Delmarva Broadcasting made more changes at WDEL and WXDE

[MikefromDelaware]

Al Missetti has left 1150 AM and 101.7 FM WDEL and Susan Monday's Show from 105.9 WXDE Lewes is now being heard statewide on both WDEL and WXDE. Not sure who WXDE's afternoon talker was, but they're gone too and WDEL's Rick Jensen is now airing statewide on both WDEL and WXDE.

As previously posted 930 WYUS Milford has dropped Hispanic programming and is now an ESPN Radio affiliate, Delaware ESPN 930. So a number of changes at Delmarva stations.

My guess is, these are all cost saving moves. Why pay 4 live and local talkers when 2 will do the job covering the entire state via WDEL and WXDE. I'm assuming management picked the two talkers who were getting the best ratings and the best ad revenue. Also, from listening to Susan's show today, she doesn't ONLY talk politics, but other topics, so does Jensen. This seems to be a move more talk stations are doing in an effort to attract the younger demos who don't want to hear only political talk and rantings [Rush/Beck/ Hannity] skew older audiences. So with Rick's Thirsty Thursday show and Susan's various topics, they might be the talk duo to help WDEL, now with an FM 101.7 and WXDE 105.9 attract more younger listeners and advertisers trying to reach that younger demo.

My guess is, as Al was extremely opinionated, very abrasive, yelling and abruptly hanging up on callers who didn't see the world as he did was probably offensive to many former listeners from 9am-12noon [Joe Pyne was like this many decades ago on WILM, which was one of the early radio talk shows] . Al's total dislike of the Christian faith, and any belief in God which he said quite often probably offended many listeners as well as probably many local sponsors who didn't want his anti-Christian rants associated with their products or stores. The NCC area has many Catholic, Methodist, Lutheran, and Baptists who do listen to the radio. My guess is, his ratings probably dropped [ I stopped listening quite a few months ago, and I probably wasn't alone]. Al didn't seem to care if you listened or not, and that's not a smart attitude for a broadcaster to have, especially when you pretty much say that to your listeners. Kind of a shame. Al was a smart person who had tons of knowledge and when he wasn't going off his nut, his show could be very interesting. I wish him well.

 

[Oscar Madison]

It's "Mascitti."

You have personal objections to Al but that does not appear to be a factor, or at least not the only factor. (1) WDEL was one of the last stations to include both liberal and conservative leaning hosts in its line-up. Now, the liberal has disappeared (just as they have on hundreds of other talk stations). The Steinman Family of Lancaster, who own the store, have demonstrated their rightward leanings before. It's amazing Al lasted this long. (2) Never underestimate the power of money. Before the company paid two late morning hosts. Now they pay one. Plus support staff for one show, not two. The general manage is quoted in the News-Journal as saying they want to "superserve" Delaware. I wonder if anybody really believes that. A substantial portion of Delaware is outside either coverage area. Wilmington and Lewes have so little common, although maybe a few Wilmingtonians can listen to familiar talk shows at the shore.

WDEL has bigger things to worry about. Ratings keep slipping, even with the addition of a rim-shot FM signal. And for what it's worth, nobody - nobody - is responding to Loudell's or Jensen's blog postings. And the people who did participate were presumably core listeners and fans. They seemed to know what everybody on the station had been saying. Now they are gone. Yet Loudell and Jensen don't seem to notice.

Look for more consolidation. Like their competitor.

Also both have brought in somebody from Philly with - they hope - some name recognition, poor job prospects and a willingness to work cheap.

 

[broadcastguy]

Wild guess here but they might end up selling the Milford cluster (or part of it) as they already did with the Salisbury-OC stations.

 

[MikefromDelaware]

Thanks Oscar, Mascitti.

I believe WDEL and WXDE are trying to be less political. From what I've read, political talk is not popular with the younger demos, thus Rush, Beck, Hannity, etc, also are losing ratings as are their affiliate stations. WILM has very few local spots during Rush, at least when I've turned in I hear very few local spots. The listeners they have skew 55+. WDEL and WXDE probably have a similar problem, thus Susan Monday and Rick Jensen doing more topical talk and less political talk. Some of their shows are pretty boring, but others are not. The worse part of their shows is some of the callers who take forever to make their point and the host let's them ramble on. One thing I've noticed is they both get plenty of callers from both ends of the state, so someone is listening and calling in. Maybe Al Mascitti wasn't willing to do topical talk in a non-abrasive way. Also as most advertisers want to attract female listeners having a female talk host just might help pull in that prized group of listeners. Consider what the Philly TV news shows are doing these days. Mostly female news/weather/yes even sports anchors. Less actual real news, more "chick oriented" stories and topics. Probably for the same reason WDEL is making these changes. They want female listeners, because the advertisers want female listeners and news/talk traditionally skews older white males, who sadly no advertiser wants [I am one]. Even Sports Talk stations want young guys and if they can get them young females.

