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Alt 92.3

SCMcKinney said:
Is this hyperbole, or is there something more to the idea that "half of all US radio stations do not make money"?
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Back in the 50's, 60's and 70's, stations had to file annual financial reports "under penalty of loss of license". They showed that half of all stations lost money or broke even, even in the later 50's when radio was growing again thanks to music formats.

Remember, in the 70's when FM "took over" we ended up with an average of three times the number of viable stations in each market, but no similar increase in radio revenue. The same happened again after Docket 80-90.
SCMcKinney said:
I thought in the good old Musicradio days, any 1000 watt station with good DJs could make a tidy profit serving their community. In the current era, individual (mostly AM) stations may not make money, but the overall corporate owner does, due to the fact they provide a platform for national advertising.
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Revenue is revenue. National, local, regional, agency, direct. It all goes to the same "income" line on the p&l.

Except for national network buys, national agency buys are made station by station.
SCMcKinney said:
I would think even the recently departed WNSH made money, just not enough of it to justify being on NYC FM signal.
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No way it made money at that billing level in NYC. And it had no ROI that made sense, given the cost of the station.
SCMcKinney said:
Does the half of the US stations that 'do not make money' include religious or public/community broadcasters? - they are not in the business to be making money.
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No, only commercial stations.
 
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DavidEduardo said:
Back in the 50's, 60's and 70's, stations had to file annual financial reports "under penalty of loss of license". They showed that half of all stations lost money or broke even, even in the later 50's when radio was growing again thanks to music formats.
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If this is the case, that is for me a game-changing sobering thought. I can now understand why GE's Jack Welch sold off NBC Radio, and the only question remains why did Disney and Viacom stick with their ABC and CBS properties for as long as they did? If WNSH did not make money, it is a lead pipe cinch that Alt and The Block are not making any money immediately, and there is a better than 50% chance they will not ever. WXBK is supposedly hiring staff, and those expenses will make it that much tougher to make money.

It suggests it is a safe bet that nearly all the AM's in New York, except for WCBS and WINS are money losers. Maybe the WADO and WKDM's eke out a living serving their foreign language audiences - but operating in New York is expensive and if WNSH couldn't make it, how can they?

There has to be something else in play for a broadcast company to keep a money losing (or merely break-even) station operating. I am almost certain I recall your responding on one of the boards to a post that asserted that "Salem was losing money" - you said that Salem was a profitable enterprise. If 970 WNYM were not a money maker, are they operating it simply to promote their hosts who go out on profitable speaking tours? I-Heart is a profitable enterprise (or at least it would be if they didn't have so much debt to push along) - is WOR a marginal operation, only there to clear advertising in New York? The Grand Ole Opry stage show I bet is a money maker - do they merely operate a marginal profit WSM as a 50kW advertisement for the live show? It seems as if stockholders at broadcast/entertainment companies would do like Jack Welch did and unsentimentaly prune the deadwood.
 
SCMcKinney said:
If this is the case, that is for me a game-changing sobering thought. I can now understand why GE's Jack Welch sold off NBC Radio, and the only question remains why did Disney and Viacom stick with their ABC and CBS properties for as long as they did?
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GE did it in 1988, which was really the canary in the coal mine. The big reason was the Docket 80-90 stations had devalued their market share and revenue. What kept ABC and CBS in longer? Capital gain taxes. When ABC figured out the Reverse Morris Trust, that opened the door.
 
I know the "Rock & Roll Ralphs" (Kroger grocery store) in Hollywood plays...you guessed it...classic rock :cool:
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At night, one of the two Kroger stores near my home switches to a rock/alternative music feed. I've literally heard Tool, Soundgarden, Rob Zombie and Metallica play (albeit at low volume) while shopping.

The daytime music programming at that store is pretty good, too! A nice Variety Hits blend that also includes some rock-leaning alternative and Hot AC currents & recurrents.

The other Kroger store near my home plays mostly Rhythmic AC type songs.

Whole Foods near me does an excellent job with its in store music; plenty of upbeat songs (decent acoustics, too, surprisingly).

There have been multiple occasions where I've been to the grocery store and thought whatever programming source they are using sounds better than most FM stations where I live.
 
Looking at the most recent Alt 92.3 playlist and it seems like they are focusing it a bit more and leaving out the Tik-Tok alt/hip-hop hybrids. There still are some questionable hot AC songs (like Goo Goo Doll's "Black Balloon" though that did chart modestely on the alt charts back in '99) but, overall, I can imagine people who make a point to tune in are happier.
 
