Update 2/17: The predicted flip to Rock has become a reality as K242CE Meraux flipped to “Rock 96.3” at 12pm today.
Launching with ACDC’s “For Those About To Rock”, the translator is now being fed by 99.5 WRNO-HD2 in order to connect the station with the heritage call letters connected to Rock in the market.
Original Report 2/5: Following the flip of “Rock 92.3” WRKN to Country last month, Clear Channel is preparing to return the format to the market.
CHR “96.3 Kiss-FM” K242CE Meraux/WYLD-HD2 appears to be on the verge of a flip to Rock “Rock 96.3“. It’s website is redirecting to Rock963.com, which is already showing the positioner “The Rock Of New Orleans” in its banner.
“The Rock Of New Orleans” moniker was used by previous formats at sisters 99.5 WRNO and 104.1 KYRK, while the station will fill the current Rock niche abandoned by WRKN last month.
Kiss-FM debuted on the 250 watt translator in August 2012 and has run a Premium Choice fed CHR format led by Elvis Duran’s morning show.
Bizzle 
RFLA 
EDM Radio 879 
stelly 
What would make sense is for CC to flip either 99.5 or 104.1 to CHR & Rock either frequency and make 96.3 Talk.
Easy, 99.5 is conservative talk as it has been format since flipping from classic rock, 104.1 has been a wheel of formats as its a rim shot technically as it comes from 40 miles from downtown NOLA and actually runs what I suspect will be feed programming for translator called the alt project that Cc been running for years on an hd2.
CC running almost comparable formats on 104.1 and 96.3 and figured they were looking to expand choice, but curious if this will move Elvis Duran to 104, and cause actual competition against kidd kraddicks crew that sounds like they are living on memories.
Also sorry for reading it wrong a bit, but with numbers, and listeners outside metro, don’t expect 99.5 to flip any year soon as they been pulling decent numbers, considering this is a weird market built more on memories and locals yatting it up on wwl simucast
It would make more sense to pull the plug on 99.5 fm put rock or alternative back 99.5 where it belong. Thats my personnel opinion
Not likely to happen. Saying that rock “belongs” on 99.5 is purely nostalgic; rock belongs on a signal where it makes ratings and budget sense. Right now, for Clear Channel, news-talk makes sense on 99.5. While Orleans Parish is mostly blue, half of WRNO’s signal covers the still-very-much-red Northshore and Southland areas, and with most of their programming coming practically in-house from Premiere, it serves their southeast Louisiana clearances and keeps the money within in the company.
Even as a fan of alternative, I have to concede that it’s an HD2 + translator format in New Orleans. There’s likely little interest in the format outside of the urban core, so putting it on a big stick (as it has been the last two tries) is denying more obvious and lucrative format holes in the market. If I were to sign on an alternative station in New Orleans, a smaller, centrally-sticked station like Cumulus’ 102.9 makes more sense for the format; I feel that if 99.5 were to drop news-talk for some reason, a 70s-80s classic hits station (for example) would be a better use of that signal.
I agree with stelly to a point. Yes, wrno is a outside of Orleans parish station which makes duckies because of white conservatives, but numbers will keep it from being killed. Rno will stay a n/t for many moons to come.
true alternative is a hd2 station at best in this market as to me rock92.3 had idenity issues as most rock fans I know are active rock listeners and a station could work in this market, but require a deep presence the major players don’t want to invest… Modern rock would work perfectly also.. But what made zephyr, the end and others were street presence.
Actually waiting to see if cc will move 104.1s the alternative project to 98.5 and curious if they may add the world class rock format they’ve been hyping on iheartradio.com
Well they could upgrade the 96.3 signal to at less 50,000 watts that would help with coverage area through out of the metro area
96.3 is licensed as a translator, meaning that its output power is capped at 250 watts. They can’t go any higher. With their antenna atop the tallest building in the CBD (One Shell Square), K242CE actually has prime facilities for a translator targetting the urban core.
Unfortunately, because of minimum spacing requirements, there’s no way to get a new full-power signal with listenable coverage into the market without significant engineering changes involving several stations, other than by using translators. KXMG (107.5) was the last station that was able to move in a couple of years ago.