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Leesburg 1190 AM New Format

R

RF101

WCRW has been running bilingual announcements thanking their listeners for 30 years' support of New World Radio. All brokered programming is to end.

The announcement says a format change is coming on January 2nd. The call letter chnage request (still pending) is for January 4th. The new call letters will be WTSD. iHeart is going to LMA the station per the WCRW phone receptionist.

Some ideas to contemplate.

Possible formats are (1) sports-betting talk (2) political/podcasts like "WONK FM 104.7", (3) all-talk , (4) another BIN relay.

My guess is #1.
 
"We're Talking Sports DC" is another one. Now that sports betting is legal in DC, Maryland, and Virginia, the local airwaves are loaded with content for those gamblers. Traditional lottery sales and regular casino activities are starting to see their sectors fall. Baltimore's AM 1300 and perhaps DC's 1580 already have a sports-gambling-centric format. Standard sports stations like WJFK include a lot of similar content.

The odd station out right is AM 980 DC. Not much of a future there although the tower real estate will fetch some nice coin.
 
If sports betting is the format, iHeart could be using this as the template for a national network, similar to Audacy's BetQL network.
 
As of midnight on 1/4, AM 1190 went from stunting with oldies music to a simulcast of the 104.7 wonk fm translator, albeit without any AM 1190 branding so not sure if this is the permanent format.
 
Agreed with observation. WONK via 1190 is just a placeholder format. The new LMAers are assembling talent,. Audacy got a jump on the endgame, pun intended.
 
If they were going to put WONK on 1190, they'd have changed the call letters to the apparently unused WONK rather than WTSD. It'll be sports betting.
 
It seems odd that iHeart is investing in an AM station for a possible Sports Betting format. After all, this station, while 50,000 watts in the daytime, reduces power at night to 1,200 watts. Yes, I know Cumulus just put Sports Betting on KGO in San Francisco, only an AM station. But it has a great signal 24/7 in the Bay Area.

At night, with its tower near Reston, WTSD barely hits Washington DC. Most of the coverage is in the Western suburbs of DC. I guess the theory is that people who are very much into Sports Betting will put up with hearing the station on AM and its poor nighttime signal. Advertisers will still pay for spots.
 
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Gregg. said:
I guess iHeart is content to run its Premiere Network talk shows on a translator in Market #7? At one time, WONK-FM was podcasts. But no more. It's now mostly the Premiere Network line up, right? All the conservative talk shows that WMAL-FM won't clear because Cumulus has its own line up.

But will iHeart really invest in a Sports Betting roster of shows or just take what's available. After all, WCRW/WTSD is
Click to expand...
Nope. WONK currently runs liberal talkers from 9am - 3pm, Dr. Daliah in afternoons, and some conservative shows at night...

But they're flipping tomorrow...
 
The fact that IHeart killed WONK is probably bigger news. It was up against popular public radio, all news, and talk formats.
 
I was always surprised WONK-FM was still around after Michael Czarnecki left the company.

Somewhat surprised they are not including the FM in the branding. Perhaps a last-minute decision to include it?
 
AceBiscuits said:
It's a market clear for Fox Sports and VSiN. I believe iHeart has a partnership with VSiN. That's good enough reason for iHeart to do this.
Click to expand...
But what value is a "market clear" when the station covers only a small portion of the market effectively and its listenership is likely to be in the triple digits at best in most day parts? At what point do advertisers snap out of it, ignore the self-serving Madison Avenue Svengalis telling them stations that hardly anyone listens to are valuable, and say, "Why are we paying ANYTHING for this?"
 
CTListener said:
But what value is a "market clear" when the station covers only a small portion of the market effectively and its listenership is likely to be in the triple digits at best in most day parts? At what point do advertisers snap out of it, ignore the self-serving Madison Avenue Svengalis telling them stations that hardly anyone listens to are valuable, and say, "Why are we paying ANYTHING for this?"
Click to expand...
They get a rate commensurate with the delivery. Most of the buys of this kind of networked programming are cheap added purchases to supplement big stations. It's like picking up extra household items at a Dollar Store just to have a little extra.
 
CTListener said:
But what value is a "market clear" when the station covers only a small portion of the market effectively and its listenership is likely to be in the triple digits at best in most day parts? At what point do advertisers snap out of it, ignore the self-serving Madison Avenue Svengalis telling them stations that hardly anyone listens to are valuable, and say, "Why are we paying ANYTHING for this?"
Click to expand...
iHeart (Premiere Radio Networks) sells the advertising on Fox Sports Radio. The reason for the LMA is likely that Premiere now can say that Fox Sports has a Washington, DC affiliate, which helps them sell the network to national advertisers. Yes, 1190 does not have a competitive signal across the DC market, but that it's in the DMA gives Premiere the right to say that.
 
RoddyFreeman said:
iHeart (Premiere Radio Networks) sells the advertising on Fox Sports Radio. The reason for the LMA is likely that Premiere now can say that Fox Sports has a Washington, DC affiliate, which helps them sell the network to national advertisers. Yes, 1190 does not have a competitive signal across the DC market, but that it's in the DMA gives Premiere the right to say that.
Click to expand...
So if Fox Sports were on a more competitive AM signal, or at least one that was reaching more listeners in the target demo than 1190 is, would that change the amount Premiere charges the advertisers? What if most of the marginal stations carrying Fox Sports across the country were dropped in favor of better signals, or even FMs? Or are the advertisers just out there willing to accept whatever Premiere brags it has and buy, essentially, a pig in a poke, not caring if anyone was actually hearing the ads in a given market or not? Just trying to understand Corporate America's mindset on this.
 
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