It wasn't that long ago that 92.9 WBUF out of Buffalo was on my short list of stations that played rock music. Their tagline was Buffalo's Rock Station and as mentioned here, it was my station for Howard Stern in the mornings and pure rock thereafter.
Suddenly, late last year, WBUF dropped the rock. They became "Buffalo's FM Talk Station", building upon their Howard Stern morning show with other syndicated imitators. The new format didn't last very long.
Last week, WBUF became Jack FM. Here in Toronto, we've had a Jack FM for some time now at 92.5 and their slogan is "Playing What We Want". I've always found this to be rather funny, because they will play what they want so long as it's a song on their fairly short play list. Seriously, playing what they want means playing a lot of Sting, Elton John and Madonna. It's pretty much your run of the mill adult contemporary mix station with a crappy marketing spin thrown in for good measure. Jack FM sucks and now this plague has infected Buffalo.
I'm happy to report, however, that Howard Stern has survived the format change. I'm fairly certain WBUF is the only Jack station with Howard Stern in the mornings. They won't be killing the goose that laid the golden egg but they'll be ready with more Billy Joel when that goose flies to Sirius at the end of the year at which time I will bid them adieu forever.
