I know this isn't city/photo related, but I had a shock today when I turned on 949 Zeta and found out that it's mysteriously morphed into a Spanish rap station. I had no idea why this had happened until I found this article on the Miami Herald's website:

http://www.miami.com/mld/miamiherald/10876867.htm?1c

Zeta wasn't the best of rock stations, but they played a lot of good s**t, including stuff from the early 90's (my era) that I liked to hear. They played a lot of crap too (such as Linkin Park, Nickelback, Hoobastank, Saliva and recent Papa Roach). Personally, I think their ratings were bad BECAUSE they were playing too much crap and not because no one in Miami wants to hear rocl music. Most rock/alternative/metal fans don't want to hear Linkin Park. If Zeta could have modelled itself on the KROQ station in Los Angeles, I think it's ratings would have been far better. Axing the rock station wasn't the answer though - they should have just made radical changes and dropped the stupidity such as "Drunk Bitch Friday" with those Lex & Terry idiots.

So now Miami....a city with a metro area of over 5 million people has NO rock station whatsoever, other than that 105.9 classic rock station that I wouldn't even wipe my ass with because they play too much southern/hick rock and no Iron Maiden.

So rock music fans lose out again to Spanish pop music of all things. I swear to god, if I hear that "Gasolina" song one more time, I'll shoot someone.

How the hell are we supposed to know what rock bands are playing here in future? None of the other s**tty stations such as Light FM or the even worse god-awful Y-100 are going to announce if Metallica or Pearl Jam are coming to town.

Apparently the company who owned Zeta (Clear Channel Communications) pulled the plug on another rock station in Orlando for the same reasons: that they want to "aggressively seek entree into the hot Spanish-language radio market by converting about two dozen stations across the country to español.".

This sucks.

Does anyone want to start a new rock station with me?

I remember the slogan...

...between friends, we are zeta 4...

those were the good old days :cheers:

it was just a matter of time...

it's time to get sirius or xm.

Zeta has been talked about changing formats since back in December.
I myself got Sirius not long after moving to south florida and got a taste of these stations. I won't miss Zeta or any other channel down here. they can have nothing but empty channels on the dial here and I wouldnt cry myself to sleep

Zeta has been talked about changing formats since back in December.
I myself got Sirius not long after moving to south florida and got a taste of these stations. I won't miss Zeta or any other channel down here. they can have nothing but empty channels on the dial here and I wouldnt cry myself to sleep

To be quite honest with you, I would rather listen to empty channels than the crap on FM radio here. You're right - Sirius is the way. We have the channels on our satellite TV....they're much better than any commercial FM radio station and there are no commercials or stupid 'Drunk Bitch Fridays'.

yeah, i agree, radio in general is crap. & not just in miami, either. pretty much every city i've been to has crap radio, although some are slightly better than others. radio, as well as just about everything these days, is all about the cash money so all they do is try to prop up & make/prolong the careers of talentless bands.

if i sound bitter it's because i am. i want decent radio, dammit!

Siruis owns. Its gonna be hard for regular stations to compete with satellite.

this is all clear channel they're ruining radio all over the US, but especially here in Miami where they own way too many stations.

Also wkat 1360 switched from classical to right wing talk recently. so miami now had no rock station and no classical. said for a metro our size. not only that, but obviously nobody at all is listening to the new talk format over there. the last few nights they've been running two shows simultaneously over each other. it's a trip to listen to.

That's there MO though. As few live people as is possible. The new orlando and miami stations will most likely be exactly the same, broadcast from ny or ohio.

this is bs man i'm sick of all this since miami is so hispanic lets turn everything into spanish.zeta was an ok radio station

don't blame the hispanics. they're doing this in many other markets. It's clear channel, they're just going for cheap market share. After a few listens, I don't think this new format will be around long. it sucks.

no i'm hispanic myself,dominican,but comeon i feel that miami is trying to drive away the nonhispanic.

