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WLKK PD Rivers Out

Devastating. Best wishes to Nik Rivers and the others who were RIFd. Hard to imagine those folks landing another radio gig anytime soon, if ever. Good time to go back to school to learn welding, IT protocol or HVAC. Entercom cutting through the bone to the marrow. But David's "excited." Sue O'Neil gets another station to manage.
 
Down the Thruway in Rochester, Michael "Mud" Gross-PM driver at WCMF-is out as well. (He was also the Brand Manager for the Rochester market.)
 
Element9 said:
Devastating. Best wishes to Nik Rivers and the others who were RIFd. Hard to imagine those folks landing another radio gig anytime soon, if ever. Good time to go back to school to learn welding, IT protocol or HVAC. Entercom cutting through the bone to the marrow. But David's "excited." Sue O'Neil gets another station to manage.
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Devastating? That's a bit over the top. Sure, it sucks losing a gig. ALT Buffalo has never hit the low bar of a 2 share. That's abysmal. Many PDs get the door after one bad book...
 
tbolt909 said:
Devastating? That's a bit over the top. Sure, it sucks losing a gig. ALT Buffalo has never hit the low bar of a 2 share. That's abysmal. Many PDs get the door after one bad book...
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Here's your chance, 'bolt. Get that resume in. Maybe they'll let you bring back "The Lake".

Tough news for Michael "Mud" Gross, especially on the day that their best book in a while came out. And it's not even one of the formats that are getting whacked. They haven't even got him off the website yet. Must be whoever's left hasn't got the password to update the web yet.
 
Buddy Shula said:
The 2 minute promise has not worked in Buffalo. They should run zero commercials and have only major under-writers.

In fact, just do what the signal was built for- COUNTRY!
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The current ALT format barely has any advertisers now. If a station is "Commercial Free" and still can't attract listeners, then the music is the problem. Obviously, this station is very low priority. Entercom has much bigger issues elsewhere. Alternative and Country took the brunt of the "restructuring" that happened today. It seems unlikely that Entercom would try Country on 107.7 at this point...
 
tbolt909 said:
Devastating? That's a bit over the top. Sure, it sucks losing a gig. ALT Buffalo has never hit the low bar of a 2 share. That's abysmal. Many PDs get the door after one bad book...
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As it applies to the entire RIF as well as the individual, and as it applies to Entercom which once was a very decent and disciplined company. So yeah, devastating.
 
tbolt909 said:
The current ALT format barely has any advertisers now. If a station is "Commercial Free" and still can't attract listeners, then the music is the problem. Obviously, this station is very low priority. Entercom has much bigger issues elsewhere. Alternative and Country took the brunt of the "restructuring" that happened today. It seems unlikely that Entercom would try Country on 107.7 at this point...
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They won’t go country because their nuts.
 
tbolt909 said:
The current ALT format barely has any advertisers now. If a station is "Commercial Free" and still can't attract listeners, then the music is the problem. Obviously, this station is very low priority. Entercom has much bigger issues elsewhere. Alternative and Country took the brunt of the "restructuring" that happened today. It seems unlikely that Entercom would try Country on 107.7 at this point...
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There is a definite feeling that in an era where one's choices in music can be found on the web, a limited signal station with bare-bones programming is not going to have much impact.

The real issue here is signal. And with many people staying home, the listening in areas where car reception is good or passable while in-home listening is not will further reduce the AQH shares.

Remember, it's pretty much the laws of physics that say that any signal below 65 mV/m had a hard time achieving indoor reception. And that station has limited 65 dB/u coverage. In fact, it covers less than 20% of the market with its 65 dB/u signal, so stay at home means "I can't hear it at home so I can't listen".

Real Data: study of in-home and at-work listening in an assortment of diary markets using millions of quarter hours over a 4-year period. 80% of that listening is in the 70 dbu, and 95% in the 65 dB/u. Now, some of that has to do with most stations having their signal where most population lives, but it also has to do with the fact that under 65 dB/u just does not penetrate buildings well for reception on the average consumer raddio.
 
DavidEduardo said:
There is a definite feeling that in an era where one's choices in music can be found on the web, a limited signal station with bare-bones programming is not going to have much impact.

The real issue here is signal. And with many people staying home, the listening in areas where car reception is good or passable while in-home listening is not will further reduce the AQH shares.

Remember, it's pretty much the laws of physics that say that any signal below 65 mV/m had a hard time achieving indoor reception. And that station has limited 65 dB/u coverage. In fact, it covers less than 20% of the market with its 65 dB/u signal, so stay at home means "I can't hear it at home so I can't listen".

Real Data: study of in-home and at-work listening in an assortment of diary markets using millions of quarter hours over a 4-year period. 80% of that listening is in the 70 dbu, and 95% in the 65 dB/u. Now, some of that has to do with most stations having their signal where most population lives, but it also has to do with the fact that under 65 dB/u just does not penetrate buildings well for reception on the average consumer raddio.
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No, the real issue is not the signal. It's the content. Listeners could stream the station at home or at work. The ratings say they aren't listening via any option.

