On the heels of Beasley Media blowing up Rock “98.7 No Rules Rock” WBRN-FM Holmes Beach/Tampa for a Christmas Music stunt in preparation of a format change, iHeartMedia has made a change to Classic Hip-Hop to potentially fill the niche Beasley was going for.
Classic Rock “Thunder Tampa Bay” 94.5 W233AV Gulfport/St. Petersburg, 99.1 W256CT Bayonet Point/New Port Richey and 105.9 W290BJ West Tampa/100.7 WMTX-HD2 Tampa flipped to Classic Hip-Hop “Flashback 94.5/105.9” on Tuesday evening. The new format flanks iHeart Urban “95.7 The Beat” WBTP and is running with 20,000 songs commercial-free.
Thunder’s previous Classic Rock format registered a 0.9 share in the November Nielsen Audio ratings, perhaps just enough to keep WBTP in second place ahead of Cox Media Classic Rock “107.3 The Eagle” WXGL by a 6.3 share to 6.2 margin.