What a piece of trash for a rock station it was… for the past 3.5 years, 101.9 FM in New York City was a ‘contempory rock’/'AAA’ format. From the beginning, the station had no clue in direction. They played old rock, new rock and tried to position themselves as ‘NY’s Rock Experience’. What a crock of shit.

Finally after 3 years of hearing bands I’ve never heard of and don’t care for when I flip to the station for a rock fix (Vampire Weekend? Mumford and Sons? Vivabrother? Interpol? WHO THE FUCK?), the station is finally moving on to a newer (and more ambitious) venture. After Emmis Communications sold off 101.9 to Merlin Media earlier this summer, it was highly speculated that a format change would be coming. Pardon the pun, but that news was ‘music’ to my ears. Merlin will be flipping 101.9 to a female-leaning news/talk format later this summer. Here’s a quick quote from the NY Daily News -

WRXP (101.9 FM), which switched from smooth jazz to rock in February 2008, is being sold by Emmis to Merlin Media, and while the deal hasn’t closed yet, Merlin takes over the programming Friday.

Listeners will hear music for a couple of weeks until Merlin launches its new format, expected to be all or mostly news targeting women in their 30s and 40s.

On the surface, this change might seem to again support the often-heard mantra that when it comes to radio music, New York is a rhythm town, not a rock town.

Read more: NY DAILY NEWS

The call letters at 101.9 are also expected to be changed to WYNY and the URL 1019wyny.com has been purchased by Merlin Media and is currently parked by GoDaddy.

For the rock fans, I don’t know what to say. Rock deserves to live in NYC, just like it’s heyday back in the 70s when 102.7 was WNEW… but it seems the crap that’s being called rock that spewing out of the record labels these days just can’t cut it in the big city that never sleeps. If you’re looking for 92.3 to flip back to K-ROCK anytime soon, don’t bet on that either. 92.3 NOW as a CHR/Top-40 format currently has the highest cume of listeners since the late 90′s when it was K-ROCK with Howard Stern in mornings. Q104 is currently the only place in NYC to hear rock on terrestrial radio, and you know what? With rock sounding the way it does today, that may be the perfect thing to happen.

I’d love to tell you what’s on the air at 101.9 right now but I’m not near a radio… going to RXP’s website takes you to their online stream where their ‘rock experience’ is still going on. I’ll be looking forward to news/talk on the FM dial, especially a nice change from the heavy stuff you hear on AM’s talk stations.

I’d post more right now, but I’ve got to get some sleep for work in the morning. I’ll make more postings in the coming days and report on more radio news. Enjoy, folks.