It didn’t start out as a bad year for format innovation at terrestrial radio. In fact, 2008 started out as the year that major group broadcasters gave both New York (WRXP) and Los Angeles (KSWD [the Sound]) full-signal Triple-A stations, and a hard-rocking, eclectic one in New York at that. It started out as the year that New York got a current-based dance station again, even if WNYZ-LP (Pulse 87) had to find its place on the FM dial via a TV frequency. It started out with an actual new CHR battle in Houston and a challenger (KKHH [Hot 95.7]) playing powers as close as 45 minutes together.

By year’s end, however, format change activity had gone into slow motion. Global economic meltdown undoubtedly figured into it. So, perhaps, did the retrofitting required by Arbitron’s further deployment of PPM, which effectively turned every format into a new format and made it less likely that somebody would champion any new niche format that had to make its living from Time Spent Listening instead of cume.