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WSM-AM GM exits, overnights automated

M

MarquisP4

Banned
http://countryaircheck.com/art/65271
Chris Kulick has exited WSM-AM after his second stint to join Main Street Media as manager of new development. In other news, Marcia Campbell's All Nighter Show (which I was believed was voice tracked) has been cancelled and replaced with automation, just like most of the weekend.
 
The station has been without real direction (or income) for a long time. The main reason it exists is to promote the Opry.

A few years ago, they stopped subscribing to the ratings, but we can guess that they're not good.

Now with Bill Cody's show simulcast on TV, the rest of the day could be automated. Why not?
 
TheBigA said:
A few years ago, they stopped subscribing to the ratings, but we can guess that they're not good.
Click to expand...

The 6 months ending in December they had a 12+ 2.7, almost all concentrated in very old demos.

About 14th in 12+ and 24th in 25-54.
 
So they really didn't have anything to lose with the debacle with George Plaster last summer. Nowhere to go for them but up (hopefully).

Meanwhile, Plaster himself seems to be becoming damaged goods. I have lost track of how many stations that he has been on over the years. Maybe he is nearing retirement, so he won't be around for too much longer, anyway.
 
Plaz Journey throught the Nastytown radio/tv landscape

980, 99.7, (almost 650), 104.5, 102.5, [BU], 650 (fah rill thi tam), 560/94.9. Ch. 17, Ch. 58, Nashville Sounds (w/ a bobblehead), Vanderbilt, U-Memphis (& los Bravos before he die)
 
DavidEduardo said:
The 6 months ending in December they had a 12+ 2.7, almost all concentrated in very old demos.
Click to expand...

Better than I expected, honestly.

I really don't see WSM's path forward. No cluster mates, an owner with very little interest in broadcasting, in a market where AM is essentially dead.
They're essentially dependent on Ryman/Gaylord continuing to believe that WSM is valuable.
 
PTBoardOp94 said:
They're essentially dependent on Ryman/Gaylord continuing to believe that WSM is valuable.
Click to expand...

They're using it as a content distribution platform, that's part of other platforms including SiriusXM, the Opry, Circle TV, and their own website.

The studio is located inside their owned & operated hotel. It's a tourist attraction there, so they get value that way.

As long as they control the costs, they're fine. They don't need a specific station GM if the station alone isn't generating a lot of income.
 
At some point, which has probably already occurred, the value of those 30 or so acres at I-65 and Concord are going to exceed the value of an AM radio station in Nashville. The land is very convenient and is in nice area of highly-desirable Williamson County, ripe for development.

It's an impressive and historic site with the awesome Blaw-Knox tower, but sadly i just don't see how it exists in its current form in 5-10 years.
 
firepoint525 said:
WSM hasn't fallen as far as WLAC (yet). I remember hearing Bro. Stair on WLAC a few years back! (Not sure if he is still on there, as I have not listened lately.)
Click to expand...

Actually, WSM does very well in 55+ audience... over a 4 share.

Sales-wise, 55+ is not particularly productive. It's a hard, hard sell. But WSM is more of a promotional vehicle for the Opry owner and likely considered an "advertising expense" and not a profit center.

And then look at the CMHoF building with a miniature WSM tower on it. WSM is very much a part of country's history and heritage, even if the radio broadcast of the Opry is no longer much of a draw due to the nearly total abandonment of sky wave listening to AM at night. But the show is streamed, and also on a Sirius/XM channel and as of this year on a broadcast channel owned by Gray.

The AM today is sort of like a person's neck: the head is the show itself, the TV, streams and satellite are the limbs, but none of it would work without the unifying piece called the "neck"... the historic and historical WSM.
 
DavidEduardo said:
It's a hard, hard sell. But WSM is more of a promotional vehicle for the Opry owner and likely considered an "advertising expense" and not a profit center.
Click to expand...

The Opry isn't the Opry without WSM. They need each other. The live commercials read from the stage are part of the show itself. The Opry announcers are also DJs on WSM.

And yes, it's simulcast on Opry.com and Sirius, but it's just not the same.
 