You are correct that the demographics this station is aimed at can get their music elsewhere. They are doing that given the low ratings...
 
Remember, they do not care about the ratings, they care about the revenue. The only money WLKK made was through events. Events are now gone for who knows how long. That is the nail.

I have heard they will be carrying a syndicated morning show, sticking with the format, and running it as inexpensive as possible.

The station can be looked at two ways, as a dog signal, or as a station that covers 2 major markets and everything in between.

When i worked at 107.7 WNUC, when it was country in the 90's, i made a ton of cash. Advertisers like the country format and the signal lent itself to rural programming with a touch of metro. Ratings did not matter.

Alternative is the wrong format for that signal.

I remember the day ETM took LKK Alternative. I was in the meeting. I thought for sure it would be country. I even had my cowboy hat and bolo tie and boots on that day anticipating a country station. When they announced ALT i was deflated. I simply could not believe how a company could be that dumb.

That is when I knew I had to leave.

I asked a member of the corporate brass after the meeting "Why didn't it go country"? The answer i got back is "We don't want to be the number 2 country station in the market" ......I said "REALLY??? You don't want to be number 2, to the top billing, top rated station in the market for the past 25 years????????" I know i had to get out of that kind of thinking.
 
I asked a member of the corporate brass after the meeting "Why didn't it go country"? The answer i got back is "We don't want to be the number 2 country station in the market" ......I said "REALLY??? You don't want to be number 2, to the top billing, top rated station in the market for the past 25 years????????" I know i had to get out of that kind of thinking.
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Typical corporate response. Who's surprised. So Entercom blew up a format that was a small stone in 97 Rock's shoe and flipped to a format that David Field preferred, one that might have more nettled The Edge. The format pancaked. The Edge crushed it. 97 Rock continued to dominate.

As you noted, the Country format on WNUC 107.7 was particularly strong in rural areas, Genesee, Wyoming and parts of Monroe counties. Country 92.5 WBEE, Entercom's ratings and billing powerhouse in Rochester, also blankets those counties. More than likely, Entercom didn't want to risk creating a Buffalo-based threat to WBEE.

Then again, the Alt format was probably a foregone conclusion given that David Field favored it and put it on a number of other Entercom FMs.
 
Buddy Shula said:
When i worked at 107.7 WNUC, when it was country in the 90's, i made a ton of cash. Advertisers like the country format and the signal lent itself to rural programming with a touch of metro. Ratings did not matter.
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The '90s must have been a great time to make money in the country format, no matter the ratings. Huge country boom nationwide fueled by Garth Brooks and other very marketable young stars, and the internet in its dial-up infancy. Country is hot again, but radio's got an awful lot of competition for the ad dollars.
 
Rusty Bridges said:

As you noted, the Country format on WNUC 107.7 was particularly strong in rural areas, Genesee, Wyoming and parts of Monroe counties. Country 92.5 WBEE, Entercom's ratings and billing powerhouse in Rochester, also blankets those counties. More than likely, Entercom didn't want to risk creating a Buffalo-based threat to WBEE.
.
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Wyoming is not part of the Rochester MSA, and Genesee only has 50 k persons in it.

The 107.7 65 dbu is mostly just Wyoming County, an unrated area. It has a piece of Erie, a piece of Cattaraugus and Allegany and a small swatch of Livingston and a tiny bit of Genesee.

While one could say that it has greater in-car coverage (as all stations do), right now the in-car listening is lower than normal and so the station is even more marginal than ever.
 
The Corporate Logic that Buddy spoke of is common. Entercom has a Country Format and Classic Rock format in Rochester. If they tried Country or AAA on 107.7 it could take a share or two away from those stations.

Alternative was the trendy David Field pick, but it has failed. Now the game plan is to just cut expenses and lose less money...
 
tbolt909 said:
The Corporate Logic that Buddy spoke of is common. Entercom has a Country Format and Classic Rock format in Rochester. If they tried Country or AAA on 107.7 it could take a share or two away from those stations.
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Very unlikely logic. 90% of the Rochester MSA is in Monroe, Ontario and Wayne counties, none of which have a signficant signal from 107.7. In fact, 107.7 only has a totally useful signal in small pieces of Livingston and Genesee counties, so it could not have gotten "a share or two".

That signal covers quite a bit higher amounts of the Buffalo MSA, and still can't get out of the single share range.

Logic tells us to use a marginal signal for a niche format or an unduplicated format. That theory may not be valid now since listeners have so many alternatives that are better than a marginal signal.
 
tbolt909 said:
Alternative was the trendy David Field pick, but it has failed. Now the game plan is to just cut expenses and lose less money...
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Does Field have anyone to answer to for his hunch bet on alternative rock, one that seemed destined for failure from the start as rock continued its fragmentation and decline?
 
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