After two hours of stunting with the sound of jingling sleigh bells, Audacy Classic Hits 94.5 KOOL-FM Phoenix relaunched as “Big 94.5” at noon today.
The new brand launched with Peter Gabriel “Big Time”, Billy Joel “Big Shot”, Ozzy Osbourne “Crazy Train”, Prince “Kiss”, and Spin Doctors “Two Princes”. The imaging and logo completely match the relaunch Audacy did at 98.1 WOGL Philadelphia in April.
No word yet on the status of the KOOL-FM airstaff, which included Niko Petrou and Dee Garcia in mornings, Charlie Huero in afternoons, and JJ Kaden at night.
The final songs logged before the start of stunting were Boston “More Than A Feeling” and Foreigner “I Want To Know What Love Is”.
KOOL-FM currently ranks fifteenth in the Phoenix market with a 3.0 share. Once a dominant player in the market, the station has been chipped away at by the addition of multiple other gold based stations in the Phoenix area including Desert Valley Media Group’s Oldies “94.9/95.1 The Wow Factor” KOAI, iHeartMedia Variety Hits “95.5 The Mountain” KYOT, Sierra H Broadcasting’s duo of Classic Hip Hop “101.1 The Bounce” KZCE and Rhythmic Oldies “Mega 104.3” KAJM.
The change marks the end of the station using its KOOL-FM calls as its branding, as the station has for its entire history dating back to its sign-on in 1960. The station was one of the first stations to go Oldies in 1971 and evolved to Classic Hits with the majority of format in the late 2000s.