FM Talk Coming To The Norfolk Market?

[joeybabe25]

I'm curious as to why news/talk doesn't perform well in the Hampton Roads market. I would think with the military focus, so many large cities and their issues grouped together, the vast highway system (traffic), etc., news/talk would be successful.

My understanding was that Sinclair was doing ok with WNIS.

Joe

[Robert F Corbin]

Reply to stevations.  A couple of comments.  A station like Passion 1350 needs to sell enough spots to keep the lights on.  They seem to be trying to program to their local community and I enjoy listening to them from time to time.  If they can sell to the local businesses, then the ratings may not matter much.  I hope they can make some technical improvements so they can stay on the air all of the time with a good signal.

Each station tries to adjust their audio processing to meet their format.  Some do a better job than others.  93.7 has a certain "brightness" to their sound that may or may not come across as being too treble on some radios.  With their format, they are playing music from as far back as the 60s up to today.  I personally think their audio is fine.  I find the audio on 105.3 to be terrible.

Studies of listeners have found that some audio processing can cause listener fatigue and also if a station has too much treble, it can decrease the listening by females as they seem to be more sensitive to the increased highs in the programming.

I missed your quote when I replied.  Funny you mentioned 105.3 as I did...

[N4GBK]

Hampton Roads ratings are at this link:

http://ratings.radio-online.com/cgi-bin/rol.exe/arb109

This is only a summary and does not have all of the detailed information that advertisers look at.  It still lists WTAR as News/Talk but these ratings are from late 2012 and are after they became Funny 850.

The Comedy format seems to be a popular option for AM stations.  It probably does not cost a lot for the station to run the satellite feed 24/7.

[raccoonradio]

Tweet I saw by Robert Corbin wondered if Hampton
Rds loses comedy Funny 850 today at 3 (comedy giives
way to biz radio tonite in Boston)

[raccoonradio]

still comedy but new name?
Robert Corbin VARTV ‏@VARTV
Sinclair Communications' all-comedy "Funny 850" WTAR/Norfolk is now "Comedy AM 850." WTAR doing all-comedy since June 2011... #hrva #VARTV