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WMEX?

oldrover said:
Outside of public radio, which I don't count for a variety of reasons, liberal talk does not succeed. IMHO it is because in general the liberal mindset is more about political positions, and the conservative side is more about political ideas. As the previous poster stated, if you know your positions and the host agrees with them, why listen?

There's a guy on MSNBC, Steve Karnacki (sp?), whom I find quite intelligent, and obviously liberal, who digs down into the meat of a topic, rather than just shooting off his mouth. I'd love to hear him on the radio... he does great interviews and reports news, not just political strategery.

OTOH, I probably agree with Hannity on 90% of issues, but I can't listen to him.

Ultimately, it's the ability to inform, entertain and enlighten. Again JMHO.
Click to expand...

"it is because in general the liberal mindset is more about political positions, and the conservative side is more about political ideas."
I have a different take.
It is mostly demographics, those who access AM radio and available audience in the daytime.
All of these factors point to an older, more conservative audience peppered with many retirees.
 
Methuselah said:
She should cut a promo tape and send it to the program director at RKO. Maybe they'll give her the 12-3 slot. It would be a refreshing change.

Granted, I only listen to RKO from 12-1, at which time I swap over to John DePetro (who I've listened to for decades as I've stalked him around the dial :) ) but there are days -- more and more of them it seems -- where even the 12-1 segment is unlistenable.




Free advertising for the board! Not that it would get much traffic from the 10 listeners of that show.




How anyone could think "Bill from Hartford" is anything other than a show-fabricated caller is beyond me. The "act" is a bit over the edge. Reel it in a little, might be more believable.




must be very, very small bits.


A serious question for the radio "pros"... I can understand why "conservative" talk radio doesn't last in Massachusetts, given its vast liberal-left majority. However... why has a "liberal" talk format never worked in Boston? A true liberal talk format, not something akin to the two nitwits who say they're more "center-right" on RKO in the morning?

I would think true leftist programming, a "CNN" talk format complete with Trump/Russia conspiracy theories, would get a lot of traction, no?
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Liberals seem to prefer a less tabloid approach, as evidenced by WGBH and WBUR's very respectable ratings. Air America attempted a tabloid approach which failed with the target audience and it didn't help that most stations were on AM, hardly a band regularly accessed by younger liberals.
 
This entire WMEX saga reminds me of the clueless sap with a few bucks in the bank, who's dream is to open a restaurant. Man, that would be so cool! It's not long, and he's $1 million+ in the hole, owes money to investors, family, and many others, before it suddenly hits him that he knows nothing about running a restaurant. How many times has that old story played out? The same scenario plagues the business of broadcasting.

Two years is NOT enough time to retool a station like WMEX. They either didn't have enough working capital, or, the investors want their money. Honestly, I would let the oldies guys keep it on-air until it's sold, and keep the lights on. Or, try something else. Dark stations are worth very little.
 
If they are, in fact, shutting down the transmitter "for good," why are they maintaining online programming? Something is not adding up here.

No FCC filings concerning authority to go dark, no new ownership filings? (As of this writing).

My guess is, they are going to LMA and lease the station. It will return to air shortly with all new programming of some sort, produced by another party.

I'm also guessing they are scrambling to find another transmitter site, or some temporary arrangement.
 
Last edited:
1510 went silent once before after WMRE ran out of money and the Red Sox evicted them from Fenway Park for non-payment of rent and also wanted to use the studio space for NESN.
The station's woes can be traced backed to 1975 when Dick Richmond overpaid for the Red Sox rights knowing that having them would make the station more attractive to a buyer and he would find one in Mariner Communications which at the time also owned WLW-AM in Cincinnati. Mariner quickly found out they had just bought the Titanic. Richmond as part of the deal to get the Red Sox agreed to flip the format to MOR which WHDH-AM had abandoned in favor of a soft Top 40 format which had angered one important listener - Thomas Austin Yawkey.

Richmond also went all out to hire Jess Cain to do mornings and Jess considered it as he hated the music he was now forced to play. He wound up staying at WHDH as Blair Radio offered him an astronomical salary to stay put. Tom Yawkey died in 1976 and the station then shifted to a talk format and would change the calls to WITS before the 1978 season.
The nighttime signal was a problem and the station leased time on 107.9 FM the then WWEL-FM and that arrangement continued for the 1977 and 1978 seasons. In 1979 the games were moved to WPLM-FM in Plymouth as 107.9 was sold and rebranded KISS 108.

Mariner was told they would lose the Red Sox rights if they could not deliver a nighttime signal to Westwood where team president John Harrington lived. The station's engineers concluded they could not pull that off from North Quincy but could from Waltham near Waverly Square. 1510 was a problem frequency as the station needed to protect WLAC in Nashville and WNLC in New London, CT. It also had to contend with strong nighttime signals on 1500 and 1520 coming from Washington and Buffalo. The station financed the transmitter move by selling their Bay Village studios to Oxfam ( today it is a church ) and the transmitter land in North Quincy.

In the end the move to Waltham achieved nothing as John Harrington still could not hear the station at night in Westwood and neither could the Globe's sports media critic Jack Craig who lived in Dedham.

