Jack Arrives

L.A. radio observers have been predicting the demise of classic rock outlet Arrow 93.1 (KCBS-FM) for years.

They finally got their wish Thursday: The station, which hasn't made much of a dent in the ratings for quite a while, flipped to the new format known as "Jack-FM." After stunting all day with U2 songs, station switched around 5 p.m., beginning with Devo's "Whip It."

Reality Remixed blogger Keith fills us in on the details: It's the same Jack format that started in Canada and made its way down to the States a couple of years ago; Infinity's had some luck with it at their stations in Dallas and Denver. Basically, they throw a etric assload of songs from the '60s through now into Selector and let it whiz on high and spit out whatever,whenever. Makes for some interesting segues...

It's not a huge format change -- 93.1 is still playing rock music, so it's not like morning jock Jonathan Brandmeier is suddenly spinning hip-hop tunes.

But it's still something new -- check out the website for 93.1 Jack FM ("Playing what we want") here.

UPDATE: Having listened now for a day or two, I gotta say, zzzzz. One of the station's promos says, "We stole your iPod and put it on shuffle." Well, they stole the iPod from someone with rather dull music taste. "You Can Call Me Al" by Paul Simon into "Sunday Bloody Sunday" by U2 is the closest the station has to range. As a friend told me, "It's like they merged the classic rock from Arrow with the safe songs from KBIG." Needless to say, I'm not bowled over.