Update To The Y100 Situation

First, let me get a bit of disclaimer out, in the interest of full disclosure: I am biased in favor of Y100, at least as it used to be. They always treated me well musically, but they also treated me well in a remunerative fashion – I won, among other things:

1. A cup of coffee and a doughnut from Wawa.
2. Two NBC “waffle weave” bathrobes.
3. Two tickets to the Anger Management Tour featuring Xzibit (terrible), Ludacris (horrible), Papa Roach (excellent) and Eminem (okay).
4. Four tickets to the Franklin Institute.
5. Four tickets to a Phillies game.
6. A silver Gamecube w/memory card and Metroid Prime, a Gameboy Advance with Metroid Fusion and a link cable to connect the GC and GBA.

all of which, with the exception of the Anger Management tickets, I won courtesy of Preston & Steve’s morning show.
On to the speculation. I firmly believe that Preston and Steve knew about the impending format change. I’d imagine the topic came up during their contract renegotiations and they were asked not to tell anyone of the shift. Their move to MMR was probably predicated on Radio One showing the entire modern rock format the door.
According to PhillyHipHop.com, the shift was all-but-inevitable:

103.9 The Beat moves down the dial to 100.3 FM
Radio One Hip Hop & R&B staple 103.9 The Beat has relocated down the dial and can now be heard on the 100.3 FM frequency. The only change for 100.3 The Beat is the new frequency. No format or personality changes are planned. The Beat takes over the frequency formally occupied by fellow Radio One station Y 100. There has been longtime speculation that Radio Onw[sic] would dump Y 100, as it was the only station with a non urban format run by the nation’s largest Black owned radio corporation. Radio One insiders, on the condition of annonimity, have confirmed that the company plans to use the 103.9 FM frequency for an urban format geared towards an older demographic, with a mix of gospel as the current forerunner.

(emphasis mine)
There you have it.
I just hope some other SuperMegaUltraRadioConglomerate has the guts to start up another modern/alt rock station in Philly. I’ll be listening to a lot less radio until someone does.