For the first time in a while, Kansas City has the ingredients for the kind of Top 40 battle that makes radio people sit up, turn the volume higher and start looking at music logs, morning shows, contest clocks and Nielsen trends like somebody just rang the bell for Round One. Cumulus has planted Hits 105 squarely into contemporary hit territory, built it around actual personalities and aggressive listener promotion, and aimed it directly into a market where Mix 93.3 KMXV has been sitting at the top of the ratings heap. The first publicly available ratings snapshot since the new competition arrived shows something equally important: Mix has not blinked.
KMXV posted a 6.9 share in August, essentially flat from 6.8 in July and just a tenth below its 7.0 in June. In the published 6+ numbers, that left Mix at the top of Kansas City once again.
That does not mean the fight is over.
Good Lord.
IT MEANS THE FIGHT IS FINALLY STARTING.
THIS IS NOT SOME LITTLE FORMAT FLIP IN THE MIDDLE OF NOWHERE
Kansas City matters.
According to the current Nielsen market listing, Kansas City is market No. 34, representing roughly 1.83 million people in the measured 6+ population.
That is serious radio real estate.
Chiefs.
Royals.
Concerts.
College sports.
Suburban growth.
A young population spread across two states.
A massive entertainment culture.
National advertisers.
Major agencies.
Strong local businesses.
And enough audience to make a real CHR battle financially meaningful.
This is exactly the kind of market where format competition should still matter.
Because when two stations chase substantially the same broad contemporary music listener, somebody eventually starts making decisions.
Music.
Talent.
Promotions.
Imaging.
Marketing.
Cash.
And sometimes ego.
Especially ego.
😂
MIX 93.3 HAS THE ONE THING HITS 105 CANNOT BUY OVERNIGHT
History.
KMXV has been building audience relationships in Kansas City for decades.
And more importantly, much of its current personality lineup has been around long enough that listeners actually know who the hell they are.
Rocket and Teresa remain entrenched in mornings, where Mix says the show has been serving Kansas City for more than 26 years.
Twenty-six years.
Do you understand what that means in radio time?
That’s approximately 147 ownership restructurings.
😂
It means children who grew up listening to Rocket and Teresa are now dropping off their own kids while listening to Rocket and Teresa.
That’s habit.
That’s heritage.
That’s familiarity.
And in a format where listeners can hear virtually every song on demand somewhere else, familiarity becomes one of the few things a competitor cannot instantly copy.
THEN YOU HAVE DAVE O
Dave O has been doing Kansas City afternoon drive since 2009 and says flatly that he has no intention of leaving the city.
That matters.
Steve Serrano is in middays.
Mallory Kay is Kansas City born and raised and ties her personality directly into local sports and the community.
Mix is not defending itself with anonymous sweepers.
It has people.
KNOWN PEOPLE.
That is a massive weapon in a CHR war.
BUT HITS 105 IS NOT ARRIVING EMPTY HANDED
This is what makes the story fun.
Hits 105 isn’t simply plugging in music and hoping somebody notices.
Its current schedule is fully populated.
Tyler Frye handles mornings from 6 to 10.
Cassiday follows from 10 to 3.
Dallace Jade takes afternoons from 3 to 7.
Jade and Tyler team for nights.
DJ Kirby owns the weekend club environment.
Carson Daly supplies the Sunday countdown component.
That’s a station.
Not a placeholder.
Not a stunt.
Not:
HERE’S 10,000 SONGS IN A ROW WHILE WE FIGURE OUT WHAT THE HELL WE’RE DOING.
😂
Cumulus is building a recognizable CHR product.
And that’s why Mix should take this seriously.
LOOK AT THE PROMOTIONS
Hits 105 has been aggressive.
Kansas City Zoo.
Oktoberfest.
Renaissance Festival.
G-Eazy and Logic.
Benson Boone.
Jonas Brothers.
Harry Styles.
Cash.
Local entertainment.
Concert tickets.
The station’s own archived contest calendar shows a steady flow of local and national prizes stretching through August and September.
That’s textbook CHR warfare.
Get people to sample.
Give them a reason to remember the frequency.
Put the brand in front of them repeatedly.
Make the listener say:
OH YEAH HITS 105
Awareness first.
Habit later.
Ratings after that.
AND MIX IS DOING THE EXACT THING IT SHOULD DO
It is not suddenly acting terrified.
That’s what I like most.
There is no visible evidence that Mix has torn up the station and started chasing Hits 105 around the dial.
Instead, KMXV is doing what heritage stations should do when somebody new walks into the room.
KEEP DOING THE THINGS THAT MADE YOU STRONG
Rocket and Teresa remain mornings.
Steve remains middays.
Dave O remains afternoons.
The station continues pushing community events, contests, local lifestyle content, charity involvement and Kansas City personalities.
