Ratings Winner WGBZ The Beat Flips from Hip Hop to Classic Rock

Sounds like the formula for success for any radio station. Get listeners to tune in and advertisers will promote their product by buying ads on the station, and revenues will increase. NOT the case in Alabama. Advertisers shied away from the station that billed itself as "Anniston & Oxford's New Number 1 Station For Hip Hop and R&B. Listen to WGBZ The Beat in Anniston on 104.3 FM, 1490 AM, and in Oxford on 99.1 FM." 

At the time of the promising launch, the program director had these words to say: “Basically, our goal is to make radio fun and exciting,” said Justin Simane, WGBZ-The Beat’s programming director. “People don’t want to listen to the same-old, same-old. And until now, the area never had a hip-hop, R&B FM radio station.”

But a little over a year later Simane has this to say: “It wasn’t the fact that people weren’t listening. It was the advertisers,” he said. “If we were in a market like Birmingham or Atlanta, we never would’ve been shut down.”

Read more: Business as Usual: Too few advertising dollars lead to end of hip-hop format at Anniston radio station  Anniston Star