The Eagle goes Christmas & might have more changes in store

[CAwasinNJ]

It figures. At the same time I was posting my contest thread, The Eagle was switching to Christmas. The interesting part is that Lance Venta at RadioInsight is saying that after the holiday it won't go back to the way it was. Broadway has applied to change the callsign to KNAH and Lance is speculating that it might flip to Hank-FM classic country. (It took me a few minutes to realize that KNAH is HANK backwards. ) I'd never bet against Lance's insights, but there's something that's a little odd. The on air imaging is still calling it The Eagle. I suppose it makes sense since Eagle has gone all Christmas before, but I wonder about blowing out the imaging to create a little more buzz.

Back some time ago I was saying that someone should try classic country on FM again. There have been times the format has done well, even on AM. That hasn't been true for a long time unfortunately. I know KSOP-FM HD2 has the simulcast of KSOP(AM), but...HD. If this happens it will be interesting to see how well it does. The Eagle has been an also ran for forever so it's worth a shot.

[seattlefollower]

In this market, I haven't turned the radio on to hear it, but our:
Christian contemporary that is a commercial station went on 10/31 this year. They normally do run Christmas "counter programming" on spooky Halloween but return to CCM until later.
Mainstream A/C owned by iHeart went sometime today or yesterday (probably yesterday for ratings book reasons) as their ads are back on TV that I admit are kind of clever, they mimic the old "order this compilation cd by mail" ads.

You can tell it is a bad revenue year by how early the Christmas music hits begin. Oomph.

[kenglish]

KSOP-AM 1370 has a good signal, so there's no reason folks wouldn't be able to listen without an HD radio.
AM radio has been the original home of country music, since before it became "classic" 😉.

[CAwasinNJ]

You're right, but being able to hear the station is one thing and the quality of the sound is another. By regulation AM doesn't have the frequency response that FM does. There's a reason the majority of AM music stations are either primaries for translators or a niche format. I'm not saying it's right or fair, but that's where we are today.

[oldiesfunhouse]

When you said KNAH before I read the rest of your message I was thinking NAsHville. That will be a fun one to keep an ear on.            

[CAwasinNJ]

The call sign request has been granted and will be effective the day after Thanksgiving.

The timing on that is curious. Is it possible that the Christmas music is a temporary diversion and it will go away on Nov 24? If this were any other radio company I would say no, but Broadway has a knack for being unpredictable.

[oldiesfunhouse]

They're still IDing as KEGA as of 9 this morning.

[CAwasinNJ]

No change in the afternoon either.

After listening to the Christmas format for a few hours yesterday and off and on today I have to wonder how seriously they're taking the Christmas music. I've heard quite a few songs repeated. I'm not talking about the same title, which is inevitable with Christmas music. I'm talking about the exact same version. Example: I heard Brad Paisley's "Santa Looked a Lot Like Daddy" three times. That's going to kill TSL (Time Spent Listening.)

The traffic department also has to watch out for stale spots. They ran a promo pointing out that they're running Christmas music pre-Thanksgiving. Oops.

[CAwasinNJ]

I have an update. The application was modified after it was approved. (I only know about it because I pulled up the application and looked.) The new effective date is Dec 26 which makes much more sense, so we should be watching for a flip as we're fighting our way out of our Christmas Comas.