That’s smart.
Because panic programming is almost always terrible programming.
DO NOT CHASE THE COMPETITOR
Make the competitor chase you.
That’s the rule.
If Mix suddenly changes everything because Hits 105 exists, it tells the audience and the industry that Mix believes something is wrong with Mix.
The August numbers don’t suggest that.
6.7 in May.
7.0 in June.
6.8 in July.
6.9 in August.
Look at that line.
That’s about as steady as radio ratings ever get.
6.7
7.0
6.8
6.9
That station is not falling off a cliff.
It isn’t even looking over the edge.
BUT HERE IS WHERE EVERYBODY NEEDS TO CALM DOWN
August does not settle the fight.
Not remotely.
Hits 105 is still new enough that listeners are discovering it.
Building a radio brand takes time.
People do not wake up Tuesday morning and say:
I HEAR THERE IS A NEW CHR IN TOWN I SHALL IMMEDIATELY ABANDON THE STATION I HAVE LISTENED TO FOR TWENTY YEARS
😂
Habit is hard to break.
Frequency memory is hard to break.
Morning-show relationships are hard to break.
Preset buttons are hard to break.
That’s why the next several ratings periods matter considerably more than one opening snapshot.
THE REAL FIGHT IS HABIT
This is not just music versus music.
That’s too simplistic.
Hits 105 and Mix 93.3 can both play Taylor Swift.
Both can play Sabrina Carpenter.
Both can play contemporary Pop.
Both can chase new music.
Both can play recurrent hits.
The audience can hear those songs anywhere.
The war is over habit.
Which station gets turned on automatically?
Which morning show gets the commute?
Which app lives on the phone?
Which personality gets followed on Instagram?
Which station gets the concert association?
Which station gets remembered when somebody says:
TURN ON THE RADIO
That is the battle.
AND MORNING DRIVE IS GOING TO MATTER A LOT
Rocket and Teresa versus Tyler Frye is one of the most interesting pieces of this.
Rocket and Teresa have an absurd heritage advantage.
More than 26 years in the market.
Tyler gets the opposite advantage.
New.
Fresh.
No baggage.
A chance to define an entirely different morning brand.
Hits 105 is already tying contesting directly into Tyler’s morning show, including song games and ticket giveaways.
That’s exactly what you do.
Create appointment listening.
Give people reasons to sample mornings.
Get the host’s name into every promotion.
Build personality recognition.
It takes time.
But if you’re Cumulus, that’s the assignment.
AFTERNOONS MAY BE JUST AS INTERESTING
Dave O has been Kansas City afternoon drive since 2009.
Dallace Jade occupies afternoons on Hits 105.
Now you’ve got another classic radio comparison.
Heritage versus opportunity.
Established relationship versus emerging brand.
Both can work.
But the winner will not be determined by who has the cleverest liner.
It will be determined by who becomes part of somebody’s drive home.
THIS IS WHERE LOCALISM BECOMES A WEAPON
Kansas City is a very specific place.
This market lives and breathes Chiefs.
Royals.
Barbecue.
Arrowhead.
Concerts.
Local festivals.
Johnson County.
The Northland.
Overland Park.
Lee’s Summit.
Kansas City Kansas.
Kansas City Missouri.
Two states trying to behave like one metro while arguing about everything.
😂
A CHR that sounds like it could be broadcasting from anywhere is wasting an enormous advantage.
Mix already has deep local familiarity.
Hits 105 is clearly trying to build its own through local contests, local events and Kansas City-specific promotions.
That is exactly where this battle should go.
MAKE THE STATIONS SOUND DIFFERENT
Please.
For the love of everything holy.
Do not give Kansas City two stations with identical music libraries, identical processing, identical imaging and identical breaks.
Then nobody wins.
Differentiate.
One can be more aggressive.
One can be more personality-heavy.
One can own new music.
One can own party records.
One can own local events.
One can own artist access.
One can own mornings.
One can own nightlife.
Just do something.
THIS IS WHAT TOP 40 USED TO BE GREAT AT
Top 40 radio was built for battles.
Stations stealing slogans.
Stations stealing personalities.
Stations trying to beat each other to records.
Concerts.
Cash contests.
Street teams.
Billboards.
Morning-show wars.
Night-show wars.
Jocks talking trash without saying the competitor’s name.
This format historically thrives when somebody has somebody to fight.
Competition creates urgency.
Urgency creates creativity.
Creativity creates better radio.
KANSAS CITY HAS BEEN HANDED THAT OPPORTUNITY
And it matters that this is happening here.
Kansas City isn’t New York.
It isn’t Los Angeles.
It doesn’t need to be.
Market No. 34 is large enough to matter nationally and small enough that stations can still feel intimately tied to the market.
