New York Urban Radio Rivals join Forces
– April 26, 2012
Posted: April 26, 2012 at 10:45 am
After 30 years as sometimes bitter rivals, WBLS (107.5 FM) and 8.7 FM, Kiss-FM) will be joining forces.
After the ESPN takeover of Kiss-FM, the city’s two adult urban radio stations announced in a joint press release Thursday that they will become “One Family, One Station, Our Voice.”
Kiss and WBLS began its 10am broadcast on Thursday, starting with a tribute to the 30-year legacy of Kiss.
As of 12 a.m. Monday they will become a single station at 107.5 FM, under the WBLS call letters. This is probably the biggest news in New York since the New Jersey Nets announced they are moving to Brooklyn.
the radio info report is a bit out touch kiss fm turned 30 in august of 1981, by 1982 kiss fm was the dominate of the two, wbls was floundering, it wasn’t until the music director at bls sought out mr magic through the advice of her 14 year old daughter at the time, kiss fm had begun taking away wbls’s younger listener, The loss of wrks fm “we are kiss” will be a hard void to fill, but as i have said many times on this site, the black community would rather play in a system that plays them “at the end of the day.” this outcome will continue until black folk begin to stand up and not feel bad thinking they will be labeled as trouble makers, there are alot folk in our community that we hold in high regard that laugh all the way to the bank exploiting us under the guise of progress and we are seeing this play itself out again. Wbls no longer excists it’s just call letters and have been so for almost 30 years, wbls hey days were from the second incarnation of the late frankie crocker 1978-1981 and the ratings show that, now wbls is a station owned by private equity firms and a venture capitalist and a former nba player as the front man, nyc radio geared to the black listener died when black music radio became fragmented radio, and the pattern is the standard now, so we need blame us for a change.
This is a way to silence the African American community by closing Kiss FM and leaving WBLS. As far as I am concerned, WBLS is useless. We need a radio station with people who care about the community. A radio station with people who keep the community inform about what’s going on to our people around the country and abroad like Michael Baisden and Tom Joinner did. We don’t need a radio station for music and comedy only.
We need a radio station that can challenge our mind. There is no radio station out there right now catches my attention. They don’t care about what’s going on to minorities in this country, all they care about is rating and money. It is about time that the listeners stop listen to radio stations that have nothing to offer to them like BLS. D and others. Be smart people. We have the power to demand what we want to hear from a station, not the other way around.