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JoeLouis
Guest
Whoever says FM news doesn't do well, I think they forget to tell WTOP FM in D.C. (very successful outlet)
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FM news 101.9 - why did news on FM fail?
- Thread starter nd2023
- Start date
If that was your only take away from the last 3 pages, you’ve severely misunderstood this thread.
There was a station called “FM News 101.9” in New York that tried to rival WINS and WCBS. It was very poorly executed and failed spectacularly. That’s what this thread is about, not news not being successful on the FM band.
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JoeLouis
Guest
Now that you mention it, I do remember what a disaster 101.9 was, I live in the listening area, another disaster was 99.1 in D.C. they tried to go against WTOP, when that didn't work, they tried to become more of a Baltimore news station, (the station was out of Bowie, Md.) that also failed miserably, then they tried Bloomberg business, I lost track after that.
WDCH 99.1 in Bowe MD is still running Bloomberg.
I remember seeing that station in Maryland use the call sign WNEW-FM during its time as an all-news station. That usage of the call sign made me nostalgic for the radio stations in New York that called themselves WNEW previously. I remember the AM station on "eleven-three-O" that played adult standards. Even as WBBR, the flagship station of Bloomberg Radio, they still pronounce 1130 as "eleven-three-O." I also remember WNEW-FM New York playing AOR music during the 1970s and the 1980s. I'm glad that the call sign WNEW-FM returned to New York's 102.7 FM.
101.9 was not a "disaster because it was on FM. It failed because it was not a good product compared to the competition.
The DC station failed because it was not WTOP and WTOP had heritage, an incredibly good product and a better coverage; the "new" station does not cover either Baltimore or DC adequately and that contributed to the failure. It's 70 dbu (where 80% of in-home and at-work listening takes place) does not even cover half of either Baltimore or DC.
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JoeLouis
Guest
I used to love WNEW-FM 102.7 in the 70s with Scott Muni and Roscoe, it was the great album rock station in the city, unfortunately where I lived WDRC-FM 102.9 would bleed heavily, I could only listen in the car closer to the city.
WTOP had been a mostly all-newser from the late 1960s onward (excluding Arthur Godfrey, Larry King, Orioles games, etc.) and fully in the format c. 1998. Same with KCBS and WBBM, both of which thrived after adding an FM signal following equal lengths of tenure with the format. Moving WTOP to FM outright in 2006 turned them into a bona fide powerhouse but it was the furthest thing from a new station.
Startups in the all-news format from the late 2000s onward (KGO, KROI, WYAY, WWWN-WIQI, WEMP, WNEW) have all failed. KGO’s foray does count as a failure and they are still very much on AM. KRLD and WBZ (and maybe KOMO-KNWN) are the most recent successful startups, and they already had established news departments that were expanded upon (such was also the case with KGO, even though it was a move made out of inertia).
In KGO-AM's case they had to respond to the median demos going to KQED-FM the NPR News/Talk affiliate and KCBS-AM/KFRC-FM all news by CBS Radio now Audacy for the top 5 spots in the San Francisco area.
Instead KQED-FM killed off KGO radio out of the News/talk format in the San Francisco area.
Don't forget WMAQ. The station had a struggling Talk format put on after they dropped Country. In 1988, Westinghouse took over from NBC and decided to clone WINS. It eased away from being the WINS clone as the 90s went on, but it was a well programmed news station.
The Telecommunications Act is what really brought it down. It never really beat WBBM all that much but there was room for both of them. Infinity wanted to focus their news efforts on WBBM, they had to get rid of a signal, so they gave WSCR the signal.
The Telecommunications Act is what really brought it down. It never really beat WBBM all that much but there was room for both of them. Infinity wanted to focus their news efforts on WBBM, they had to get rid of a signal, so they gave WSCR the signal.
KGO management—in particular, the oddly revered GM Mickey Luckoff—killed the station decades ago by failing to adapt the talk format with the times and letting the demos age out of salability. Cumulus was left with not just a lemon, but a very expensive lemon they couldn’t afford to keep running as-is unlike Disney or the bankrupt Citadel.
KQED’s success as a listener-supported station is wholly incongruent with KGO’s failure as a commercial entity.
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There is very limited overlap between all news and talk formats. And, similarly, the NPR formula of mixed new, talk and entertainment shares little with traditional commercial radio talk.
KGO died due to its inability to win younger listeners and the burnout of the old talent. It self -destructed.
One could reasonably make the case that a significant factor in Citadel's bankruptcy and subsequent sale to Cumulus was overpaying for several expensive white elephants, including KGO. KGO was on the decline in its last years with ABC, and, as you mention, its audience didn’t get any younger as it declined.
I'm not sure much could’ve been done to make KGO more appealing to a younger audience. Generally speaking, AM is a medium people under 45 either don’t know or don’t like, and very few of them would seem to want talk that isn’t sports-oriented.
The entire ABC Radio purchase was ill-advised. From the minute Disney bought ABC, it was looking to sell the radio division. Therefore they didn't invest in it at all, except for ESPN Radio and Radio Disney, which it kept.
The bankruptcy Citadel went through didn't fix the problems created by the ABC purchase, as evidenced by the fact that when Cumulus bought Citadel, it quickly went in the same direction. The problem was only solved by selling off several of the ABC stations (and tower properties) and consolidating the network operations. But they still have a big chunk of debt left from Citadel.
News has worked better on AM in the past, however, that is not the case anymore. David would be able to expound more on this. Adding a FM signal can help get some more of the younger demographics.
Here in Atlanta our AM 50k heritage station is WSB. While they are news/talk (heavy on the news), I think they can be a good example. When they finally moved their FM signal (about three or four years ago) to the center of the city, there was a definite bump in ratings and the demographics were affected.
Any news station that wants to survive, will have to eventually move to FM. Here in Atlanta, when WSB turned up their new FM at the center of the city, AM was officially dead in this market. Other markets will have more time before AM totally dies, but it is a slow decline.
Adding FM slows down attrition, but does not make all-news more attractive to any considerably younger groups. The format is pretty much self limiting.
What adding FM does is place the format on the band people use for nearly everything else. It sounds better, it is much more free of man-made noise and it's where "everybody" listens to other kinds of formats. News is not a long-listening format. One goes there and then returns to music radio once they hear a news cycle. So you have to be on the same band to get the most impact.
And that bump was within the same demographics it always had. Just more listening more often.
Nationally, AM is getting close to around 5% to 6% of all listening, and more and more is to narrow ethnic and religious and brokered formats. In markets where there are few or no good signals on AM, it is worse. Example: in Washington, DC, the AM listening during the three "Summer" Nielsen months was 1.8%
"Non-NPR" (commercial) stations can't survive without advertising. You want their content, you either put up with their ads or tune away when they're running. Don't expect them to go ad-free or even cut the number of ads if they have no way to replace that lost revenue.
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