If this causes any mirth--when WHN AM was all country here in the 70s, it was the number one country station in the country. (And the distinction between "trendy" and "fashionable" leaves me a lil mirthful myself!) Barry NY Daily News 3/9/97 Record Exec: Country Music Has Gotta Get a Station in N.Y. By DAVID HINCKLEY Daily News Staff Writer If country music wants to reverse the decline in its radio listening audience, says a top country marketing executive, it has to get a station into the heart of New York. This suggestion by Pat Quigley, president of Capitol Records in Nashville, echoes the feeling about New York radio by executives from networks as diverse as Radio Disney, Radio Unica and One-on-One Sports: To make it, you have to be a player in New York. Even if you're not a top-10 station, the visibility is critical and even the 25th-ranked station here has more listeners than the top station in most other markets. Recent data from the trade mag the M Street Journal shows about 765 country stations in the major markets, down from 846 in 1994. The average percentage of the audience listening to country in major markets was 12.7% in 1994. It's 9.8% now. That percentage rises a little when you add in small rural markets, but the trend is still down. People in the country music biz suggest the music has stagnated, that all the hatacts and hot chicks are repeating themselves. No new Garth Brooks has surfaced, and Shania Twain shows up at the Grammys singing hard rock. But Quigley tells the trade mag Radio Ink that reinvigorating country radio would energize the music ó and "the first step is to tell [radio goliaths] CBS or Chancellor to put a country station in New York." The biggest country station here now is independent WYNY (Y-107, 107.1 FM), a quadrocast from four suburban stations ringing the city. WYNY averages 400,000 listeners a week ó the fifth highest country listenership in America, trailing only stations in Chicago, L.A., Dallas and Atlanta. It has major-league deejays like Jim Kerr and Ray Rossi, and it recently raised $700,000 for St. Jude's in Memphis. Still, there's a perception in the all-important advertising community that WYNY isn't a city station ó and that's what Quigley thinks needs to change. Someone must plant the flag here, he says, then promote it ferociously. Country labels must support it with ads and bring artists to town. If New York embraces it, he says, "Country will be fashionable, not trendy." Neither CBS nor Chancellor, by the way, has shown any inclination to consider country in New York. Country stations here have always made money, but they're too sedate for media giants, who boost their profile and stock price by selling flash and glamor.