That’s a sweet spot.
A programmer can know the market.
A personality can become famous locally.
Street promotions still matter.
Listener relationships still matter.
A station can actually feel like Kansas City.
That’s what makes this fun.
AND THE FIRST ROUND GOES TO MIX
Let’s say that carefully.
Not the war.
The first round.
The August 6+ number puts KMXV at 6.9, holding steady at the top of the publicly reported subscribing-station results.
That tells me one thing:
Hits 105 has not yet visibly destabilized Mix in the topline public number.
That’s it.
Do not stretch the data beyond what it says.
We do not yet have enough publicly available information to determine Hits 105’s full demographic performance or exactly where any listening movement is coming from.
And 6+ is not the sole currency of CHR.
Anyone who programs Top 40 knows that.
The money demos matter.
Women.
Adults.
Different age cells.
Different dayparts.
Different behavior.
We don’t have all of that publicly.
So I’m not declaring somebody dead based on one public number.
BUT THE PRESSURE IS NOW REAL
Cumulus did not build Hits 105 so it could admire Mix from across town.
It wants audience.
It wants revenue.
It wants agency attention.
It wants concert relationships.
It wants morning listeners.
It wants people saying:
I LISTEN TO HITS 105
And every one of those listeners has to come from somewhere.
Some will come from streaming.
Some from Hot AC.
Some from Rhythmic.
Some from other music stations.
And yes…
Some will come from Mix.
That’s competition.
MIX HAS TO KEEP MOVING TOO
Heritage can protect you.
Heritage can also make you lazy.
That is the danger.
Mix cannot look at a 6.9 and say:
WE’RE FINE
No.
You’re ahead.
Different thing.
The minute a heritage station believes the audience belongs to it, somebody else starts taking pieces of that audience.
Mix should be using this moment to make Rocket and Teresa bigger.
Make Dave O bigger.
Make Steve Serrano bigger.
Put personalities everywhere.
Own concerts.
Own schools.
Own TikTok.
Own Instagram.
Own Royals moments.
Own Chiefs moments.
Own Kansas City.
Make Hits 105 have to fight for every damn quarter-hour.
AND HITS 105 NEEDS TO BE FEARLESS
The new station cannot beat Mix by being a slightly different version of Mix.
It needs energy.
It needs swagger.
It needs to sound young.
It needs to sound current.
It needs to create FOMO.
It needs to make somebody who has listened to 93.3 forever think:
WAIT WHAT ARE THEY DOING OVER THERE
That is how challengers win.
Not politely.
Not quietly.
With noise.
THIS COULD BE GOOD FOR BOTH STATIONS
That’s the thing radio sometimes forgets.
Competition can grow a format.
When two CHRs promote concerts, personalities, contests and Pop culture aggressively, they can make radio itself feel bigger.
Maybe Hits 105 doesn’t simply steal Mix listeners.
Maybe it brings some younger listeners back from streaming.
Maybe it forces Mix to sharpen itself.
Maybe both stations become more culturally relevant.
Maybe Kansas City ends up with better Top 40 radio than it had before.
THAT WOULD BE A WIN
ON THE DIAL PERSPECTIVE
I have been waiting for a contemporary radio fight like this.
Not another company cutting three jobs and replacing them with a national feed.
Not another station quietly changing formats at midnight and pretending nobody noticed.
A real competitive battle.
Two brands.
Two morning shows.
Two personality lineups.
One major Midwest market.
One audience.
And a lot of Pop records.
This is the kind of thing radio should celebrate.
ROUND ONE IS DONE
Mix 93.3 is still standing exactly where it was.
At the top.
6.9.
Rocket and Teresa still waking up Kansas City.
Steve Serrano still in middays.
Dave O still driving people home.
Hits 105 is across town loading contests, Tyler Frye, Cassiday, Dallace Jade and a full schedule into the chamber.
Nobody has won the war.
Nobody has lost it.
And that is what makes this so damn good.
KANSAS CITY HAS A TOP 40 FIGHT AGAIN
Not theoretically.
Not someday.
RIGHT NOW.
Mix has heritage.
Hits has momentum.
Mix has relationships.
Hits has freshness.
Mix has the ratings lead.
Hits has nothing to lose by swinging hard.
And somewhere inside both buildings there is a programmer looking at the other station thinking:
WHAT ARE THEY GOING TO DO NEXT
Good.
That’s exactly how radio is supposed to feel.
So turn the processing up.
Get the street teams out.
Put the jocks on everything.
Give away stupid amounts of stuff.
Break records.
Create moments.
Make Kansas City choose.
Because for the first time in a while, there are two stations in this market fighting for the right to own Top 40.
AND NOW WE FINALLY HAVE A RADIO WAR WORTH WATCHING.
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