Posted by Bob Smith on October 25, 2005 at 17:04:02:
In Reply to: Re: Infinity To Keep JACK, Touting Its Success posted by Jeff Scheckner on October 25, 2005 at 14:24:12:
Even assuming your source is telling you the straight story, IIRC those numbers are pretty bad compared with CBS-FM's last month as an oldies station (May 2005) with the same demos.
If they ever get back to the point they achieve better numbers with the money demos than they were doing at the end of their oldies run, maybe there'll be reason to be impressed.
But that day will never come.
And the track record of Jack stations with no airstaffs in large markets has always been a slow build to a peak late in the first book, followed by a steep falloff as the novelty wears off. So if this is as good as it is ever likely to get, how much worse will it look by the end of the year or early in 2006?
No getting around it...Jack in NYC was a mistake, and jockless Jack everywhere is not a longterm viable format. A classic hits station (and that's really what Jack is) needs a strong lineup of personalities to hold it together...although I haven't heard these stations myself, that's what people say makes it work in places like Phoenix or St. Louis.
Last spring Infinity was reportedly thinking of marrying Jack's music mix and library with WCBS-FM's existing lineup of jocks and creating a personality-intensive, foreground version of Jack. They might very well have had themselves a winner if they'd created a station like that. Now, it's just a missed opportunity...