On the mornings when I drive my wife to work, we enjoyed listening to the Battle of the Sexes game on Z95.3, this season the women have been in the lead most of the time much to my chagrin. Each week the morning crew ask trivia to men and women about pretty much everything. It’s a best of three type thing and whoever wins gets 75 bucks at Starbucks and a chance to win a Honda Fit at the end of the season. They were at 45-43 for the women last time I heard, and the “season” ends at whoever hits 95 first.
When I graduated from high school, nigh 15(!!!) years ago I attended the dry grad at Hyde Creek pool. It was DJ’ed by Z95.3 or at least they supplied the prizes and stuff and it was very cool. At the time they were mostly a dance station, capitalizing on the craze at the time with Rednex, Real McCoy and all those groups. I won a tape just for dancing (the dance was pretty lame, no one wanted to dance at all) and I still have it. From then on I listened to Z and loved it.
Monday afternoon Candace came home and said that Z was playing some weird garbled noise on her way to work and figured they were having some technical difficulties or something. On further researching it on the interweb, turns out the station is undergoing a redesign and is now called “The Crave”. Ahem BOOOOOOOOOO! Apparently many of the popular DJs have been fired, including the morning crew, and all the contests and everything are gone or not happening. Does this sound like a smart business move to you? Candace (and from what I gather through Facebook many others) has said she is no longer going to listen to the new station that seems to be trying to be so trendy and nouveau and I am inclined to agree.
When I moved back to BC after 10 years away, it was nice to know some things had not changed. My hometown is a shadow of its former self with all the development and craziness with building down here, my high school has relocated, at least my old neighborhood remains mostly untouched but it was nice to listen to Z and feel like some older things were still here. My BC was still my BC in some ways and it felt good so I can’t help but feel a little sad that Z is gone and replaced with a “product” (I know Z at its inception was too). Personally I am not Craving anything for a while. I don’t understand why business types feel it’s necessary to re-brand, from what I can tell other than a few new people the station will be basically the same. I read their promises to the listener and wondered, “So how is this different?” I think all they’ve really managed to do is alienate their listeners.
2 comments:
Condolences, man. I remember feeling the same way when Power 92 became Joe FM in Edmonton a couple years ago. I'd pretty much grown out of Power 92 by that time, but it had been the soundtrack to junior high for me. I guess firing all DJs and replacing them with computers is the only way to keep making money in the dying industry that is radio.
Power 92 introduced me to the Verve once upon a time (on a trip through e-town for my elementary graduation)... It was a song which didnt have the same popularity in Lotusland as it did in the Chuck... I was sad to find power 92 on it's last legs when I moved out here...
Now even more sad is Z's demise. 8 years of my life I woke up each school day hearing that radio station. I first heard savage garden on Z, I first heard about the attacks on Sept 11 on Z, and for several months I tried calling in thinking the combination of letters from my name might open that lucky safe (sadly there was no w in my name, and no r in waynes)
Even though I now consider most of te stuff they played rubish, a little part of me will die along with that radio station ='(
Post a Comment