Once again, rock radio has been dealt a blow in New York.
The news that CBS Radio is buying the 101.9 FM frequency for a simulcast of WFAN, its popular AM sports station, means that the last commercial station playing contemporary rock in New York will disappear. WFAN-FM is to take the place of WEMP later this fall.
There is still classic rock, on WAXQ (known as Q104.3). A handful of rock stations in neighboring areas, like WHDA in New Jersey, reach parts of the city. Noncommercial stations like WFUV also play some rock in addition to other music. But with the loss of WEMP, the city will have no rock station, as defined by the ratings service Arbitron - which includes playing new songs.
Not that rock had been holding much of a healthy place in New York, anyway. Until last summer, 101.9 FM was WRXP, an alternative rock station that had struggled to establish a local identity. In August 2011, after a sale to Merlin M edia, the frequency switched over - or “flipped,†as they say in radio - to news, but by July 2012 it had come back to rock. The latest change will be the station's third format flip in about 15 months.
Rock stations around the country have been suffering for a decade, a symptom of rock's fading popularity as well as the rise of a more dance-oriented sound on the Top 40 (Lady Gaga, Black Eyed Peas, Rihanna).
In the mid-2000s, a clutch of rock stations around the country changed. Recently rock stations in Atlanta and Boston have flipped to formats that play a variety of pop and rock hits - a sound that is sometimes called adult hits, and has been likened to an iPod on shuffle.
