• 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

WBJR fmr WHFS (1010 kHz) flips to "Podcast Radio US"

Podcast Radio US showcases fantastic podcasts from across America and beyond.

From the weirdest to the most wonderful, the biggest and the best, to the exciting and unheard gems awaiting to be discovered, listeners are able to sample podcasts 24 –7 on Podcast Radio US.
Click to expand...

So are they buying time on Beasley's stations to promote their podcasts? That's about the only thing that would make a little sense to me but even that isn't very logical. If this is a stand alone format designed to get ratings and advertisers then someone really goofed up. Who is going to turn on a radio to listen to a podcast about living in a desert, followed by an Ohio crime mystery podcast, followed by an interview conducted by a 87 year old actor?
 
101.9 La Kalle said:
How to fail even worse in ratings:


(Seriously, iHeart did this and it did NOT work out for them AT ALL.)
Click to expand...

Exactly. I heard the iHeart attempt while driving though Pennsylvania. It was the most boring radio I’ve never heard.

I’m surprised to see they gave up the WHFS call letters. They have a strong heritage in the Washington/Baltimore area. I figured Beasley would hang onto the calls until someone offered them some money for them.
 
inari said:
So are they buying time on Beasley's stations to promote their podcasts? That's about the only thing that would make a little sense to me but even that isn't very logical. If this is a stand alone format designed to get ratings and advertisers then someone really goofed up. Who is going to turn on a radio to listen to a podcast about living in a desert, followed by an Ohio crime mystery podcast, followed by an interview conducted by a 87 year old actor?
Click to expand...
If they applied some thought to it, this could have a shot. Unfortunately, they will probably do as suggested above - one disconnected podcast after another, which will be doomed to failure.

If I were to try something like this, I would try to group the podcasts: After hopefully some kind of local morning news block, 3 hours of advice podcasts, followed in the early afternoon with 3 hours of comedy type podcasts, followed by 3 hours of sports related podcasts. Coincidently, I was tipped off by my sister to Freakonomics podcasts this afternoon, and saw that they have an extensive library of shows. If this is the case for most podcasts, then a semblance of a radio schedule could be put together, with a (for example) Freakonomics show airing every day at the same time. The whole thing would need some amount of advertising promotion to get it off the ground, which would likely be expensive. If they just throw it out there and hope for the best, it will probably have all the impact of an all brokered station (that is - going nowhere fast).
 
The correct call letters are actually "WJBR". The call letters were transferred from the FM in Wilmington, Delaware that Beasley just sold to VCY America. .....and I totally agree, podcast radio is a complete joke. This is simply a brokered AM radio station now with 2 FM translators. What a waste.
 
iHeart tried putting an All-Podcast format on several stations, including WSAN 1470 Allentown, KABQ 1350 Albuquerque and WEBG 95.9 Mina-Erie PA. The company was so high on the format that it also put an all-podcast channel on the iHeartRadio platform.

The experiment lasted from just after Christmas 2019 until January 2022. By then WSAN flipped to Oldies, while KABQ and WEBG went with Fox Sports.

iHeart is America's #1 podcast destination, and it has 24/7 podcast channels airing numerous shows continuously. But it cancelled the All-Podcast channel associated with the over-the-air radio stations.

These days, other than NPR, nobody seems to have much success with "block programming." As good and professionally done as some podcasts are, will anybody tune in a "Wheel of Podcasts" format where it's true crime one hour, science another hour and the paranormal the next hour? (You might even say All Things Considered, Morning Edition and Here & Now are similar news magazine shows, giving even NPR consistency, at least on weekdays.)
 
Last edited:
CTListener said:
And on a full-time SiriusXM channel. No connection at all between podcasts, so far as I can tell. I'm not even sure there's a set schedule.
Click to expand...
I've only listened to it a few times, but I like hearing parts of podcasts that are new to me without having to download them.
 
@ Gregg.
(And if you FL folks can pardon a musing from an ex-NYC punk now in NE PA ** ...)

WSAN 1470 Allentown is a semi-local here. They're about 40 miles East of us.
Like so many high-on-the-dial AM stations, they've gone through more format changes than Radio Belgrade. One such heave at a dartboard was Gregg's aforemtioned Podcast Of Your Life. THAT format became a ripped-up lottery ticket so fast that this AM listener never heard a peep out of it! WSAN is now Oldies ..... cookiecutter stuff we've all heard a hundred times more than we'll ever need to've recalled. Their ratings have gone up to a grumpy 1.4 in the latest book, at any rate.
C'est la vie.

** Again, there remain too many Tampa Bay / Clearwater / Florida memories and family provincialities in me to stay silent. Over the years, I've lived in FL, worked there, romanced there, served there, DXed there and went to school there. So every so often I gotta offer my $.02 cents.
 
Last edited:
Status
This thread has been closed due to inactivity. You can create a new thread to discuss this topic.


Back
Top Bottom