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The Breeze Drifts Away

Discussion pertaining to Detroit, Ann Arbor, Port Huron, and SW Ontario
Bobbert
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The Breeze Drifts Away

Post by Bobbert » Sun Nov 22, 2020 2:37 pm

It's a little sad that the Breeze format failed here after only a couple of years. But as others have mentioned, the writing was on the wall, with its falling ratings in part because of the move towards remote work.

I found it most enjoyable as background music in restaurants and at home. I hardly ever listened to it in the car—it just didn't have that immediate punch that I look for in car radio music. And it just couldn't compete with the general noises of driving.

Interestingly, it tried to partially emulate the soft rock format that really kicked into gear 50 years ago, in 1970, with songs like We've Only Just Begun, Close to You, My Sweet Lord, Fire and Rain, If You Could Read My Mind, Make It With You, and Bridge Over Troubled Water. I'm old enough to have very fond memories of that music. Good luck finding anything like that on the radio now, except for low power oldies stations.

Another reason why I'm glad I started subscribing to Amazon Music this year.



BKRPDM
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Re: The Breeze Drifts Away

Post by BKRPDM » Sun Nov 22, 2020 4:34 pm

Yes - too bad it’s gone. It’s funny that it still was using “new” after two years.

I’m amazed at the fact that the library was so small for most of its existence.

IMO, it was most interesting in the first few months. I remember hearing some softer ELO songs, and songs such as “You and Me” by Alice Cooper.

Sorry to see Chadd and Kristi, Kim and Sandy losing their positions.

I would have loved to see a KTWV-style format, as MW had spoken about a few times. Perhaps if we didn’t have a Urban AC like Kiss, maybe that would have happened.



stopnswop2
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Re: The Breeze Drifts Away

Post by stopnswop2 » Sun Nov 22, 2020 4:54 pm

I didn't fail, but the ratings were not amazing.
This was due to poor execution, boring VT'd jocks, and a bland playlist that did not change at all for over a year.
The heavy amount of 70s and 80s songs that were in the playlist in 2018 should have stayed.


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MWmetalhead
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Re: The Breeze Drifts Away

Post by MWmetalhead » Sun Nov 22, 2020 5:25 pm

It's a little sad that the Breeze format failed here after only a couple of years. But as others have mentioned, the writing was on the wall, with its falling ratings in part because of the move towards remote work.
Perhaps concern about increased work-from-home activity contributed to its demise, but its AQH share in the past two surveys rebounded nicely.

I don't know how its recent numbers in Adults 25-54 fared, but pre-COVID, it was often just outside the top 10. In Detroit, usually stations have to fare substantially poorer than that to be flipped.

I think flipping the station was a mistake - a far bigger mistake than not going classic rock when the opportunity presented itself. (Classic Rock with "Wheels" branding on 98.7 would have made a phenomenal sales pairing with 97.1 The Ticket and would have enabled WOMC to position itself to more directly attack WNIC.)

The Breeze had much healthier ratings than 89-EX, 93.9 The River, or Fault 106.7. Of the three, the new sound is closest to Fault 106.7, which proved to be one of the biggest format flops of the past 20 years.



stopnswop2
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Re: The Breeze Drifts Away

Post by stopnswop2 » Mon Nov 23, 2020 12:41 am

I finally published just the screenshots of the playlist from November 13th through December 26th, 2018.

It won't let me post the entire fb gallery on the app, so I'll link the 3 individual posts

https://m.facebook.com/story.php?story_ ... 7&sfnsn=mo

https://m.facebook.com/story.php?story_ ... 7&sfnsn=mo

https://m.facebook.com/story.php?story_ ... 7&sfnsn=mo

Now for me personally, I had this incarnation on nonstop for over a month until the change.
Then in 2019 I started listening only maybe a couple times a the day or in the car.
Then by 2020 I listened maybe once or twice a week.

If they left the playlist alone, then it would be a different story.

Even the hype on here was similar.
There were like 20 threads on here with people posting in them nonstop. Then in January 2019 the posting stopped, minus the one thread I made myself for people to post complaints about the new songs


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MotorCityRadioFreak
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Re: The Breeze Drifts Away

Post by MotorCityRadioFreak » Mon Nov 23, 2020 6:13 am

You couldn't pay me to listen to that.


