Radio One Philly Moving 107.9 WRNB to 100.3 on 9/1; What About The Beat??

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• published: 29 Aug 2011
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On Twitter: @AkiemBailum Philadelphia's R & Beat. Radio One has a huge presence in the huge BlackTropolis that is Philadelphia, Pennsylvania. It owns 3 radio stations in Philly...107.9 WRNB, 100.3 the Beat WPHI, and Praise 103.9 WPPZ. Two of R-I's station's in the City of Brotherly Love are about to trade frequencies on Philly's radio dial. 107.9 WRNB is an R&B-based; Urban station better known as Urban Adult Contemporary. It is Philly's affiliate for the Tom Joyner Morning Show. Its playlist has been said to lean more younger as opposed to an older leaning competitor at 105.3 WDAS (Clear Channel). RNB has been behind in the ratings recently. As Lance Venta and RadioInsight.com pointed out via the recent Philly PPMs. WRNB is at a 4.1 to WDAS's 5.9. Part of that is because WRNB 107.9's signal is extremely inferior. It doesn't cover all of Philadelphia the way you think that it would. WRNB is based out of Pennsauken, New Jersey and doesn't even RIMSHOT Atlantic City. Compare that to WDAS 105.3 which does rimshot Atlantic City and even reaches into some of New York's northern suburbs on a rimshot basis as well. Having its signal eminate directly from the Philadelphia city limits helps 'DAS's cause as well. Where WRNB has Tom Joyner, WDAS has Steve Harvey and Michael Baisden. Harvey has consistently been beating the Fly Jock in many of their shared markets as many see Harvey as a "new school" version of Joyner. Radio One sees this and is tired of being WDAS's punching bag. So, it has decided to bulk up by moving to the clearer signal of WPHI 100.3. 100.3's Estimated Radiated Power is actually higher than that of WDAS's. 100.3 is licensed to Media, Pennsylvania which is a suburb, obviously, of Philly. The move of WRNB to 100.3 would ideally displace the station that is currently residing comfortably on said frequency. That would be Urban Contemporary 100.3 the Beat WPHI-FM. This station recently lost its morning team of Star & Buc Wild. S&BW; have a long and checkered history in radio which includes many stops (most notably with New York area stations). With the Urban AC moving to 100.3, this immediately began the speculation that Philadelphia was about to lose its Beat. Technically, it sounds as if they're right and wrong at the same time. 100.3 seems to be going along with the idea that they indeed are signing off on September the 1st. They're asking people to text "new" to one of their text numbers to get an update as to where "The Beat" went. I tried this and got a bogus text that told me nothing. All references to "The Beat" have been removed from 100.3's website. Their Twitter account is now using the handle @100Point3. While all indications among most casual listeners is that The Beat will die this Thursday, that doesn't seem to be the reality. Venta followed up the original Philadelphia Inquirer report by finding out that Radio One registered the following domain name back in July: Hot1079Philly.com They also got wind that Radio One already applied with the FCC for 107.9 and 100.3 to switch their respective call letters. WPHI will be on 107.9 and WRNB will, of course, be on 100.3. 100.3's main competitors are Clear Channel's WUSL "Power 99", Beasley Broadcasting's WRDW "Wired 96.5", and to a lesser extent, heritage CC CHR WIOQ Q102. We know about how this any new Urban station would be a signal downgrade when compared to 100.3. Power's signal is stronger than both 100.3 and 107.9's combined with an ERP of almost 30K watts from Downtown Philadelphia. Wired and Q have strong signals as well even though Q's is stronger than WRDW's. It looks like Hot 107.9 will be Philadelphia's new hip hop station that'll basically be 100.3 The Beat Version 2.0. WRNB 107.9 will be 100.3 starting this Thursday. I wouldn't be surprised if (since Rickey Smiley has no Philly affiliate yet) that they put him on 107.9. He's based out of another 107.9 "Hot 107.9" WHTA in Atlanta. It is also owned and operated by Radio One. Philadelphia has had a hard time keeping its Liberty Bell self out of the radio news recently. We know that this Friday at 3 PM, 94.1 WYSP will sign off the air (for good) and will likely relegate itself to Internet/HD2 status as 610 WIP-AM commandeers the 94.1 frequency. Then, Danny Bonaduce (who hosts WYSP's morning show) said his final goodbyes to Philly as the station is about to flip. Merlin Media & CBS are in talks to buy 106.9 from Family Radio and put a female-skewing All-Newser on it similar to their outlets in NY and Chicago. In short, Philly right now is a hotbed for Radio noticias. At this rate, Philly may have 4 Christmas stations again by November. LOL :-) Your Opinion...?