From our Who’s Buying What page: When the idea arose to bring TJ Taormina back to New York City’s airwaves for a limited engagement, a lot of pieces had to fall into place quickly.
Taormina was part of the Z100 morning show in the early 2000s before moving to on WODS in Boston, but in February 2023 he launched “The TJ Show.” Syndicated nationally by Gemini XIII/United Stations Radio Networks, the program got its first break on New York airwaves August 31 anchoring TJ98.7: A Pop-Up Station.
The “pop-up” concept is popular among restauranters and retailers looking to test new ideas and markets, as well as way to build excitement with a time-limited experience that triggers consumers’ fear of missing out on something special.
WEPN-FM, 98.7 MHz, had long been the home of ESPN Radio in New York City, but when the sports network’s agreement with Emmis Corp. expired at the end of August, it paved the way for the TJ98.7 pop up — things just had to happen quickly.
“This was an amazingly collaborative project which came together in seven days or so, and included engineering, programming, imaging, music selection and marketing,” stated Gemini XIII COO Charles Steinhauer.
“I’ve been involved with many station launches in my career, but never one that launched at the absolute highest level with about a week to ramp up,” stated consultant McVay Media President Mike McVay. “The time from when Emmis gave us the green light to literally days later we had built a radio station.”
To provide localized content for 24-hours of programming on the station, the team turned to Radio.Cloud and its cloud-based automation technology. The company’s radio playout studio and programing suite are being used to music scheduling, localization, and playout.
“Deploying the Radio.Cloud platform was quick and simple,” stated Emmis New York’s Chief Engineer Alex Roman. “The server is a small appliance that fits on a rack shelf and integrated easily into our network with minimal configuration required.”
The morning and afternoon drives on TJ98.7 are anchored by “The TJ Show,” with the rest of the day being filled with a mix of contemporary programming, music and “fun talk.” Also heard on the station are voices from the New York Yankee’s YES Network, Inside Edition’s Steve Kamer, and Jai Kershner.
It’s not clear how long the TJ98.7 pop-up will run, but Radio.Cloud Account Director Andrew Scaglione is excited his company is part of the event. “I grew up in New Jersey listening to 98.7 every morning and afternoon. The chance to have our cutting edge cloud-native technology powering one of the biggest signals in the country is a ‘pinch me’ moment,” he stated.
