This makes no sense: WYAY

[AMRocks]

So Cumulus makes more cuts to AN 106.7 to likely pay for the Kimmer and his staff along with the Braves. They decide to cut one of the news anchors. So they cut Michelle Wright...the other MORNING news anchor???? Andy Rose will continue morning news solo. Isn't one of the things you learn in Radio 101 is that morning drive sets the pace for the rest of the day on the station?

I guess I should be shocked. But it's corporate radio. So.....

 

[Rick Rose 2.0]

Unless Cumulus had to throw the full class C signal of 106.7 in the deal to keep CBS from taking the rights. Even though i hate losing news coverage due to baseball games i dont see it as ruining the station since most games are in the evening but a 3 hour comedy show kills the flow. Why do news overnights but break for 3 hours at noon for comedy. I enjoy the kimmer but this is just wrong.

 

[BarryATL]

I did not have time to post a few days ago when Michelle being axed was discussed in another thread. At the time I wondered if this might be part of a plan to do something with the morning drive. Maybe there are more changes still in the works.

 

[MarkW]

Of course these programming decisions make no sense -- this is Cumulus we are talking about, after all.

I cannot think of a single format flip they've executed in a top 30 market within the past decade that has turned out to be a ratings or revenue success story, unless one counts moving Q100 from 100.5 to 99.7 (which, frankly, was a no-brainer).

Hey John, Lew and Mike -- you guys are doing a bang-up job with Mix 107-3...errrr "All The Hits" 107-3" in our Nation's Capital! It takes real talent to turn a 3.5 share radio station into a 1.8 share radio station. (And, yes, the numbers in demo are equally as abysmal, for those who are wondering about that.)

 

[Unregistered]

Of course these programming decisions make no sense -- this is Cumulus we are talking about, after all.

I cannot think of a single format flip they've executed in a top 30 market within the past decade that has turned out to be a ratings or revenue success story, unless one counts moving Q100 from 100.5 to 99.7 (which, frankly, was a no-brainer).

Hey John, Lew and Mike -- you guys are doing a bang-up job with Mix 107-3...errrr "All The Hits" 107-3" in our Nation's Capital! It takes real talent to turn a 3.5 share radio station into a 1.8 share radio station. (And, yes, the numbers in demo are equally as abysmal, for those who are wondering about that.)

The NASH station in NYC has been a huge success for Cumulus. Not a top 5 station but it is performing as expected. There are probably other examples of Cumulus making the right moves.

 

[CaveMan77]

Michelle Wright is such a STRONG anchor....! I knew her at CNNRadio and she was one of the best CNN had on the network.
So why would AN choose to can her? Certainly her talents could be used somewhere else during the day, if not in morning
drive......Andy Rose is also as good as you can find. But for one person---any one person---to actively handle four or five
hours of anchoring is a stressful and terrible move on the part of AN. All of the big time All News Operations have two
anchors in AM drive. Is this a totally poor decision or what ? If I were Cumulus, I would be helping Michelle find another
anchor position somewhere in their chain of stations. She is just too good to be "suddenly" let go. Is the Kimmer costing
too much for AN ? To let Michelle go in favor of more dollars for the Kimmer just makes no sense.

 

[PTBoardOp94]

The NASH station in NYC has been a huge success for Cumulus. Not a top 5 station but it is performing as expected. There are probably other examples of Cumulus making the right moves.

Barely a top 20 station.

 

[TheBigA]

Barely a top 20 station.

Consider they're doing country music in a city that is the opposite of country music. And yet they still have over a million listeners. For them it's not the share, but the number.

Perhaps the parallel is they're trying to do all-news in a market that has a limited audience for all news. The fact is they're providing the service. But because the audience isn't as big as it needs to be, they've been forced to cut costs. The success at WSB shows that they might get more listeners if they did a hybrid news talk, rather than devoting so much of their resources to just news. How long do you give a station before you accept that the audience isn't there?

 

[RadioDoogie]

NYC hasn't had a country station in the market at all for several years. I am sure that is part of the success with Nash there.

 

[fishpond]

I did not have time to post a few days ago when Michelle being axed was discussed in another thread. At the time I wondered if this might be part of a plan to do something with the morning drive. Maybe there are more changes still in the works.

