WHFB-FM made its flip to CHR “Live 99.9” WQLQ as expected today.
The station is launching with a younger skewing than Artistic Media Partners’ “U93” 92.9 WNDV-FM with many attacks at the market leading station in the stunting and launch package. WQLQ is promoting 25 songs in a row and being heavy on new music. Listen to the launch at FormatChange.com.
The first hour of Live 99.9 consisted of:
Calvin Harris ft. Rhianna – This Is What You Came For
The Weeknd ft. Daft Punk – Star Boy
DJ Snake – Let Me Luv You
Flo Rida – My House
Sia / Sean Paul – Cheap Thrills
Tory Lanez – Luv
Iggy Azalea ft. Charli XCX – Fancy
stopset
Shawn Mendes – Treat You Better
Zayn – Pillowtalk
Drake / Rhianna – Too Good
Mike Posner – I Took A Pill In Ibiza
Fifth Harmony – That’s My Girl
stopset
Rhianna ft. Drake – Work
T.I. – Whatever You Like
Major Lazer ft. Justin Beiber & M0 – Cold Water
Midwest Family Broadcasting, South Bend announces a new radio station kicking off at noon on Tuesday, October 11.
The new station is called LIVE 99.9 and will play a Top 40 format of the newest music from the hottest artists. LIVE 99.9 takes over the frequency of the former New Country 99-9. The WHFB call letters have been retired. New call letters for LIVE 99.9 are WQLQ.
LIVE 99.9 will feature the songs of Rihanna, Drake, Ariana Grande and many more current artists. Brooke & Jubal, a live morning show, will consume the morning hours from 5a-9a, with an all music format following. A live DJ, Shady Live, takes over from 6 to 11pm.
In addition to being active in the community, this station will be extremely active on social media and will engage listeners using Snapchat, Instagram, Twitter and Facebook. An aggressive marketing campaign will be used to inform the community of the new LIVE 99.9.
“This is the first true format change we’ve done with any of our stations since we first started working with WHFB in 1999.” “That’s over 17 years!” said Jim Roberts, General Manager of the MWF, South Bend stations. “We’re extremely excited about this new, young station and encourage people to tune in next week.”
Update 10/7: 99.9 WHFB-FM has dropped its Country format and has begun stunting with TV theme songs in preparation of its flip to CHR “Live 99.9” on Tuesday, October 11.
In addition the station has reserved new WQLQ call letters for the station.
Original Report 10/4: Midwest Family Broadcasting will flip Country “New Country 99.9” WHFB-FM Benton Harbor MI/South Bend IN to CHR “Live 99.9” on Tuesday, October 11.
While we’ve been tracking the domains for the flip since they were registered in early August, Indiana Radio Watch was the first to confirm when the flip would take place. The station will import the syndicated Brooke & Jubal for mornings, while Shady comes aboard from sister Rhythmic CHR “93.1 Jamz” WJQM Madison WI for nights.
The new CHR format on WHFB-FM will place the station up against Artistic Media Partners’ market leading “U93” 92.9 WNDV-FM which registered a 10.6 share in the Spring 2016 Nielsen Audio ratings. The move leaves Federated Media Country “B100” 100.7 WBYT as the sole Country station in the South Bend market, however the move takes WHFB-FM out of competition with sister “97.5 Y-Country” WYTZ in the Benton Harbor market.
99.9 didn’t subscribe to the spring ratings, but they were well behind WBYT in Fall 2015. Also, 99.9 has probably the best signal of any South Bend station
I was listening to the T.V. theme songs and got my hopes up that we were going to have an oldies station again maybe very late 50’s & 60’s that would cover Motown as well. No such luck. Just more of the same old monotonous cookie cutter music. South Bend/Mishawaka has NO decent stations since they took away the music on 95.3 and did not replace it elsewhere on the dial. The station up the dial tries but it is not close. We also lost our oldies when 94.3 changed the music they play. Thank God for stations in Chicago and smart radio. I never have to listen to a local channel ever again!
There are Eastlan ratings for South Bend just released Aug 2016. (Includes all stations in the market: http://www.allaccess.com/eastlan/q/market/106/south-bend-in). But you’re right, Y-Country had an 11.2 vs New Country 99.9’s 2.4