New morning show for Alt 92.3: Elliot in the Morning starting Monday 4/11/2022.
Segal joins from his home base of iHeart's DC 101 (Washington DC) with recent syndication expansion into other
Audacy markets in Richmond VA and Kansas City MO along with Cumulus station WNNX Atlanta.

Elliot was previously heard in NYC on Z100 (mornings with Elvis Duran 1996-1999) and briefly on WOR in 2013.

Story link includes Audacy press release:
 
See my post #492 from March 26. This outcome doesn't surprise me. The new lightweight PD likely had zero say in this decision; it was likely made prior to his hire. This was almost assuredly an Oliviero and Kaplan decision.

Probably only a matter of time before Elliot is added to 98.7 Detroit and 104.3 South Florida.
 
pjc1961 said:
New morning show for Alt 92.3: Elliot in the Morning starting Monday 4/11/2022.
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There has to be more to this story because Elliot is an iHeart show. So I don't know if there's some special deal involved here.

Elliot is already being carried on the KC Audacy station KRBZ.
 
iHM (Premiere) isn't his syndicator, though, just as Premiere is no longer the syndicator of Bob & Tom (even though WFBQ in Indy remains that show's flagship).

Nonetheless, it is an interesting question to ponder. When does his contract with DC101 expire? Might Audacy throw him some $$$ to compel him to move back to New York?
 
MarkW said:
The new lightweight PD likely had zero say in this decision; it was likely made prior to his hire. This was almost assuredly an Oliviero and Kaplan decision.
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Kaplan is still the PD of Alt 92.3. Brad Steiner is taking one of the assistant roles that had been held by Bryce Segall along with Christine Malovetz.
 
Interesting. Given his title of "Regional Brand Manager," I assumed that meant he would have direct programming oversight of the New York, Detroit and Miami stations.
 
I wonder if the decision to add a syndicated morning show was about cost savings, not being able to find someone willing to host mornings, looking for a reliable performer or a combination of all three. Still surprising that Audacy continues to run syndicated programming in their key major markets in AM/PM drive, instead of trying to build and develop their own shows and personalities...
 
radiojomo said:
I wonder if the decision to add a syndicated morning show was about cost savings, not being able to find someone willing to host mornings, looking for a reliable performer or a combination of all three. Still surprising that Audacy continues to run syndicated programming in their key major markets in AM/PM drive, instead of trying to build and develop their own shows and personalities...
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Today, few local shows on music stations can create content that is not readily accessible on the web. National and syndicated shows have access to artists and trend setters and interesting people. They have resources and staff to create a real show. Most local people just can't do that.

TV discovered back in the 50's that the late-night shows only worked if they were national and hosted in NYC. Radio, because networks in the medium died when TV took over most content-based programming, became local. Now, it's hard due to ownership and other factors to do full national shows, but we are seeing that ones like Seacrest, Bobby Bones and Charlemaign (sp?) are dominating certain formats for the same reasons that the night TV shows do.

Stations go with this kind of show primarily due to ratings. Beyond that, there is the question of finding talent, training them and then seeing them go to a bigger market. And it takes a special PD to supervise a good morning show.
 
I listened to Elliot's show this morning and they spent over 10 minutes talking about getting a colonoscopy. No mention of the show's debut on Alt 92.3 today, no music, no commercials -- just talk. Did Elliot's local show on DC 101 play any music or was it all talk?
 
kevtronics said:
I listened to Elliot's show this morning and they spent over 10 minutes talking about getting a colonoscopy. No mention of the show's debut on Alt 92.3 today, no music, no commercials -- just talk. Did Elliot's local show on DC 101 play any music or was it all talk?
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No mention of the show on their website at all either -- just one social media post about it and listeners are ripping the show in the comments.
 
radiojomo said:
No mention of the show on their website at all either -- just one social media post about it and listeners are ripping the show in the comments.
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The problem is the show is iHeart, and so is the website. Only the Twitter is show-exclusive:


If the main show isn't going to direct content to NY, it would help if there was someone representing NY, in the way WNYC incorporates the national NPR feed of Morning Edition.

kevtronics said:
Did Elliot's local show on DC 101 play any music or was it all talk?
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Elliot is mainly a talk show.
 
The discussion topic when I tuned in this morning was about people having sex in public places. They did take callers on the air, but never gave out the phone number, or had any commercials, traffic/weather reports, etc., in my 15 minutes of listening. I'd expect a major-market morning show to be faster-paced and have more stuff going on.
 
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