Radio One
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- For the BBC radio station, see BBC Radio 1. For the New Zealand campus radio station see Radio One (New Zealand).
Radio One, Inc NASDAQ: ROIA is an African-American owned U.S. company which owns and operates 69 radio stations in 22 American cities, and programs a channel on XM Satellite Radio. The company is headed by Cathy Hughes, Chairman and her son Alfred Liggins, CEO. The company's target listeners are African-Americans in urban areas. Radio One also owns a 40% interest in TV One, a cable and satellite TV network begun in early 2004 in partnership with Comcast and a handful of investors (including DirecTV, which added the network to its lineup and became a minority shareholder in January 2005). As with other large radio broadcasting companies, Radio One has a strategy of acquiring stations in a given market and making sudden format changes they believe will be profitable. Radio One tends to favor urban-based formats targeting African-American listeners, and makes format changes to target their demographic. One example of this occurred when Radio One acquired country radio station WCAV, near Boston, Massachusetts, in 1999, and transformed the station into WBOT, "Hot 97.7," with an Urban format. However, the most notorious incident of this occurred in Philadelphia in 2005.
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[edit] Controversy
[edit] Stations on "Auto-pilot"
Some Radio One stations, like many other stations (see Clear Channel) utilize computer-based systems that allow a DJ from anywhere in the country to sound as if he or she is broadcasting locally. A technological outgrowth of earlier, tape-based automation systems dating back to the nineteen-sixties, this is called voice-tracking, and some smaller market stations are partially staffed by these "cyber-jocks", who may have never visited the town they are broadcasting in.
More common is the use of voice-tracking for overnight or weekend shifts. The DJ can come in earlier in the day or week and record his/her song intros and promotional announcements and these will play at the appropriate times, thus creating the illusion of being in the studio at air time.
[edit] Acquiring stations
In 1996, Radio One acquired Philadelphia station 103.9 WDRE, and changed the format from Modern Rock to Rhythmic CHR as "Philly 103.9," WPHI, which was later renamed "103.9 The Beat." The airstaff of WDRE was released, and much of the airstaff found jobs with the city's other Modern Rock station, 100.3 WPLY which was known as "Y-100". Not long after, Radio One acquired "Y-100", and left the station alone for many years. This is believed to have been because the station received good Arbitron ratings and made a decent amount of revenue annually. However, upon the announcement that WPLY's popular morning show, Preston and Steve, was moving to another Philadelphia station, WMMR, Radio One decided to convert the station to an urban format. Subsequently, the format of WPHI, moved to the more powerful 100.3 signal, and Radio One launched a black gospel format on the weak 103.9 signal, to be known as "Praise 103.9," WPPZ.
In 2002, Radio One entered the Dayton, Ohio market with WDHT 102.9 after changing the format from Classic Rock to Rhythmic and Hip Hop urban format, sparking a competition against the previous station 92.1 WROU in ratings. After numerous attempts to keep WROU running in the format of urban, it was soon acquired by Radio One and change its format into Rhythmic CHR and R & B. There were petitions to keep the radio station in the previous format, but as of today the station still operates under the current format.
[edit] Divestures
Lately Radio One has been looking at selling non core stations, stations that don't target African Americans or those in very small black markets. The first case of this happened on August 22nd 2006, when Radio One announced it would divest WILD-FM in Boston, the AM for now is still owned by RO, however it too will likely be divested. Other rumored stations include KKBT in LA (possibly a result of the huge growth in Hispanics and the small growth of Blacks as well as the fact KKBT is a stand alone), an Augusta, Georgia station (Alternative WAEG), a Minneapolis station (Rhythmic KTTB), and stations in Dayton, Ohio (Top 40 WGTZ, Country WKSW and ESPN Sports WING) and Louisville (Top 40 WDJX and Alternative WLRS/WLRX) that are not Urban formatted.
[edit] Radio One Markets
Category:Radio One Stations