I'd imagine WSM gets a lot of listening by older tourists who come to town to attend the Opry, visit the museum and check out clubs featuring classic country-style or Americana music, the sort of music WSM plays. They might not be of interest to mainstream advertisers, but they're the ones paying to experience all those Music City attractions. If tourists make up a significant portion of the audience, and there's been a slight uptick in listening this year, I'd credit that uptick to the Ken Burns PBS series "Country Music," which must have given quite a few people the idea of taking a Nashville vacation trip.
 
CTListener said:
I'd imagine WSM gets a lot of listening by older tourists who come to town to attend the Opry, visit the museum and check out clubs featuring classic country-style or Americana music, the sort of music WSM plays. They might not be of interest to mainstream advertisers, but they're the ones paying to experience all those Music City attractions. If tourists make up a significant portion of the audience, and there's been a slight uptick in listening this year, I'd credit that uptick to the Ken Burns PBS series "Country Music," which must have given quite a few people the idea of taking a Nashville vacation trip.
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Tourists, no matter how much they listen, are not counted in a market they visit.

"Tourists" are never counted outside their home market. They are counted in the market where they live, even if they listen to distant or away from home stations.

A Hartford, CT, resident who has a PPM and who visits Nashville (under the unlikely possibility that they take the meter with them) will be counted in Hartford.

Likewise, were I a Palm Springs MSA diarykeeper and I went for a weekend to another market and listened to the radio, anything I put in the diary goes into the Palm Springs book, not the outside market book.

Remember, radio pays for the ratings but ad agencies call the shots. They have no interest in knowing what visitors listen to in each local market.
 
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DavidEduardo said:
Tourists, no matter how much they listen, are not counted in a market they visit.

"Tourists" are never counted outside their home market. They are counted in the market where they live, even if they listen to distant or away from home stations.

A Hartford, CT, resident who has a PPM and who visits Nashville (under the unlikely possibility that they take the meter with them) will be counted in Hartford.

Likewise, were I a Palm Springs MSA diarykeeper and I went for a weekend to another market and listened to the radio, anything I put in the diary goes into the Palm Springs book, not the outside market book.

Remember, radio pays for the ratings but ad agencies call the shots. They have no interest in knowing what visitors listen to in each local market.
Click to expand...

Do tourists and visitors even listen to the radio when they travel? Even if they rent a car, which is decreasingly common as the trend for city breaks increases, very few people want to add to the stress of driving an unfamiliar car in an unfamiliar location by also messing around trying to find a preferred radio format on an unfamiliar dial. Back home, they know exactly what preset to hit if they want country, or classic rock, or CHR.

Local traffic and weather are covered by the same apps they use at home, so where's the need for radio? I love listening to different stations as I travel 'round the world, even if they're in a foreign language (I love FM4 Austria's bilingual English/German format!), but I'm not most people.
 
Miss Tuned said:
Do tourists and visitors even listen to the radio when they travel?
Click to expand...

Good point. No, unless they are on the highway or Interstate where driving is easy, they are not searching the dial.

And there is even less chance they are searching AM for a music station.

A very few may know of WSM if they are deep country fans... and old. Otherwise...
 
I make frequent trips to Nashville and if my family is with me we usually are on FM, usually WAY-FM, Jack FM, etc. Occasionally my wife wants to hear country, but even that is on FM, and she knows nothing about WSM. I know about them because of my interest in radio, but still never listen to them. But it looks like it would make sense for them to have an FM translator.
 
TheBigA said:
Not sure if they would qualify. Plus the application deadline has passed.
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Also, there is not any good spectrum left in Nashville for a new translator. It's a very tight market and you can see all of the marginal translators that have been shoe-horned in that cover only part of Davidson or Williamson or Sumner counties. I suppose they could try to buy something already granted.

I love AM radio and I appreciate WSM, to the point that last time i was in Nashville, we actually stopped at the tower for some pictures.

But, it sure is hard to see how this ends well for 650. The AM band is even more down and out in Nashville than in many other markets, because much of the content that usually has some audience on AM, talk and sports, is very well represented on FM in Nashville with WTN, The Zone, and The Game. Even WLAC is primarily branding on the 250 watt 98.3 instead of the 50 kW 1510 (98.3 is one of the better translators for what it is worth).
 
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