Update 6/19: WNUA dropped its Spanish AC “Mega 95.5” format at noon today for Regional Mexican “95.5 El Patron“. As a few people have reminded us, Clear Channel had actually registered ElPatron955.com back in February 2010 for a planned flip then that never took place.
The move places WNUA in direct competition with Univision’s “La Que Buena 105.1” WOJO and SBS’ “La Ley 107.9” WLEY in the Regional Mexican format. WOJO was 8th in the market last month with a 4.2 share. WLEY 20th with a 2.2.
Original Report 6/18: A pair of domain registrations indicate something is afoot at Clear Channel’s Spanish AC “Mega 95.5” WNUA Chicago.
Anonymous domain registrations were made on Friday for 955ElPatron.com and 955NowChicago.com. Both of them were moved to Clear Channel’s nameservers this morning. The former would indicate a shift to Regional Mexican, which has been rumored on and off. The latter, for a shift to Adult CHR would seem more likely in our mind.
Clear Channel’s Urban AC “V103” 102.7 WVAZ has seen its top spot in the market tied by Hubbard’s Adult CHR “101.9 The Mix” WTMX. A move to Adult CHR “Now” at 95.5 would help Clear Channel to take some market share from WTMX to prop up WVAZ’s spot in the beauty race while creating a wall of women between V103, Now, AC “93.9 Lite-FM” WLIT, and CHR “103.5 Kiss-FM” WKSC.
WNUA placed in a tie for 21st in the market in the May PPM’s with a 1.8 share.
Alex 
MattParker 
J.B. 
Two words: Yeah right.
NowChicago would also work with a talk format. Move Rush to FM from WLS. Move Hannity to FM and PM drive. Move Beck from Salem (god alone knows how bad the numbers there are since Salem doesn’t buy Arbitron).
Matt,
That’s not happening. The “Now” brand has been used exclusively with CHR or Adult CHR.
Well, who knows? Some of these registered domain names have been deliberate red herrings anyway. Music formats on rusty tower radio are a thing of the past and Bain Channel would be stupid to do that. Of course, radio management being stupid would not qualify as something new.
Let’s not forget that the 4th of July is almost upon us.