THE CHILL IS GONE FROM CD 101.9FM

If you are an avid listener of WQCD 101.9 (New York Chill), then I am quite sure that you have noticed that the chill is gone after only 9 months of existence. Effective with the August 15, 2005 playlist, management decided to literally drop all of the chill/lounge music from their playlist and instead opted to replace these with more traditional ‘80’s and ‘90’s pop songs to blend in with their smooth jazz standards. Gone are the progressive sounds of St. Germain, Thievery Corporation, Brazilian Girls, Bebel Gilberto, De-Phazz and Jazzanova only to be replaced by the likes of Chuck Mangione, Ambrosia, Ace, Chris DeBurgh, DeBarge and Phil Collins – what a shame! It will be interesting to see if they continue to carry the Chris Botti and Rafe Gomez syndicated segments. Funny thing is that they have yet to address this change in format and we are frankly surprised that none of the New York press have yet to pick up on it. This is yet another example of big business analysts sitting in office towers making decisions on what they think people should be listening to. And here I though that those folks over at Emmis Broadcasting had balls for taking on this format to begin with. Man was I wrong – way wrong! Have no fear though, because there is a much better alternative – check out Blu 102.9 (KLBU-FM) in Santa Fe, New Mexico for 100% chill, dance and electro lounge, 100% of the time. Oh, and by the way, they’ve been committed to the same chill/lounge format since the latter part of ’03 with much success. Here is the link for your convenience: www.blu1029.com.