I agree that 101.7 isn't the best FM signal for the Wilmington Metro Area as it covers Kent County and Southern NJ far better. Delmarva sure isn't going to take 93.7 WSTW or 103.7 WXCY and make them a news/talker when both stations are cash cows for their company as music stations. So WDEL is sort of stuck with 101.7 as their FM signal, unless someone else decides to sell an existing FM frequency, which as you and I both know isn't likely.

I believe why all of Allan's Blog posters stopped posting was because WDEL switched their blog to a Facebook account where you must use your real name, it won't allow you to use a Blog name as we do here. Here I can post as MikefromDelaware. My guess is your real name isn't Oscar Madison. I sent WDEL an email to both Allan and Chris Carl and explained that on their Facebook site any and all get to see your real name via the WDEL Facebook page whereas on regular Facebook, only YOUR selected friends get that privilege. Chris replied saying he's always had a problem with folks being able to post anonymously, yet is OK with phone callers only using their first name when calling a talk show, go figure. So we had to agree to disagree and I, and apparently all the rest of the bloggers who used to post on Allan's blog suddenly stopped. Chris did tell me that they hope by using the Facebook account that they'll get younger listeners than those of us who've been regular posters on WDEL to post. So far that hasn't happened. So yep they chased away their loyal bunch of folks who made Allan's Blog a place of some lively discussions. I go to WDEL.com each morning to get a quick read of local news/weather/sports and if Allan's topic interests me, I'll give it a quick scan. In and out in about 10 minutes. Don't come back until the next day. The only other time I go to WDEL.com is if I want to listen to the station and can't get a good signal at work so listen online, but I listen less than I used to as I prefer NPR, which I also listen to online.

 

[Oscar Madison]

Thanks Oscar, Mascitti.

I believe WDEL and WXDE are trying to be less political. From what I've read, political talk is not popular with the younger demos, thus Rush, Beck, Hannity, etc, also are losing ratings as are their affiliate stations. WILM has very few local spots during Rush, at least when I've turned in I hear very few local spots. The listeners they have skew 55+. WDEL and WXDE probably have a similar problem, thus Susan Monday and Rick Jensen doing more topical talk and less political talk. Some of their shows are pretty boring, but others are not. The worse part of their shows is some of the callers who take forever to make their point and the host let's them ramble on. One thing I've noticed is they both get plenty of callers from both ends of the state, so someone is listening and calling in. Maybe Al Mascitti wasn't willing to do topical talk in a non-abrasive way. Also as most advertisers want to attract female listeners having a female talk host just might help pull in that prized group of listeners. Consider what the Philly TV news shows are doing these days. Mostly female news/weather/yes even sports anchors. Less actual real news, more "chick oriented" stories and topics. Probably for the same reason WDEL is making these changes. They want female listeners, because the advertisers want female listeners and news/talk traditionally skews older white males, who sadly no advertiser wants [I am one]. Even Sports Talk stations want young guys and if they can get them young females.

I agree that 101.7 isn't the best FM signal for the Wilmington Metro Area as it covers Kent County and Southern NJ far better. Delmarva sure isn't going to take 93.7 WSTW or 103.7 WXCY and make them a news/talker when both stations are cash cows for their company as music stations. So WDEL is sort of stuck with 101.7 as their FM signal, unless someone else decides to sell an existing FM frequency, which as you and I both know isn't likely.

I believe why all of Allan's Blog posters stopped posting was because WDEL switched their blog to a Facebook account where you must use your real name, it won't allow you to use a Blog name as we do here. Here I can post as MikefromDelaware. My guess is your real name isn't Oscar Madison. I sent WDEL an email to both Allan and Chris Carl and explained that on their Facebook site any and all get to see your real name via the WDEL Facebook page whereas on regular Facebook, only YOUR selected friends get that privilege. Chris replied saying he's always had a problem with folks being able to post anonymously, yet is OK with phone callers only using their first name when calling a talk show, go figure. So we had to agree to disagree and I, and apparently all the rest of the bloggers who used to post on Allan's blog suddenly stopped. Chris did tell me that they hope by using the Facebook account that they'll get younger listeners than those of us who've been regular posters on WDEL to post. So far that hasn't happened. So yep they chased away their loyal bunch of folks who made Allan's Blog a place of some lively discussions. I go to WDEL.com each morning to get a quick read of local news/weather/sports and if Allan's topic interests me, I'll give it a quick scan. In and out in about 10 minutes. Don't come back until the next day. The only other time I go to WDEL.com is if I want to listen to the station and can't get a good signal at work so listen online, but I listen less than I used to as I prefer NPR, which I also listen to online.

