And, while this seems to be a radical concept in the US doing national and regional services has been common in most of the rest of the free-radio world for fifty to sixty years.
-
Get involved.
We want your input!
Apply for Membership and join the conversations about everything related to broadcasting.
After we receive your registration, a moderator will review it. After your registration is approved, you will be permitted to post.
If you use a disposable or false email address, your registration will be rejected.
After your membership is approved, please take a minute to tell us a little bit about yourself.
https://www.radiodiscussions.com/forums/introduce-yourself.1088/
Thanks in advance and have fun!
RadioDiscussions Administrators
February '22 trends
- Thread starter ckg279
- Start date
What are those goalposts you speak of? All of these National platforms mean nothing if nobody is listening. The sales people at Audacy Buffalo can't sell this bill of goods...Somehow this is not a problem in other markets, including many that are smaller than Buffalo. Playing the "same music" doesn't matter, as long as it's the music a large audience wants to hear. The music isn't the only reason people listen to WYRK. But as I've said before, you folks are basing success for this station on the published numbers you see, and the people running the station are aiming at different goalposts. Audacy appears to be building a national platform for the format, similar to what iHeart has. They just opened a Nashville studio/office, and they will be creating some unique content & promotions that will separate them from WYRK.
See below article:
Audacy Executive Action
• Audacy announced several upgrades on the company's central Promotions and Experiences team, starting with Bethany Kent, who is moving into a new role as Director of Music Initiatives, working directly with Chad Fitzsimmons, SVP of Promotions & Experiences, on artist relations. Kent (left) who...ramp247.com
WBLK - has a VERY SHORT Playlist.
This, left unattended, will not hold their position during the summer book.
This, left unattended, will not hold their position during the summer book.
Somebody IS listening. Just not as many "somebodys" as WYRK. Just because you're not #1 doesn't mean "nobody is listening."
Yet amazingly, every year, they bounce back to #1.
The fact is their playlist is not "unattended." They play a lot of currents and recurrents that are cycled around, so the playlist changes continually.
This is true. A station can be used as a spoiler, however anyone thinking that 107.7 will ever be a real player in this market is mistaken. The station was able to take a share as a sports station and as a rock station and previously as a country
station. That makes sense, perhaps for Audacy, but I never understood it when it was privately owned. The strategy wouldn’t have been to take a share away from another station at the top. It presumably would’ve been to actually make money versus defend other stations. It was a stand alone as I recall.
It seems to have not worked to well for their Alternative format. That said, iHeart has already done this and is way ahead in the game with much better content options and talent on their digital platforms than Audacy. I don’t see Cumulus radio doing much innovating in this regard and TownSquare is a smaller market company with Buffalo being their biggest market. I don’t see them making much noise.
With the exception of WBEN, a morning show on Kiss and parts of WGR, it would seem that Audacy should just place their national formats on all the stations. And at that point, why does one even need local radio at all? If it is just a about being music jukebox for Audacy, why waste time in local markets? Just play the songs and turn off all the stations. I surmise that is the actual intent at some point for all.
As a Canadian, I know those who own stations, must operate them greatly as local entities and the playlist of the station must air a prescribed amount of Canadian content from our artists, people of the First Nations, etc.
I, in no way, state that is better, but Canada is simply working hard to protect and nurture unique local culture. Of course, that has been the case for decades. Canada has tried to maintain its own identity in this manner, as well as others. Canada has certainly become more and more like the States. There is a divide here, yet younger people are surprisingly becoming more active in carving out a uniquely Canadian culture.
It seems as though broadcasting in the States has become more about large companies providing cookie-cutter models on a national basis for local radio stations to relay?
I wonder if local radio will go away in the States. It certainly seems to be. That would be a great shame in my estimation.
Last edited:
As I understand it, he was a salesman, who decided to buy a radio station. I don’t recall his having any other experience other that being an overnight DJ. He probably just knows how to sell time. He definitely sounds like a loaded gun who is unaware that he plays the fool.
I guess one can’t argue with success.
Big WECK must have a very good programming person however, because the station sounds noticeably better in the past few months.
I do enjoy their afternoon presenter, Bobby O.
This is again, as you point out, the idea that radio is like a horse race or a baseball game with only one winner. The "winners" in each market can go many stations deep, and even the stations at the tail end of the batch can be profitable.
For those not "in the business" it's important to understand that the station that is 10th can be very profitable, too, if run well with controlled costs and reasonable rates in proportion to the audience delivery.
