Some of you may remember when I blogged about CBS changing the format of 101.1 in New York City – the number one ranked oldies station. When CBS changed from the oldies format to some stupid “Jack-FM” concept (which was based on an iPod style – playing whatever they wanted to play), the station quickly tanked. Again, after realizing the error of their ways – and losing tons of advertising revenue – CBS Radio changed their minds and brought back the oldies format.

And now we have the latest blunder in the New Jersey/New York terrestrial radio meltdown. Press Communications, the owner of four stations in the Monmouth County/Ocean County area, have taken their G-Rock Radio Channel (106.3 FM) and changed it to now be called “Hit 106.” The name change isn’t the problem – it’s the format change. As described in the Asbury Park Press:

Less than a week after the Jersey Shore station WHTG (G-Rock) 106.3-FM switched from an alternative rock format to contemporary hits, a group calling itself “Bring Back G-Rock,” with a Facebook page, is planning a protest at noon Saturday outside the station’s studio at 2355 West Bangs Ave. in Neptune.

Press Communications, the owners of the station, made the switch at noon on Monday, to appeal to the 18 to 44 age range.

How stupid is this decision by Press Communications? If you live in the Jersey Shore area, you know that G-Rock was all over the place up and down the shore during the spring, summer, and fall seasons. They were a household name in terms of the radio world…and they’re rewarded for their excellent marketing and advertising by being taken off of the air? Who’s making these ridiculous decisions in the terrestrial radio world?!

I was glad to read that there is going to be a protest outside of the Press Communications building tomorrow. Though I can’t be there, I agree that G-Rock Radio should be brought back. Since I’ve picked up Sirius XM there have only been a few times that I’ve been forced to listen to old-fashioned, boring, censored radio. During those times the only stations that I listened to were G-Rock Radio and NJ 101.5-FM. This was a good channel and I guarantee that it’s a bigger money-maker (and crowd pleaser) than Hot 106.

Watch – taking G-Rock Radio off of the air will be one of the dumbest moves in Press Communications’ history.

Bear in mind they also took off the first two weeks of July. Ummm…that’s four full weeks off in the summer months. I know that Howard’s brainwashed fans will say that he’s earned the break, but there are many millions more of us who are just fans of the show and feel like they’ve been sold a bill of goods with the Howard Stern gang. We were told about commercial-free radio before he made the jump – we now get frequent 15-minute, non-live content breaks in the middle of his shows.

We were told that the show would be in the studio on the occasional Friday to surprise the audience. Bullshit on that! He spent a few Fridays in the studio when he started Sirius – more than two and a half years ago now.

Then we were told about all of the great content that we’d get after Sirius XM and Stern bought back his tapes from CBS Radio/Viacom. What do they give us? A completely randomized selection of shows from all over Howard’s history with no rhyme or reason as to why they were playing certain shows. This crappy “Master Tape Theater” was so poorly received that the Stern folks were forced to move it into some weird Sunday afternoon time slot when no one is listening anyway.

Before he made the jump, Stern sold us on something like 33 cents per day or 45 cents per day to hear him on Sirius. Okay – then let me pay just the 45 cents on each day that he’s in the building. In August, I would have paid $3.60 to hear Howard and his crew.

I can’t tell you how happy I am that the merger went through. I really do like satellite radio and I really do enjoy listening to the Howard Stern Show. But paying the $14 that I pay each month (tax included) is not worth what I’m getting in terms of service. I hear that with the merger there will be an option to get 50 channels of your choice and pay $6.99 per month. Let’s get that figured out and in motion already!

The new format was called Jack-FM and their slogan was, “Playing what we want.” Well, it seems that absolutely no one gave a shit about what music they were playing as they went from 8th in the New York market to 16th. This just shows you, again, how out of touch the powers-that-be at CBS are with the contemporary marketplace. Idiots.

I distinctly remember family members telling me how upset they were when 101.1 switched from oldies with Cousin Brucie (who can be heard on Sirius XM, by the way) to playing whatever some idiot marketing genius thought Generation X wanted to hear. This was just a horrible, dumb, stupid business move and whoever thought of it and put the “ok” on it should be fired immediately. Not only was the oldies format in 8th place in New York, it was the #1 rated oldies station in America. Why would anyone want to change that?!?

But stupidity with radio decisions isn’t anything new in New York. Let’s not forget that K-Rock switched from the #1 rock channel in the city while it had Howard Stern to some bullshit called FREE-FM after they lost him. Since the ratings for that style went straight to the shitter, in May CBS Radio brought K-Rock back and dumped their sub-par at best talk show format. Again, if I was at CBS Radio at a higher level and I knew who originated the idea to switch to an all-talk format in the wake of Howard Stern’s departure, I’d fire the person on the spot. How do you take the #1 rock station in both New York City and Northern New Jersey and just change it to an all-talk format? Idiots! But then again, this is the station that is keeping Opie and Anthony on the air when they routinely score 0.0 in the ratings for the New York market. Actually, their ratings may have gone up, but they’ve been a dismal failure since they entered New York.

I digress…

It’s good to have the oldies back on in New York City. The fans of 101.1 didn’t deserve to have their station snatched away from them and I’m glad that the stupid, iPod format of Jack-FM was a miserable failure.