I hope so. They either need a second anchor or a host/newscaster to fill the spot. Michelle Wright was the station's weak point in the AM.

 

[fishpond]

Michelle Wright is such a STRONG anchor....! I knew her at CNNRadio and she was one of the best CNN had on the network.

Pairing Michelle Wright with Andy Rose did not work. When the numbers are better in PM drive and the middle of the day, even before the Peterson show got underway a couple of weeks ago, the change was inevitable. I would hope they find a second anchor to pair with Andy Rose beginning at 5:00 a.m.

 

[fishpond]

Perhaps the parallel is they're trying to do all-news in a market that has a limited audience for all news. The fact is they're providing the service. But because the audience isn't as big as it needs to be, they've been forced to cut costs. The success at WSB shows that they might get more listeners if they did a hybrid news talk, rather than devoting so much of their resources to just news.

I absolutely agree. WGST had to do that in the 1970's and WCNN, when it was the CNN feed with local news cut-in's, also had to add talk programming and cut personnel. The Atlanta market iis not New York, Los Angeles, or Chicago.

 

[Rick Rose 2.0]

If all news is not working then change the name and modify the format don't tease us as all news and ditch the format for 3 hours in the middle of the day. If they want to mix in talk shows and news blocks like WSB then officially change the format to news talk. Don't do 21 hours of news if you don.t do 24. if you want ot be mostly news during the day and do mostly talk when its dark. Unless the non drive time news blocks are just being just fill time until they find talk talent. They could just drop the word ALL since obviously those days are gone. I miss the ALL News but if the format isnt working and dont make enough money change your name and imaging and be proud of who you are and dont promise things you dont deliver for 3 hours a day.

 

[BTAtlanta]

To be honest with you, Rick, I don't think the branding is that big of a concern for Jennifer Perry, nor is it a problem with the average listener.

As for Andy, he sounds supremely better by himself and I don't mind listening to just him.

 

[acheron1982]

I'm about to make some people mad but that is not my intention; I'm just trying to point out a trend.

When a format that many want to see succeed starts to collapse, the reasoning seems to never be the format or that the city can't handle that format - It's always the company that is running it. We seem to forget about all the praise that was given towards Cumulus by the same people when ALL NEWS was originally launched. We heard how it was one of the best launches ever yet ALL NEWS has remained around 1.7 to 1.8 shares. Any time this is brought up, we hear about how it takes 5 years before an all news format to actually show signs of succeeding yet I have trouble even thinking of an All News station that has lasted that long. Now that it appears that the format it about to fail (remember all the moves prior to Dave and AGH's going off the air?), instead of pointing at the obvious which is a format that is not all that viable, we blame it all on the company that is running it - The same company we praised at the beginning when it was originally launched. Go back and read the huge thread that was started nearly 2 years ago when this station launched. You would think Cumulus was the second coming of christ and now they are the anti-christ. It's not Cumulus - Its the format.

If Cumulus was smart - They would pull the plug quick. Oh, and don't even get me started on 92.9 and that waste of a signal. It's offensive to be in a city that wastes two very strong signals for such a failure of a format.

To avoid a huge argument (I love debates but when someone dares to criticize on Almighty precious All News, all hell breaks loose on this board), I will read the comments that follow by those I know disagree with me (some respectfully but others less than so). Show me something that will change my mind. I'm not stubborn.

 

[TheBigA]

If Cumulus was smart - They would pull the plug quick.

I think the other shoe hasn't dropped yet. I've been studying how they work, and they seem to have a plan. At one point, they seemed to be seriously considering their own news network, maybe based in Atlanta, maybe using former CNN talent. Now I'm starting to think that idea has passed. They tried it in Atlanta and San Francisco, and neither station was a hit. Of course they have very serious and established competition in San Francisco, so that may have played a part. They still have a bunch of big city news talkers that all need help. It'll be interesting to see what happens, and I'm sure Atlanta will be part of whatever they do.

 

[secondchoice]

I'm about to make some people mad but that is not my intention; I'm just trying to point out a trend.
Any time this is brought up, we hear about how it takes 5 years before an all news format to actually show signs of succeeding yet I have trouble even thinking of an All News station that has lasted that long. .

