On the heels of Clear Channel flipping Active Rock “Project 9-6-1” WKLS Atlanta to CHR, Cumulus has dropped the heritage Alternative “99X” brand in the market.
Listen to the launch of 98.9 The Bone at FormatChange.com.
Update 9/1: After running the stunt loop for 18 hours, 98.9 debuted its new Active Rock “98.9 The Bone” format at 12pm.
The first five songs on the Bone were: Volbeat “Warrior’s Call”, Foo Fighters “Rope”, Shinedown “Unity”, Metallica “King Nothing”, and Chevelle “Hats Off To The Bull”.
Original Report 8/31: At 6pm, 98.9 W255CJ/99.7 WWWQ-HD2 dropped the “99X” Alternative format and began stunting with a teaser of the new Active Rock format that will debut on “The New 98.9” on Saturday, September 1 at 12:00pm. The new format will be branded as “98.9 The Bone” as 989TheBone.com was registered today and a new Facebook page is already live.
The Atlanta Journal-Constitution’s Rodney Ho quotes Cumulus’ John Dickey:
We are the saviors the rock. We ran Clear Channel out of format. We are going to save rock for all Atlantans.
Unlike the 100kW 96.1 signal that Project had and 99X had at its original home on 99.7, 98.9 is a 250 watt translator that covers just Atlanta proper and directly surrounding areas. Listen to the current stunt loop here.
Christopher Inman 
The Fat Man 
Rachel Seeds 
The new station is going to be called 98.9 the Bone
They should have flipped 100.5 to Alternative a long time ago. 100X if they had to keep the “X” The ratings there are nothing special, the only thing keeping that station on the air is probably the morning show. Flip it already.
Instead, they go ahead and piss passionate listeners off and take off WWWQ HD-2’s incarnation of “99x” and leave Rock 100.5 as is.
Most ridiculous move by Cumulus I’ve ever seen.
Considering it’s Cumulus we’re talking about, that’s saying a lot. I contend that their merging with a bankrupt Citadel was the most ridiculous move they ever made.
Got to thank the original 99X for Fred Toucher and Crash Clark. The two made some excellent radio with Rich Shertenlieb, from the Kid Kraddick show, when they came to Boston and took the afternoon drive on the late-WBCN. Touched is still here working a very good morning show on BCN’s successor “The Sports Hub” WBZ-FM.
Classic rock is not long for the world. I know it sounds inconceivable, but the way the format’s core playlist has been virtually unaltered since the early 80s (and most stations – coincidentally all owned by CBS, Cumulus and CC – all sounding staid and tired), it’s bound to die off just like beautiful music, adult standards and 50s/60s oldies all did.
By that alone, “Rock 100.5” should have been scuttled to WWWQ HD-2 and 98.9, and a modern/alt-rock format appeared in its’ place. But that’s what you get when central programmers try to copy a format from market to market (“Bone 98.9” sounds like it’s going to be based off of KSAN/San Francisco, also named “Bone” and with an identical logo).
I feel bad for Atlanta. They lost two okay alt-rockers (Project and 99X) in less than a week, and will lose their AAA (Dave) in a month.
I haven’t heard anything about DaveFM going off the air…citation?
https://radioinsight.com/blog/headlines/59087/cbs-to-launch-fm-sports-in-atlanta/