On local radio stations

Today I got followed by @chumley1073, and employee of a local new rock station called Planet Radio (107.3 FM in Jacksonville, Florida).

You see, until recently if you wanted to listen to any new rock in jax, you had to listen to Planet. What changed that fact was the arrival of X 102.9. What was previously an 80s pop station suddenly became the one thing I never expected: a competitor to Planet.

I'm not a very big fan of Planet; the reasons seem like they should go in an unordered list:

• Lex & Terry, morning shock-jocks and relationship advisors, prevent me from rocking out in the morning
• The music played was new rock, but it wasn't exactly what I wanted to hear. I like to hear songs that are more frenetic than heavy.
• Commercials. Planet played a lot of commercials.

X 102.9 was all of the things Planet wasn't, and it was good. I immediately changed my number one slot to X 102.9. I think it was three days before I heard a commercial. That's likely because they didn't have any advertisers, but I still rarely hear commercials. And then they started playing snarky ads comparing the number of commercials on each station in the last hour, and about Lex & Terry being old, bald men.

Shortly thereafter, I heard their request line announcement. In order to request a song, you must text the song title to them. They apparently don't have a phone line. And then they announced their twitter username (@x1029jax)... followed by their facebook page. Last week they announced a contest you could win by becoming friends on Facebook, and today they asked listeners to friend them on twitter.

All of it makes me think of some random dude sitting in a window-less concrete-walled room recording sound bytes and checking texts, facebook, and twitter... just the type of super-lean operation that can build off of larger Planet's existing ad network. Sure you could advertise on Planet, but why not use those ads they helped you develop on our station for much less?

You can see Planet reacting already to the existence of X 102.9. I heard a kick-ass song, "Sex on Fire" by Kings of Leon, on X 102.9. About a week later I heard it on Planet. It's not the type of music I expect to hear from them. Planet has shot back at X 102.9 with an ad that suggests a puppy dies each time a listener switches to another radio station. And now, an employee of Planet has followed me on twitter. I didn't follow him back; it feels like Planet is just trying to play catch-up.

All in all, it's an interesting play that X 102.9 has made, and I'll be listening to see how it all turns out.