Brickell is right, the media is being consolidated, thanks to that nazi bush and his pupet micheal powell in the fcc. I live in a area with about 80,000 people and we have several classical stations, a classic rock station, several rocks stations and I can get two pbs stations. We have real radio here because they are locally owned ulike the major cities where everything is a chain.

yeah, I hate Clearchannel They are queer as hell. They don't realize that Zeta was doing so bad because they were failing to adapt to the new music coming out today. Its evident up in the Northeast where the Rock stations have been playing all the new "Indie" rock (The Strokes, The Postal Service, Death Cab for Cutie, The Hives, Interpol, The Killers...) I once tried requesting one of those groups on Zeta...They never played the song. Just listen to CDs now, the best thing to do is just Boycott Clearchannel, to my knowledge they own y-100 (Crap, they repeat songs hourly) also.
Not only is the media being consolidated, but pretty much every corporation is buying out or merging with all its competition: Sprint&Nextel, Eckerd&CVS, Cingular&AT&T...
No one is doing anything to stop this and ultimately the consumer is going to be affected the most facing only one company from which to do business with.

yeah, I hate Clearchannel They are queer as hell. They don't realize that Zeta was doing so bad because they were failing to adapt to the new music coming out today. Its evident up in the Northeast where the Rock stations have been playing all the new "Indie" rock (The Strokes, The Postal Service, Death Cab for Cutie, The Hives, Interpol, The Killers...) I once tried requesting one of those groups on Zeta...They never played the song. Just listen to CDs now, the best thing to do is just Boycott Clearchannel, to my knowledge they own y-100 (Crap, they repeat songs hourly) also.
Not only is the media being consolidated, but pretty much every corporation is buying out or merging with all its competition: Sprint&Nextel, Eckerd&CVS, Cingular&AT&T...
No one is doing anything to stop this and ultimately the consumer is going to be affected the most facing only one company from which to do business with.

It's pretty sad really. If Zeta would have played a wider variety of music, their ratings would have been better. I often listen online to a radio station from Atlanta (98 Rock) and they play a lot of the bands you mention, particularly thThe Killers and a lot of British bands such as The Cure, The Smiths, Franz Ferdinand etc. The problem was that Zeta sucked....too much Linkin Park and they overplayed songs until you got so sick of them, even if you originally liked the song in the first place.

Zeta may have sucked, but they did promote a lot of bands and they'd tell you who was coming to town. Now I wonder who the f**k is going to come here when there isn't a radio station to do the promoting.

Now there's truly nothing to listen to on FM radio - I might as well smash my radio into a billion pieces because there's nothing worth listening to. And as always, rock fans end up losing out again.

The music business is just business now - the music part has long gone.

no i'm hispanic myself,dominican,but comeon i feel that miami is trying to drive away the nonhispanic.

I don't even think it's that. I mean, who's to say that the majority of Hispanic people want to hear that kind of music? I don't know any Hispanic people who even listen to that stuff anyway. It's like saying that all non-Hispanics listen to non-Hispanic pop music. The problem is that rock music fans of all races and genders have lost out yet again to a corporate world that is only interested in making as much money as possible and not giving everyone choice....just like everything else. Zeta could have got the ratings if they'd have played a wider selection and actually hired a few DJ's that weren't complete idiots.

instead of playin wat we all wanted to hear, they just played wat they thought was popular... im fairly immersed in miami's rock scene, which is much bigger than people think it is, and i dont know a single person that would listen to linkin park, papa roach, or any of those other crap ass bands over some metallica, offspring, system of a down, clash, or even some indie... zeta didnt get in touch with its listeners... and the last straw was when paul and young ron left and they brought those morons lex and terry (yet again, i don't know a single person that liked them, and they played for a year, showing again zeta had no idea wat the fuk its people wanted)... so now we have nothing cept 105.9 classic rock, that sux two, cause half the time theyre playing the beatles, who i respect, but have no place on that channel

the one thing zeta did do right was concerts and concert promotion, they sponsored at least three huge concerts a year (bonzai, halloweenie roast, etc...) and they all kikd ass, the only thing that station did rite...

