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No más for Spanish station; rock now plays at 104.5

Alternative-rock radio signed on this morning at 104.5 FM, ending Clear Channel Broadcasting's nearly nine-month experiment with a Spanish format known as Rumba.

Alternative-rock radio signed on this morning at 104.5 FM, ending Clear Channel Broadcasting's nearly nine-month experiment with a Spanish format known as Rumba.

"Radio 104.5" launched at 10 a.m. with the Ramones' "Do You Remember Rock 'n' Roll Radio?" The last song on Rumba was Frankie Negron's "No Vuelvo Contigo."

Clear Channel has moved the Spanish format to its WDAS-AM (1480), a longtime but low-power home of gospel music. Clear Channel has carried Phillies baseball games in Spanish on that station.

Radio 104.5's initial playlist was a series of male rockers in a rock genre loosely known as alternative: Daughtry, Sublime, the Police, Tom Petty and the Beastie Boys. One wag at rival Greater Media Inc. dubbed it "BEN for men," after Greater Media's eclectic station WBEN-FM (95.7).

In the March ratings, Rumba was 19th of 27 stations as measured by listeners per average quarter-hour - just above WXPN-FM (88.5), whose format is adult album alternative.