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drew10219
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Re: The Breeze Drifts Away

Post by drew10219 » Mon Nov 23, 2020 9:24 am

Pretty sure they will bill more when this is sold with the Ticket

It's tough to sell sports with light rock, even Classic Rock has lost it's luster now that it's all over the dial
this with OMC and the Ticket will make a nice packaged to any advertiser



Gertner
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Re: The Breeze Drifts Away

Post by Gertner » Mon Nov 23, 2020 1:55 pm

Oh no. No more Safe Space radio.



szmigiel
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Re: The Breeze Drifts Away

Post by szmigiel » Mon Nov 23, 2020 6:44 pm

My wife was a dedicated listener of the Breeze since it went on the air, and was enjoying the early switch to X-mas. She really doesn't pay attention to what frequency a station is, only what preset it was in her car. She thought that our son had changed her presets last week.



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MWmetalhead
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Re: The Breeze Drifts Away

Post by MWmetalhead » Tue Nov 24, 2020 6:07 pm

The people at Entercom corporate are absolute MORONS!

https://radioinsight.com/ratings/detroit/



armchair pd
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Re: The Breeze Drifts Away

Post by armchair pd » Tue Nov 24, 2020 6:45 pm

MWmetalhead wrote:
Tue Nov 24, 2020 6:07 pm
The people at Entercom corporate are absolute MORONS!

https://radioinsight.com/ratings/detroit/
They beat WNIC and get whacked.

Bravo :lol



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MWmetalhead
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Re: The Breeze Drifts Away

Post by MWmetalhead » Tue Nov 24, 2020 7:04 pm

Yeah, no kidding.

I cannot recall a station with such high ratings being blown up in this town. W4 Country was only around a 3 share in both 12+ and A25-54 when it was tossed aside Labor Day weekend 1999 and had been on a downward slide for some time.

Today's 105.1 was only grabbing low 2's (at best) in A25-54 when it was tossed aside. 93.1 WDRQ might have been doing a tiny bit better than that when it was blown up 2005-ish.

A terrible business move, in my opinion, whose recklessness becomes even more evident when one examines the horrendous ratings of similarly formatted stations under Mike Kaplan's programming thumb (KNDD Seattle, KROQ Los Angeles, KITS San Francisco, KVIL Dallas all posted poor or very poor ratings this survey).

At least in 89X's case - one could argue the move to "Pure Country 89" makes some sense from the vantage point Country is a mass appeal format with documented strong ratings in Windsor. CIMX has a definite signal advantage over all other Country stations that can be heard regularly in Essex County, so even though it is entering a crowded field, it has a halfway decent chance of sustainability.

Alternative has a very shaky history in Detroit and hasn't performed particularly well in the ratings here in pure form unless one goes back to the mid 90's.



radioandtventhusiast
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Re: The Breeze Drifts Away

Post by radioandtventhusiast » Tue Nov 24, 2020 7:19 pm

MWmetalhead wrote:
Tue Nov 24, 2020 6:07 pm
The people at Entercom corporate are absolute MORONS!

https://radioinsight.com/ratings/detroit/
They shouldn't have flipped. They beat the heritage AC. Why did they need to flip?

I think the only change that should have happened that day was flipping 89X to Country. 93.9 should have stayed the River and 987. should have stayed the Breeze. Both had decent ratings in Detroit and Windsor, respectively.

Wonder if WNIC will add more softer songs to the playlist after Christmas.



Marcus
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Re: The Breeze Drifts Away

Post by Marcus » Tue Nov 24, 2020 7:30 pm

I'm beginning to wonder what Cumulus will do with WDRQ. They could either go Classic Country or pick up where the Breeze left off.



stopnswop2
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Re: The Breeze Drifts Away

Post by stopnswop2 » Tue Nov 24, 2020 8:28 pm

Flipping DRQ to soft AC would be wise.
Their country days have consistently failed.

The "November" rating I don't even think covered the Christmas music, so they beat NIC with the regular progamming.

I really hope they are kicking themselves. This was the most idiotic businesses decision. Flipping a decent rated station to a format that consistantly fails in Detroit is absolutely hilarious


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