so yet again, miami gets fukd, cause a corporation just doesnt wanna put the effort forth to fix the problem, and they just start over somewhere else... but i say within a few years well have another station, miamis rock scene is to big to go unserved, untill them i guess its just more illegal downloading for me...

instead of playin wat we all wanted to hear, they just played wat they thought was popular... im fairly immersed in miami's rock scene, which is much bigger than people think it is, and i dont know a single person that would listen to linkin park, papa roach, or any of those other crap ass bands over some metallica, offspring, system of a down, clash, or even some indie... zeta didnt get in touch with its listeners... and the last straw was when paul and young ron left and they brought those morons lex and terry (yet again, i don't know a single person that liked them, and they played for a year, showing again zeta had no idea wat the fuk its people wanted)... so now we have nothing cept 105.9 classic rock, that sux two, cause half the time theyre playing the beatles, who i respect, but have no place on that channel

the one thing zeta did do right was concerts and concert promotion, they sponsored at least three huge concerts a year (bonzai, halloweenie roast, etc...) and they all kikd ass, the only thing that station did rite...

so yet again, miami gets fukd, cause a corporation just doesnt wanna put the effort forth to fix the problem, and they just start over somewhere else... but i say within a few years well have another station, miamis rock scene is to big to go unserved, untill them i guess its just more illegal downloading for me...

I agree 100%. Lex & Terry were f**king idiots....just look at that 'Drunk Bitch Friday' crap they did. How retarded can one station possibly be to think that people actually want to hear that crap, especially on a Friday morning when most people are at work and want to hear MUSIC, not some stupid bimbo making an ass out of herself and getting drunk.

The only DJ I liked on Zeta was Adam Cole....now he'll probably have to go back to England because I can't see him on Y100 or Shite FM (Light FM).

Having lived here for a while, I know how big the rock scene is. Now there's no FM station to cater for it, which sucks.

105.9 sucks too. They play too much southern rock and they never play stuff like Iron Maiden.

As you said, if only Zeta had LISTENED to what people actually wanted instead of playing repetetive commercial pop-rock, the ratings would have been as high as a kite. I mean really, who honestly wants to listen to Linkin Park over and over again?

ARE THEY'RE ANY STATIONS HERE THAT PLAY PUNK

there aint shit uptown, and its total crap... unfogiven ur totally rite, adam cole was the only good thing zeta had goin for it, and now we lost him, and u got it perfectly rite, i couldnt think of the name of the stuff that they played... pop rock, the brittney spears of the rock world... it was crap, no wanted it, no listened to it, so they got fukd over, and so did we

but give it a few years, the numbers are lot big to go underserved... WE GOT THE NUMBERS!!! (a little antiflag for ya)

Yea Clear channel does own miami airwaves. COX has four channels here but none of them appeal to me. Its sad that we live in a huge metro and only had one alt rock channel which is now gone. ZETA did suck shit I promise you everytime I turned zeta on I heard a nirvana song or some old shit. Local owned and programmed is the way to go and I wish I had the cash to start up a channel here but its like a god awful obscene amoutn of money which is stupid. At least wets palm has 103.1 which I can get in Lauderdale. With Zeta gone hopefully Inifinity will find a spot here and give us something better than Zeta. Till then sat radio rules my Jeep and my house (got the plug and play) and so far I have encouraged 3 friends to get it and they are glad I delivered them from radio hell.
With Zet

Folks... I was scanning the radio stations this evening and discovered that WPYM 93.1 FM is now playing rock. They switched away from their dance/party/freestyle format around 6pm. I'm not sure what the new call sign is yet.

WPYM is owned by COX Radio, which also owns WEDR 99.1 (99 JAMZ), WFLC 97.3 (The Coast), and WHQT 105.1 (Hot 105). Conspiracy swap between COX and ClearChannel? Hmmm...