It took me a while to figure out what happened but, yes, it does appear to be Facebook. Of course, people do open Facebook accounts under noms de Internet. Facebook can't do much about it unless somebody gives themselves away by using multiple accounts. And they've gotten their share of criticism for this policy. In your case, you've written newspaper columns under your legal name and talked about your work history in some detail, so your "secret identity" isn't much of a secret. What's strange is Allan keeps writing his blog posts like he's expecting people to respond ("Which stories / topics / issues have captured your attention here at the end of the week?") and not noticing that nobody does.

The only talk format successful in getting younger demos is NJ101.5. There are some parallels between NJ and Delaware. Both are mostly served by out of state media. NJ101.5, however, began trying to fill the gap a quarter of a century ago. Question is whether this late in radio's life cycle, can anything draw listeners and advertisers? It's a funny time to go apolitical heading into the prime season for political advertising. Arguably, talk radio would die without political ads. Sort of like how WWDB dropped talk and fired everybody the day before an election.

 

[Oscar Madison]

PS: Many website require users to subscribe under their real names but allow them to post using a "handle."

Instead of getting rid of anonymous comments, they got rid of all comments.

Also interesting that Delmarva would align with Facebook with all the complaints about their privacy policies.

 

[MikefromDelaware]

I understand your point about the Facebook thing, but apparently I'm not alone as all of the former regulars immediately stopped posting when the change occurred. As in all types of business, management folks NEVER admit to making a mistake, so WDEL will stick with their decision of running the comments via FB and not allowing a "handle". It is what it is. It was a fun place to go and have some great discussions hearing all sorts of differing views from very liberal to very conservative, from very religious to not religious. Now there's nothing.

My guess is, Allan is required to write something for the Blog as part of his job, probably same with the talk hosts and Sports reporter. I'd assume that Delmarva wants to build up a readership to their website as they do sell ads there, probably to supplement the radio ads. They screwed up and chased away a group that at least kept the blog alive.

When I wrote Chris Carl, I even gave him an analogy of having us folks posting there as being like "seed money". When I used to play piano in supper clubs, years ago, there was a brandy snifter on the piano. I always put a few bucks in the snifter as "seed money", because folks are more willing to add to an existing bit of money than to be the first. The first night I played at a club I didn't realize that and the owner mentioned it to me so that I'd reap as much as I could. The next night I did put in some seed money and what a difference. So my point to Chris was that the same might be true with that blog. I guess Chris didn't think my point made sense as they've still not gone back to the old system or a system that does allow a "handle". It is what it is.

 

[Oscar Madison]

It's a strange decision. However, a lot of sites which allow comments have opted to get in bed with Facebook and to use Facebook accounts for commenting. Curiously, blog articles do not appear on the station's Facebook newsfeed and comments do not show up on Facebook and on the station website (as is the case for other websites tied to Facebook). Facebook does not moderate comments as - say - Disqus does (the service NPR uses). Two explanations seem likely: There was money involved (in what way, I'm not sure, but possibly some piece of ad revenue for driving traffic to Facebook). Or the station wanted to end commenting (and wasn't willing to say so outright).

Doesn't make sense that Loudell would be the only host required to write blog articles. Other hosts do it occasionally or not at all.

Comments were more than seed. They were the reason a lot of people visited the blog in the first place. Like talk shows are nothing without callers.

 

[MikefromDelaware]

It's a strange decision. However, a lot of sites which allow comments have opted to get in bed with Facebook and to use Facebook accounts for commenting. Curiously, blog articles do not appear on the station's Facebook newsfeed and comments do not show up on Facebook and on the station website (as is the case for other websites tied to Facebook). Facebook does not moderate comments as - say - Disqus does (the service NPR uses). Two explanations seem likely: There was money involved (in what way, I'm not sure, but possibly some piece of ad revenue for driving traffic to Facebook). Or the station wanted to end commenting (and wasn't willing to say so outright).

Doesn't make sense that Loudell would be the only host required to write blog articles. Other hosts do it occasionally or not at all.

Comments were more than seed. They were the reason a lot of people visited the blog in the first place. Like talk shows are nothing without callers.

Interesting point. It never occurred to me that folks would be coming to the Blog to read all of our comments. So in that sense WDEL hurt themselves, or shot themselves in the foot, because yes it would be like cutting the wire to their studio phone so no callers could call in to the talk shows.

 

[Oscar Madison]

I have periodically checked Loudell's articles in my Facebook news feed and there have been a few - not nearly as many as before - comments posted in response. I also notice that comments get removed regularly. NPR and some local stations have decided to do away with comments on their websites, and said so. Loudell however has chosen the weaselly approach: He brought in Facebook to discourage most commentators and then removes any who persist in replying. Meanwhile he pretends to welcome comments, assuming most people won't know the difference. In all fairness, maybe he had reason to think commenting had gotten out of hand or was too much trouble to deal with but he didn't have the backbone publicly to say "enough." This reeks of hypocrisy.