The Infinite Dial

With Citadel's Adult Top 40 WYSF Birmingham, Ala., in its second week of stunting toward a new format at this writing, the radio message boards are a mix of frustration and admiration, the latter that the station has been able to drag out the publicity for so long. And in so doing, we can ask the larger question, how long should a station stunt? After two weeks, is there anybody with a button still set to the frequency other than radio geeks?

Ideally, a new format is friendly to the existing audience -- particularly if it's not the type of format that will immediately create its own buzz and its own cume. When Jack FM launched in New York City, its particularly aggressive version of the format was the wrong thing for any Oldies fans who weren't mad enough already. When WCBS-FM came back, it came back with a strategic amount of the '80s songs that had powered Jack.

Some stations have done the sort of extended stunts that should have made it harder to start clean, and still been OK. Rhythmic Top 40 WHZT (Hot 98.1) spent a month as a Hot AC in apparent hopes of dragging Top 40 rival WFBC (B93.7) further away from the eventual format. But in doing so, the station spent a month saying "no rap" and cultivating the kind of audience that was least likely to appreciate the ultimate format. In the end, Hot 98.1 got off to a quick start anyway.

I'm still a fan of stations that materialize full-blown at 3 p.m. one day and sound like they've always been there. So two weeks' worth of stunting makes more sense if the station sounds ready-to-go when it does show up -- a tall order these days. So it will be interesting to see how WYSF spent its summer vacation.