A musical shift has taken place at Max Media Classic Hits “92.9 The Wave” WVBW Suffolk/Norfolk VA as the station has moved to Adult Contemporary.
Now positioning as “The 80s To Now”, the move comes with the dropping of the bulk of its 1970s music and addition of 2000s and recurrents. It also returns the station to its former musical identity as WVBW launched as an AC in 2005 before shifting to Classic Hits in 2011. The move pits the station directly against Entercom’s “2WD” 101.3 WWDE.
This makes no sense whatsoever. There are now 8 stations with very similar formats. (9 if you count the easily caught in Hampton Roads WCXL out of NC). If IHR had not flipped WNOH, this could have been 10. Speaking of IHR, 107.7 has a whopping 0.7 with their version of hot a/c. This station could easily shut down 4 months out of the year it doesn’t air christmas music and nobody would notice. Now, on paper one could say some of these identify as CHR, hot a/c, or a/c, or variety hits. But in this market, you have Z104 who is still rhythmic enough not to be completely mainstream CHR. Hot 100 who is heavily recurrent enough to still be considered a very hot a/c. We all know most Entercom adult contemporary stations lean hot a/c, as does 2WD. Co-owned 94.9 The Point lost its hint of modern a/c a few years ago. Take an artist like Pink and you very well might here the same song now on ALL of these stations including BOB FM. An AM station that airs America’s Best Music earns just shy of a 1.0. Why? Because it’s the only station of its kind in the area. Sadly, The Wave is now just another case of the format mish mash confusion of the market.