Ann Duran on WQSX Star 93-7 Lawrence/Boston | March 13, 2003 (29:43)
This originally posted in April of ‘03. Back then, your webmaster predicted WQSX to strongly compete with WJMN… well it didn’t materialize, but the station is still there.
I think this is a great format, although for Boston, historically a Rock town (but leaning more Urban every year), it hasn’t performed as well as it probably should have. At any rate, whether you enjoy Beat music or Rhythmic (or whatever it’s called now), this will surely pick you up.
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93.7 mike fm is still owned and operated by the same company that owned and operated Star 93.7
This will pretty much sum up what the greedy corporate fools that ran Star 93.7 did:
They saw Star as having a decent, yet small listening base. To them, it didn’t matter that there were a lot of us that liked the “dance friendly” oriented format or not. They see it in dollar signs.
They’re also scared to death about satellite radio moving in. This is why prior to the format change, you were hearing all those commercials about “you heard it here first”.
You may be saying to yourself, how could they have been hurting money wise if they had plently of commercials being aired and just about everyone you know listens to the station?
Well, that’s not how corporate sees it. They look at the arbitron ratings.
Putting that aside, let’s talk about us - the listeners. We’re all pissed off that our “little community” of disco/dance music lovers has once again been pushed aside. This same thing happened when Kiss 108 sold-out back in the mid 80s when they decided to start playing all that modern rock/alternative crap mixed in with whatever dance music they played.
We all bitched and moaned about that also… but it never got us anywhere.
Now, we have nothing (expect for satellite radio and streaming 103.5 ktu out of nyc).
I see 93.7 mike fm trying to stress the point that they “play everything”. Who gives a crap about hearing everything? We already have over a dozen rock stations on the fm dial already paying classic rock, modern rock, pop rock and oldies. What makes 93.7 mike fm unique? Nothing.
Yes, gone are the radio jocks we loved to hear (edited).
What about the mix shows (Star Sound Factory/Star After Hours) on the weekends late at night? DJ Ricky, Massi, Danae Jacovidis & DJ Spinelli entertaining us after the clubs got out - all gone.
What about the noontime workout or the early evening mix shows? What about the Sunday night club classics? What about the new/breaking dance music coming out?
Hence, 93.7 mike fm says “give us a try”. Give you a try? What the BLEEP could you possibly offer with this current format that could keep us former listeners happy with? Nothing.
Friends, let’s face it - disco/dance music apparently is not welcomed in Boston. There is no place for this music here. If there were enough demand for it, there would be a major station playing it. It belongs in NYC and other places.
There is however, a huge demand for rock n roll. What we need is MORE rock stations to be added to the dozen or so we already have! Why not? The demand is here for it!! In fact, what we should do is change every station on the fm dial to some form of rock music. We could even go out and spray paint “disco & dance sucks” and “rock n roll rules” to hype it up even more!
Maybe if we push for the opposite, one day, just maybe one day, something might change in “anti-disco/dance” Boston and we’ll soon be able to enjoy fm radio as we once did.
I loved star 93.7, It was the best thing that ever happened to Boston. IT was the rhythm of Boston. Why couldn’t mike have made a station on an unused number like 1064 or something. Now that Star is gone, I am a station flipper. Face it people I am 11 years old, and I loved star if it is good enough for a pre-teen to like, than i think it’s pretty darn good. Star was unique. If you wanna hear everything, switch stations. Us, we wanna hear one type of music : Star music. Now that Ralphie, karen, ann duran, Freddy, Heather, And Lady D are gone I dont know what ill do. It is a year later and i still donbt have a permanant station. I miss star. Alkso Mike FM has terrible ratings. i miss The rhythm of Boston Thanks, from A very loyal Star Listener… I loved Star RIP Star 93.7 WQSX
This sucks ass
I cant belive it…. Oh and the *** thing wasnt me , it was my brother
Regarding previous comments: First, this aircheck, I thought, was quite good even though I’m not a dance fan (I prefer Classic & Alternative Rock). Regardless of our music preferences, there’s no reason to run down the jock.
Second, Ann Duran requested a while back that I remove this recording for personal reasons. That I ran across it intact today bothered me in that I thought I removed it when asked… so, my apologies.
Third, and now we get into the meat of this thing, Entercom blew up Star with the intent of saving money. This isn’t the first, nor will it be the last decent sounding station which changed formats or simply fired all the live talent to save on bottom line expenses. It’s actually more the norm in recent times.
What the average listener doesn’t realize is that radio is in deep financial trouble everywhere, in every market at nearly every station. The ones that are surviving are actually the small and some medium market stations. Corporate decision making includes lower expenses each year, partly to make up for the increasing losses of ad revenue. Look, gang, the ad agencies AREN’T BUYING RADIO like they used to, and people under 30 AREN’T LISTENING TO RADIO nearly as much. It’s more pronounced at the younger end of the demo.
Get used to more format changes to things like Mike FM and the like, because companies like Clear Channel and Entercom are drowning in debt. And while there will always be at least one winning station in each market (sometimes in each cluster), the number of live jocks on the air in a particular city seem to drop more and more each year.
This is negative and I know it’s not exactly what I set out to say here, but I do want to say that while I hate the direction radio is headed, I think a long multi paragraph rant against all corporate radio (there ain’t much local ownership these days gang so get used to it) is kinda counter-productive. You guys don’t realize that programmers, consultants and corporate mucky-mucks DO visit this site and read these comments. Do yourselves a favor and tell them what you’d LIKE to see, instead of a blanket rant… they might, and often times do, listen.
And…. I should have responded to the first post years ago… The reason there’s no real Dance music in Boston is that it’s a niche format IN THAT MARKET. Dance is *NOT* Hiphop/R&B! Dance/Trance.. or whatever you call it has it’s place but not on a major 50,000 watt FM station in the heart of an aging city of folks who grew up with WBCN/WCOZ/WAAF/WFNX. Boston is splintered between the Hiphop/R&B listeners and the aging rockers. Alternative is also gaining popularity again. Dance is a format that appeals to a certain demo that frequents dance clubs on a regular basis, and really not too many others. It doesn’t appeal to many folks over the age of, say, 25… because those people are working stiffs who are too busy to party, and if not listening to something mainstream, are probably tuned to WBZ for the news or WTKK/WRKO for talk.
You wanna talk about a format that’s more relevant and has more revenue potential in Boston that Dance but not on FM? Hispanic! Watch the demos. Sheesh, I’m not even from Boston but being from Western Mass originally even I can tell you that Disco/Dance stuff doesn’t work there.