It's really sad that ZETA is gone. I hope that more people in this town complained about this travesty. Many of my friend were angry and they are all hispanic. This town really lacks good radion stations and diversity in music.

thats great tivo! ill check it out...

It's really sad that ZETA is gone. I hope that more people in this town complained about this travesty. Many of my friend were angry and they are all hispanic. This town really lacks good radion stations and diversity in music.
I heard very similar sentiments from people of all backgrounds and ethnicities regarding this switchover. The common sentiment, which I happen to agree with, is that the Spanish-language radio market is saturated (5 stations of various formats on FM alone), and now this new Mega 94.9 radio-in-a-can crap, which is just a rehash of WXDJ ZOL 95.7 and WRTO Salsa 98.3.

It's not like there is really anything that could have been done about it anyway... If you think about it, radio is just a way for advertisers to get on the air to a wide audience -- the music is the bait that keeps you there in between the commercials. That's all ClearChannel and the other media conglomerates care about -- the ad revenue, and as long as that keeps coming in, there's virtually nothing that can stop them.

I heard very similar sentiments from people of all backgrounds and ethnicities regarding this switchover. The common sentiment, which I happen to agree with, is that the Spanish-language radio market is saturated (5 stations of various formats on FM alone), and now this new Mega 94.9 radio-in-a-can crap, which is just a rehash of WXDJ ZOL 95.7 and WRTO Salsa 98.3.

It's not like there is really anything that could have been done about it anyway... If you think about it, radio is just a way for advertisers to get on the air to a wide audience -- the music is the bait that keeps you there in between the commercials. That's all ClearChannel and the other media conglomerates care about -- the ad revenue, and as long as that keeps coming in, there's virtually nothing that can stop them.

What about 107.7 FM?

There is no 107.7FM in Miami/Fort Lauderdale radio market... There is WAMR Amor 107.5, and that's Spanish-language easy listening and ballads.

The party is over for listeners of WPYM 93.1 FM.

The station, which adopted a dance music format in late 2001, abruptly changed to a rock music format Monday night, station general manager Michael Disney said. The move was prompted by 94.9 Zeta's change from rock to Latin music last week.

"When Zeta dropped out, that hole was too big to ignore," Disney said.

Station officials switched formats at 6 p.m. Monday, playing 90s-style rock music instead of the trance and freestyle dance tunes it had been playing since New Year's Day 2002. Atlanta-based Cox Communications bought the station in December 2001 -- which was then known as WTMI 93.1 and featured a classical music format -- and made it Party 93.1.

Cox officials hoped Party 93.1 would compete with Power 96, which has long featured a dance format but in recent years has played more R&B and rap music. Disney said the dance format left it little room for growth.

"It wasn't so much that there was something wrong with it," Disney said. "We had an awful lot of people who listened to the station and they didn't listen as long as we liked."

Producers tried to spice up the dance format in recent years, playing more of the freestyle music that was very popular on the South Florida dance scene in the late 1980s and early 1990s. But he said Cox wanted to pounce on the rock format Zeta abandoned last week before any other local station did so.

As of Monday night, an on-air DJ and in-house promos were calling the new station 93 Rock.

Cox officials have submitted a proposal to the Federal Communications Commission to change the station's call letters, Disney said. Disney said no decision has been made on what to do about music events and concerts that Party 93.1 promoted for the upcoming months.

"Obviously, it will be a little difficult to do," he said about holding the events.

The 7th Annual Ultra Music Festival was scheduled to be held at Bayfront Park on March 26. Party 93.1 is listed as a sponsor on the event's Web site.

Unlike Zeta, Disney said the new rock format will focus on 90s-era rock, which he called "active rock," and some 80s rock but will not delve into classic rock. Currently, WBGG 105.9 features a classic rock format. Disney said the new station's target audience will be mostly men age 18 through 49.

