19 years ago today, Urban-formatted V103 came to an end. A longtime station in the format, the station began to feel its age in the mid 1990′s as it was bombarded by a pair of Radio-One sisters. Rhythmic CHR “92Q” and Urban AC “Majic 95.9″ cut into WXYV’s audience from both ends. Infinity, seeing the CHR format regaining popularity elsewhere, and a huge hole for the format in Baltimore brought the demise of V103 and the birth of “102.7 XYV”.
The station initially took a dance-friendly approach, similar to Z104 (WWZZ) in Washington, D.C. and Z95.7 (KZQZ) in San Francisco. (All three were consulted by Dan Vallie.) An interesting strategy employed by these stations was to play recurrents (from the prior 3 years or so) that, when they were new, had not received much (if any) radio exposure in the market.
This article has more information about the change – thanks to Ryan Bishop for sharing.
You can hear the actual sign-on of 102.7 XYV at our sister site, Formatchange.com. The remainder of the new station’s first hour is posted below.
Podcast: Embed
love the station when it was in Baltimore