Idolator

As an follow-up to my April post lamenting the demise of V100, Los Angeles' station featuring R&B for the grown and sexy, the station's replacement is now firmly entrenched on the airwaves—although not with the news/talk format it was rumored to take on. Instead, the listeners of L.A. get more middle-aged dad rock. More »

I spent a few days in Los Angeles last week and spent most of the time tuned into V100, the latest version of what used to be "The Beat," which for the last year has specialized in the Urban Adult Contemporary format. Frankly, any station that features Shalamar prominently in its playlist is likely to have my ear, but V100 pulled off a difficult genre well, mixing newer tracks by Raheem DeVaughan and Keyshia Cole with familiar tracks from The Deele and Maze. It seems I caught the station a little too late—V100's parent company, Radio One, sold the station to the Latter-Day Saint Church-owned Bonneville International Corporation, whose focus on "values-oriented programming" seems to exclude anything in the urban format. More »