I'm happy we have a rock station back on the air. Although I don't listen rock that often. We need to have diversity in everything, because Miami is a diverse city.
It's been almost 3 months that I haven't listen to radio stations. I'm a big CD fan. And radio stations really suck. not only in Miami but in most of other cities I've been to. The worst has to be Power 96. They play the same songs every 45 minutes lol.

I was down in Miami beach this weekend with my girlfriend and along ocean drive a couple of trucks drove by with signs saying clear channels sucks and shit like that. Didn't understand it till today. Unfortunately we are going have to listen even more to that reggaton shit although my GF loves it she is boricua but I feel like sometimes I'm the last caucasian in miami and I loved zeta. too bad

Well so far "93 rock" is ok I started listening last night its been better than zeta because they are playing more 90's rock and new stuff.

As far as Zeta going latin I'm tired of this shit. Im white, English speaking and I will never listen to a Spanish station.

well dont feel bad

i am cuban spanish speaking and dont like the spanish stations all that much niether but one thing i have to say is zeta's format was beggining to suck

93 rocks i love it now only if we can still have bonsai. footys wingdings and holloweeinie roast i will be ok with the new south florida rock station 93.1

yea zeta was bad i like the new one so far

whoa i'm glad i've got my ipod

Well, Sirius just pulled off another Howard Stern-like coup... they hired the guy who used to be Party 93.1's main voice personality. As of a few hours ago, he was welcoming South Floridia partiers to their new home on Sirius channel 66...

I think the coolest surprise was finding out that they play almost as much Freestyle, and practically the same songs, as Party used to. And no f**king endless ads for $cientology or cellulite cream.

IMHO, Cox screwed up bigtime. They probably figured out that half of Party's listeners liked rock too, and thought they could dump the other half and pick up the whole Zeta crowd while they were at it. What they didn't count on was a big chunk of the crossover group getting pissed and just abandoning Miami radio for satellite in disgust, not really caring whether 93 Rock was better or worse than Zeta, because now they're going to have a dozen rock channels IN ADDITION to the dance channels to keep them entertained.

When I went to Circuit City a few hours ago, the sales guy said they've sold more Sirius radios today than they sold the WHOLE CHRISTMAS SEASON. In fact, when I went back at 8:30, THEY WERE WIPED OUT (of instant-gratification "plug & play" models). Oh well... probably a good thing, 'cause now it'll make me spend a few days researching the models and probably get an integrated head unit instead of just grabbing a "Sportster" for the sake of instant gratification...

UPDATE -- Sirius grabbed George Acosta, too.

At this rate, if Clear Channel and Cox keep screwing with Miami radio, Satellite radio will end up BEING Miami's de-facto local radio. Clear Channel & Cox can flip every station to Spanish Christian Country and nobody will really notice or care...

spanish pop sux as much ass as english pop... ill listen to celia cruz, willy chirino, benny more, or the buena vista social club any day for hours... but this pop crap is as insulting to hispanics and brittney spears is to the rest of america...

93.1 is pretty good so far... sounds like the old zeta, korn, rhcp, nirvana, and some newer stuff... no pop rock so far... well have to see... but i really dont think ill be able to get through late april without bonzai... or halloween witout halloweenie roast... hope 93.1 will have as many concerts as zeta did, that was the one thing they actually did rite... i refuse to give into satellite radio... lets hope these guys pull through

Well, in any case, I think this is going to be the definitive last wave of radical flipping by Clear Channel and Cox, especially if a noticeable number of former listeners officially jump to satellite and their OTHER stations end up losing listeners too (because the listeners who jumped just ignore all the local stations now). It'll make them realize that radically changing ONE station -- even if it seems to have low ratings -- might set off a chain reaction that'll hurt another one that's more profitable to begin with.

More likely, they'll take the Power 96 approach... adding more and more songs in their new target format while gradually eliminating songs from their abandoned format, all the while denying that anything has changed... though it admittedly would have been pretty damn hard to discreetly slip 'gasolina' into Zeta's rotation list :-D