One of Milwaukee's many rock stations, 97.3 The Brew, quietly changed formats last week. It is now a Top 40 station called Radio Now, with a playlist that includes Katy Perry, Jay-Z, B.o.B., Kings of Leon and Lady Gaga.
While the launch of another Top 40 station probably wouldn't be cause for celebration in most major radio markets, in Milwaukee, it's actually a step in the right directionand not just because the city won't be subjected to The Brew's odious dancing-shirtless-fat-man ad campaign anymore.
Milwaukee's airwaves have been over-saturated with classic- and '80s-rock since late 2008, when the contemporary pop station 94.5 reinvented itself as Lake FM to offer a boomer-friendly mix dominated by Steve Miller, Journey and Styx. The switch left the city with plenty of outlets to hear Van Halen, but just two modern pop stations: WMYX-FM 99.1, a workplace-friendly adult-contemporary station where rap is verboten, and the hyper-youthful 103.7 KISS-FM.
Radio Now fills the logical gap between those extremes, offering an alternative less snoozy than The Mix and less clubby than 103.7. As of now, Radio Now's playlist seems to be broader than 103.7's, and the station probably won't convert to Christmas music five months out of the year like The Mix, so that makes it a welcome, if not necessarily glamorous, addition to the city's commercial airwaves.
CORRECTION: An earlier draft of this blog post erroneously cited 103.7 as a Clear Channel-operated station.
