Update 11/1: “Mega 99.5 HD3” debuted today.
Update 10/25: Our hunch appears to be spot on. Twitter Account @megadetroit features the logo for “Mega 99.5 HD3” and is described as “MEGA Detroit plays the hottest Spanish Top 40 hits. Shakira, Enrique Iglesias, Reik, Daddy Yankees, etc and many more favorites.”
Move on. Nothing to see here.
Original Report 10/24: As we tweeted earlier today, every now and then we see a domain registration coming from a broadcasting group that leaves us completely baffled. CBS’s registrations of Mega995Detroit.com and MegaDetroit.com leave us wondering if we’re reading too much into this one.
Country 99.5 WYCD is the fifth ranked station in Detroit, just a couple months removed from the #2 spot with a high cume to match. The only way this makes any sense is if these domains are for an HD subchannel. WYCD-HD2 is currently New Country “The Wolf” while HD3 is “Michigan Saver Radio”. We’ll be watching this one closely over the coming days.
This is a strange one. I was chatting with someone familiar of the Motor City Market. There isn’t enough of a Hispanic population to support a full signal Spanish language station.
Our conclusion is 4 possibilities.
1) Frequency swap with WDZH. WDZH is a somewhat better signal and fills the suburban areas better than WYCD, where Country listeners are at.
2) Frequency swap with Amp and then taking one of the HD’s straight ahead Spanish.
3) Amp is a disappointment overall. Frequency swap, or even staying put and using the MegaDetroit.Com domain then rebranding to Mega using English and taking it more Hispanic leaning or Spanish CHR/Hurban with less hip-hop and more pop dance, appealing to Ethnic whites, Latinos & some African Americans.
4) Major smokescreen to throw people off. WDZH, Amp is the market oddball. CBS has the market locked up, but Amp is hard to sell with the rest of the cluster and share too many resources.
President Pedro
http://www.chicagomediachat.com/
HD2… I wouldn’t get too excited, they just might try it on an HD channel.