I am not mad. If you will look at some of my posts in the past, I am not a Cumulus cheerleader. But all news in my opinion all is viable. Cumulus to their credit has filled a large program hole in the market. All news works in a lot of places, nationally:

WBBM Chicago, #2 @ 6.3 (6+) All new since 1968,

WINS New York #10 @3.5 (6+) 45+ years
WCBS New York #8 @ 3.9 (6+) since 1972

KNX Los Angeles (IMHO possibly the worst city in America to do any form of non Hollywood gossip, or serious spoken word format with lots of distractions. LA can even support a NFL team!) 2.6 (6+) all news since 1968

WWJ Detroit #4 @ 6.4 (6+) 35 years+ (Smaller market population wise than Atlanta)

Some of these stations do baseball or football broadcasts but except for $port$ they are all news. These are just the CBS stations I can think of off the top of my head. A non CBS all news success are WTOP DC 7.8 (6+).

If I ruled the radio world in Atlanta, I would have had Cox gone all news on WSB 750 keeping the talkers on 95.5. CBS should have gone oldies on 92.9, but CBS is going big time sports nationally so 92.9 has a long struggle with sports on 92.9 ahead. 106.7 should have been a KZ 106 Chattanooga "clone".

But back to reality, Cumulus most likely had to but the Braves on 106.7 to keep them from moving to CBS's 92.9. I think the Braves on 106.7 is going to be a good thing for 106.7. If I was running 106.7:

#1 I would turn off the stereo to help with building perpetration. 95.5 does very well in mono ratings wise.

#2 Let all the paid programming go back to WGST,

#3 Move the Kimmer to 5-10 AM. This should attract WSB's conservative listeners who need an early morning bashing of Democrats.

 

[Unregistered]

If Cumulus was smart - They would pull the plug quick. Oh, and don't even get me started on 92.9 and that waste of a signal. It's offensive to be in a city that wastes two very strong signals for such a failure of a format.

To avoid a huge argument (I love debates but when someone dares to criticize on Almighty precious All News, all hell breaks loose on this board), I will read the comments that follow by those I know disagree with me (some respectfully but others less than so). Show me something that will change my mind. I'm not stubborn.[/QUOTE]

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All News is a very expensive and difficult format to operate and WIN, especially in this town where WSB is a goliath. It's the same in DC where CBS has All News WNEW and trying to compete with the goliath there WTOP. WSB is performing better in the ratings now than they were Before All News launched because they've become better focused to protect themselves as the news weather and traffic authority in the city. YAY has nothing to lose dipping their toe into talk and the Braves because 18 months into the format they're still under performing the last month of the oldies format stuck being ranked in the 20's, WSB on the other hand ranked 8th and 9th the first two months YAY hit the air and has steadily improved since then ranking #1 in the market the last two months. I don't blame Cumulus for trying something different, play by play, perhaps additional talk programming ETC, regardless of who was running AN it stood little chance of succeeding to any great degree.
Jon

 

[Artiemad1]

I absolutely agree. WGST had to do that in the 1970's and WCNN, when it was the CNN feed with local news cut-in's, also had to add talk programming and cut personnel. The Atlanta market iis not New York, Los Angeles, or Chicago.

It doesn't matter what the station is called because the name "all news" hasn't resonated in this town for several reasons the first of which is 750-95.5 is known as and has the heritage of being the news weather and traffic station. The pivot to talk and play by play in programming will either help or not, changing the name to mostly news or news radio or anything else isn't a make or break proposition, it's all about the content and whether AN and infomercials is becoming accepted.
Art

 

[Unregistered]

If all news is not working then change the name and modify the format don't tease us as all news and ditch the format for 3 hours in the middle of the day. If they want to mix in talk shows and news blocks like WSB then officially change the format to news talk. Don't do 21 hours of news if you don.t do 24. if you want ot be mostly news during the day and do mostly talk when its dark. Unless the non drive time news blocks are just being just fill time until they find talk talent. They could just drop the word ALL since obviously those days are gone. I miss the ALL News but if the format isnt working and dont make enough money change your name and imaging and be proud of who you are and dont promise things you dont deliver for 3 hours a day.

Over promise and under deliver, sounds like a good format, no wonder its being tweaked
rick