That’s the problem. No other AM in the market can feature a mass-appeal format and expect it to be successful because the technical limitations make it impossible. (No, I don’t consider WHK’s talk format anywhere near mass appeal.)
When you are number two, my mother always said you try harder!
Remember, 1490 began as WSRS (Sam R. Segue) with its studios and antenna on top of the Chevy dealer at Cedar and Lee in Cleveland Heights... with terrible coverage due to its tiny rooftop counterpoise system. It was always a woof-woof-woof dog signal.
But WTAM bills about 5 times as much as WKNR. WHKW bills almost as much as WKNR.
WKNR doesn’t even subscribe to Nielsen, and from the few times they’ve been mentioned in reporting ratings-wise, WKRK-FM beats them handily.
Oops. I must have confused things with a cancelled CP from 2018.
They do encode for Nielsen.
It was hard enough to find a vacant frequency to transmit my iPod in the car, even before the FM translator boom. On the other hand, some of these translators now block out fringe area stations that were once receivable with little difficulty. Those being WBBG (overridden with Real 106.1) and WHOF (useless WGAR repeater splattering interference on 101.7). 99.1 splatters all over WMYX 98.9, which previously came in loud and clear prior to them signing on about a decade ago.
That wasn't the question. Why can't the FCC carve out a set of frequencies that the big guys can't touch? Seems that for being "public airwaves" the public [meaning small business' get screwed. Kind of nuts that a 250 watt translator 45 miles northeast of me can blow me off of the frequency that I use for my business.
But, as is often the case, low 12+ ratings for sports stations are very high in 25-54 men... just like all those decades WFAN in NYC was the #1 biller in the market while it was 15th in 12+ ratings. So it is likely that the station is profitable well beyond the appearance of the ratings.
theyd have to expand the fm band down past 88.1 to do that liek australia has LPON around 87 and 88 that can run 1 watt
It’s also why Salem moved WKNR to 850 in the first place and continued to operate it as a sports station for six years. It was totally superfluous and an extra signal in the cluster, but even in those years, it made money and had 25-54 demos WRMR never could. Otherwise it would have flipped to conservative talk c. 2003–04.