SPORTVIEW / JACK CRAIG; WITS GETS WORD: SOX SPLITTING
[FIRST Edition]
Boston Globe (pre-1997 Fulltext) - Boston, Mass.
Author:
Craig, Jack
Date:
Sep 12, 1982
Start Page:
1
Section:
SPORTS
Place your radio upright again. Take down the coat-hanger antenna. Remove the marker for that precise spot to tune in Red Sox games.
We won't have WITS and its fadeaway signal to kick around much longer. The Red Sox have formally notified the station they are cancelling the contract at the end of this season - with a full year to run - for failure to pay scheduled rights fees.

Buddy LeRoux, Red Sox vice president, already has set in motion bids from other stations, one of which has dropped out before it has begun. "Our previous experience has left us in the posture where we would not be interested," said David Croninger, general manager of WHDH, after meeting with LeRoux. He was referring to 1975, when Croninger announced in midseason that WHDH would walk away from the contract after that season.

That leaves WRKO, WEEI and WBZ as the major contenders and each bears a burden. WRKO is locked into the Celtics, as is WEEI with the Patriots, leaving both stations unable to fulfill the Sox' demand that baseball get top priority in cases of conflict. WBZ suffers from the reverse of WITS' problem. Its signal it so strong that it spreads through New England and would render superfluous many of the 80 stations on the network. The Sox' proposal calls for retaining the full network outside of Boston.

The proper amount of money on the table can solve the most thorny of problems and, undoubtedly, the sealed bid envelopes will be placed on the table for the Sox, who have advised all candidates that $1 million per season for three years is the starting point.

That seems a haughty minimum figure because WITS was scheduled to pay just $575,000 this season. But the Sox are entering a seller's market, enhanced by the fact no weeknight games will be on Ch. 38 starting next season, as they are transferred to pay cable. It is unlikely that more than 10 percent of the region's two million households will be hooked to pay cable by next April (and even that may be a generous estimate), offering a potentially huge radio audience.

Somehow WPLM-FM wound up with the rights starting in 1983 and 1510 would struggle from that point on.
 
The cost of operating a 50kW AM station is huge. 50kW at 1510kHz is about the same as 500 watts at 540kHz.
Moving a four-tower, three-pattern 50kW AM station would be prohibitive. The owners could not recover the cost.
 
Tired Of It All said:
Obit for WMEX on wiki

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/WMEX_(AM)
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Even by Wikipedia standards, the history of the station is really off.

The station moved to 1470 several years after WLAC had long been there, and had to protect WLAC, the prior occupant. Both moved to 1510 when NARBA reassigned 1470 stations to 1510.

"The highly directional 50,000-watt signal of WMEX protected directional Class A, 50,000-watt, WLAC in Nashville (which also protected WMEX since the station pre-dated WLAC on the frequency)." - from Wikipedia, and exactly the opposite of the facts.

Both were 5 kw when they moved to 1510, and when they subsequently raised power, there was mutual protection, with WLAC being the dominant station.

"After several unsuccessful attempts to move to 1470 with a power upgrade to 5,000 watts, WMEX finally made the move (with power increase) in 1941," - Also from the wiki.

Actually, WMEX moved to 1470 around mid-1936, but with 500 watts. The call letters had changed a few months before, too. What took longer was going to 5,000 watts.

Good example of how Wikipedia is not a good source for station histories in many cases, and always requires verification.
 
frankberry said:
The cost of operating a 50kW AM station is huge. 50kW at 1510kHz is about the same as 500 watts at 540kHz.
Moving a four-tower, three-pattern 50kW AM station would be prohibitive. The owners could not recover the cost.
Click to expand...

All this makes me wonder about our government agencies. Back about 15 years, the US, via the BBG,put on Radio Sawa as an Arabic CHR station to promote American "friendliness" and culture.

The main transmitter in Kuwait and put a megawatt on 1548. Huh?

Then they put one on for Sudan and Yemen on 1431. Another great frequency, particularly in the desert.

The only half-decent one serves Egypt on 990.

Why would anyone put high power on frequencies like that? Does anyone consult with real engineers about this?
 
Why is the programming still online? They are continuing online and some BITS are aired on a Calif. station or two.But yes maybe they have a plan to sell to someone if they can diplex off a tower or something.Renegade etc won't be back on 1510 or really anywhere else near here
 
I caught a few minutes this morning about 7am on their app for sheets-n-giggles. They were fat-shaming a former morning host with all sorts of personal insults about his appearance, personal grooming habits, eating habits, etc. I do not believe they specifically named who they were talking about, but, it was pretty evident (since I can only recall in the past 2 years one severely overweight male host being a morning host.) The level of unprofessionalism was astounding. I cannot imagine any program director at a serious talk station would give them the time of day.
 
Methuselah said:
The level of unprofessionalism was astounding. I cannot imagine any program director at a serious talk station would give them the time of day.
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Not to mention the total disregard for others my smoking in the studio, but don't bet the farm that in today's world someone won't hire them.
 
Bong hits in studio? Wouldn't surprise me.

You're likely correct about getting hired. I imagine there's always someone in the market for low-brow 'talent' to match their station's listener demographics
 
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