That is the model for radio in most of the free nations of the world. The more important stations tend to be those that cover whole regions or whole nations with strong talent and programming.
That is how radio began in the US. It is how most broadcast television works. For some reason, American radio has been slow to adapt to covering broader geographic zones or national audiences, probably due to the restrictive ownership rules that we had for so many years (and which were designed by politicians who did not want major national voices).
It is likely that we will see some kind of hybrid system, with some local content on news, sports and talk based formats, but with national or regional services everywhere else.
Two words: Local sales.
But if you exclude that, take a look at WBFO. There's a successful radio station with a strong local news department, but mostly national programming. What's wrong with that?
Broaden the view a little bit. There's all this criticism about the need for local content, but the vast majority of that content is recorded music that is created far, far away. Why this requirement that radio stations play national music we know, presented by local yokels? What do the local yokels bring to the table? We set the standards so high for the music we love, and then insist that it get presented by people who couldn't carry a tune in a bucket. Makes no sense to me.
Only because there are no other local people willing to do what Buddy has done. The standards for radio ownership are pretty low. You have to be a US citizen who isn't in jail. There is no reason why hundreds of great commercial radio stations have ended up as repeaters for K-Love national religious programming, other than no one else was willing to buy those stations. The American people seem to want other people to spend their money on things, and then criticize them for the way they run their business. Radio has become a spectator sport. No wonder Buddy Shula gets pissed. If you think you can do better, buy your own station and run it your way.
Why do you keep bringing up "the rest of the world" as if you're shaking your head at how dumb America is? There's plenty of stuff this country has never gone along with or remained lukewarm on in spite of other nations' standards or preferences. Health care for all, the metric system, Celsius, soccer, military coups ... maybe we're on the right track in rejecting some of those.
Not even that... there are non-citizens with 100% license ownership now.
If you look at history, you see that restrictions on ownership, power and coverage were forced on the FCC at its inception by politicians who were afraid that "big radio stations" would have even more political power and influence than newspapers. In other words, it had nothing to do with service to the public.Why do you keep bringing up "the rest of the world" as if you're shaking your head at how dumb America is? There's plenty of stuff this country has never gone along with or remained lukewarm on in spite of other nations' standards or preferences. Health care for all, the metric system, Celsius, soccer, military coups ... maybe we're on the right track in rejecting some of those.
And when you think of that, it is indeed pretty dumb in the very American Boss Tweed tradition.
Yet TV networks do local sales quite well, even in the network time slots by "sharing" the availabilities. There is even a very developed network system in radio in the US in Puerto Rico, where there are about 12 "island wide" FM and four or five AM "networks" where there are "national" and "local" availabilities that allow for local sales and "national" sales to cover the needs of smaller merchants and services as well as those of island-wide clients.
I hear this from the recording industry all the time. They say "The US is the only country in the free world where radio doesn't pay labels for the music they play." My response is "God Bless America." The recording industry had a chance to impose their royalty in the 1930s when all the other countries did it, and they chose to instead attempt to prevent radio from playing recorded music. We all see how successful that was. Even though we don't pay, my phone doesn't stop ringing from record labels begging for airplay.
I have worked in multiple nations in this hemisphere where radio pays no record industry fees or rights. The record industry has created its own dog whistle in this area, where there are, in fact, many many nations around the world where record companies receive no rights payments from radio.
This is no different than a record promoter saying, "if I don't bring this release home, I'm gonna get fired". I trust most record industry people a whole lot less than politicians and used car sales people.
The all-local yokel air staff at WECK might take exception to that.
This is not news.
You said it.
They shouldn't take it personally. Not all yokels are the same.
Hi David, I get what you are saying here and agree...somewhat...but in the case of the example you gave 1520 in Buffalo. It would seem that it’s damaged beyond repair. It has no heritage or much of an identity, making it hard to compete for this very intrenched audience. What would you do with 1520 short of pay for play?
I think you can see this at WECK and WEBR two stations that seem to be doing well and in the case of WEBR without ratings. The owner also runs a Taxi cab company. I’d bet all the cab radios are set to WEBR even if they have to stream it to make up for the signal in some areas.
How does WEBR do well? I don’t hear advertising on the station, but maybe they do well in another way I might be missing. Maybe it’s an advertising platform for the cab company. It just seems like a hard road. They have a full staff, but I have heard almost no commercials on the station.
- Status