Yesterday at noon, WZZN-FM (“The Zone”) dropped their “Alternative” format and became “Chicago’s True Oldies Channel,” thus filling a hole in the formats of Chicago’s FM stations.
I find it unusual that they chose this time of year to make the change. Typically, people want to hear the Beach Boys and Motown hits while cruising around with the windows down. Maybe they would have made a bigger splash had they launched in June or July, when tempers were still high over WJMK’s replacement with “Jack FM.”
In any event, this is yet another in a looooong series of format changes for the 94.7 spot on the FM dial. Check this site to see everything it’s been.
I wish them luck– they’re the only oldies player in town with a decent signal (I usually have trouble picking up WRLL-AM 1690, the other oldies station here), so they can’t munge this up too badly. According to Robert Feder’s column they intend on having a wide playlist, so that’s a good thing.
Now maybe they can lure Fred Winston and Dick Biondi away from WJMK online.