM, where he\u2019d hosted weekends since 2015. The new format has its work cut out for it, as its recent ratings have been under the 1-share mark.<\/p>\n
Two stations switched to classic hits following holiday music, including Townsquare Media\u2019s WTRV Grand Rapids, MI, formerly soft AC \u201c100.5 The River.\u201d The new \u201cRiver\u201d replaces Townsquare\u2019s former classic hits station \u201c98.7 The Grand\u201d WFGR, which flipped to sports earlier in December.<\/p>\n
Sticks Media\u2019s KHDV Darby, MT, which rocked around the Christmas tree as \u201cHo Ho 108,\u201d flipped to classic hits \u201cRocket 108\u201d Dec. 25, mirroring the format of sister station \u201cRocket 103.7\u201d KTNK in Lompoc, CA. KHDV, which had been classic hits as \u201c107.9 The Drive\u201d before going silent in 2024 while owned by Sheila Callahan & Friends Inc., was one of two Montana stations Callahan sold to Sticks Media<\/a> in November for $255,000.<\/p>\n In Corpus Christi, TX, ICA Media\u2019s KAJE, formerly home to Spanish regional Mexican \u201c107.3 Que Buena,\u201d featured all country-leaning Christmas songs as of Dec. 1 before relaunching as \u201cHot Country 107.3\u201d Dec. 26, matching its \u201cHot Country 96.1\u201d in Odessa-Midland, TX. For KAJE it\u2019s a return to country, as the station had been branded as \u201cMy Country 107.3\u201d and \u201c107.3 The Bull\u201d prior to its switch to \u201cQue Buena\u201d in 2023.<\/p>\n ST Radio\u2019s WGCL (1370 AM, and 98.7 via FM translator W254DP) Bloomington, IN took a slightly different route with its format change, moving from conservative talk-and-sports \u201cBloomington\u2019s Voice\u201d to sports \u201c98.7 The Zone\u201d WWZN. While most local hosts and newscasters remain on the station, \u201cThe Zone\u201d also adds the regionally-syndicated \u201cIndiana Sports Daily\u201d middays and Westwood One Sports programming to fill the rest of the day.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Santa may be back at the North Pole, but he apparently gifted several stations with new formats following…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":377244,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[53],"tags":[88,7056,216,3],"class_list":{"0":"post-377243","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-music","8":"tag-entertainment","9":"tag-free","10":"tag-music","11":"tag-news"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/377243","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=377243"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/377243\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/377244"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=377243"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=377243"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=377243"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}