Morning Changes in Cleveland Radio

[MediaLover]

Steve Wazz is out at WGAR after more than five years due to iHeart "restructuring." He posted his goodbyes on his social media pages.

Morgan Wright has announced she's leaving Audacy's WQAL and its morning show after seven years. It was her decision not to renew her contract and she made the announcement this morning on the show.

 

[radiofollower]

It is more of the de-localizing of radio.

 

[Santa fe]

Radio is moving toward the model where local stations simply relay national programs, all in the name of continued budget cuts they see as necessary to survive. Audiences today are believed not to put too much weight on where their entertainment originates from. Listeners using Spotify or Sirius XM or podcasts have demonstrated that. Continued financial pressure will only quicken the trend. But what will be the ultimate impact on the industry?

 

[TheBigA]

Continued financial pressure will only quicken the trend. But what will be the ultimate impact on the industry?

The industry has to reinvent itself as consumers move from broadcast to digital. It's also happening in TV. So what happens to radio will also happen to TV. Holding on to the past won't preserve anything if the audience has left for something else. We say it 50 years ago when audiences left AM radio for FM. There was nothing radio could do that would keep listeners for music on AM.

 

[Santa fe]

Great example of the times: Last week a contractor was doing some work at my house. Not that long ago, contractors would bring along a boombox and play the radio while they worked. This contractor was a young man in his early 20's, and as he worked I could hear music, Classic Rock. It was a good mix of songs and my first reaction was NCX had really opened up its playlist, then I realized I heard little talking and no long commercial sets. He was using a bluetooth speaker linked to his cellphone and listening to his favorite Pandora channel. He didn't think it was techy or special, to him it's just they way things work today.
I don't know how radio is going to reinvent itself this time. It's very different from just flipping a switch from AM to FM. But the future is now and there's no going back.

 

[TheBigA]

I don't know how radio is going to reinvent itself this time.

It won't be with towers and transmitters. That is not the future.

 

[Rusty Muck]

It won't be with towers and transmitters. That is not the future.

The transmitter can be used to help further the reach of a station and drive down any barriers of streaming (in fact, that was the exact logic KEXP took when they bought a San Francisco FM station in a bankruptcy auction). It used to be the other way around but that is flip-flopping.

 

[radiofollower]

This contractor was a young man in his early 20's, and as he worked I could hear music, Classic Rock.

It is not a good sign for the art form of rock and roll when someone in their 20s prefers to listen to music made 40 or 50 years ago.

 

[snowdog88]

It is not a good sign for the art form of rock and roll when someone in their 20s prefers to listen to music made 40 or 50 years ago.

Being in my mid 30's, I listen to and enjoy a large selection of music that's older than me, going all the way back to the 50's. Stuff recorded after the beginning of 2010 is when the vast majority of music started to become irrelevant to me. I can't stand the pop music and lack of talent since then. 'Softer' pop music prior to that point is tolerable, but it goes to show how bad the recording industry has become, signing just about anyone who walks through the door.

 

[thenetwork]

Though I graduated HS in the mid 80s, my preference for decades was music prior to the birth of MTV (when it seems songs were "designed" to supplement the video -- not the other way around), with few exceptions. That was also the time when nearly all of the Top-40 stations were gone (or close to it) off the AM band. Songs were perfected via computers and most musical instruments in a song were becoming synthesized. It was getting to the point that an artist or band only had to record part of a 3 or 4-minute song as the engineers would "loop" everything to any length they chose.

Only recently -- and moreso for nostalgic purposes only, have I started adding songs of the later 80s and early 90s to my personal music preference lists. Most are artists who tried not to sound like everyone else.

When you have music that has to "sample" older tunes in their songs to be successful, you kind of wonder if it's really about the melody and lyrics anymore, or if it's just noise that a club DJ can "mix" with other songs for long stretches of time.

 

[skiwest]

I'm hoping that someday there will be a metamorphosis in the music industry where it gets back to songs with a catchy melody, vocals and backing vocals sung by people who know how to sing and complemented by real musicians that actually play instruments rather than using synthesizers. I guess I'm just dreaming.

 

[TheBigA]

Country Aircheck reports more changes:

iHeartMedia WGAR/Cleveland PD/morning host Carletta Blake will move to middays effective tomorrow (4/2). She had been in mornings solo since the exit of Steve Razz as part of company wide restructuring last month. The Bobby Bones Show, which had been airing from 7pm to 11pm, will move into mornings. Wayne D and Tay, who had been on in middays, move to nights.

 

[Rusty Muck]

Country Aircheck reports more changes:

Figured that was in the works. This is the first time in WGAR's history, either on AM 1220 or FM 99.5, that they have had a syndicated morning show. (Unless you want to get technical about CBS network programming in the 1940s.)

 

[Identnut]

Figured that was in the works. This is the first time in WGAR's history, either on AM 1220 or FM 99.5, that they have had a syndicated morning show. (Unless you want to get technical about CBS network programming in the 1940s.)

I'm surprised it took this long, and that any iHeart station still has local shows, which I don't see the logic of. You don't see any NBC or CBS stations not running Fallon or Colbert.

 

[TheBigA]

Figured that was in the works. This is the first time in WGAR's history, either on AM 1220 or FM 99.5, that they have had a syndicated morning show. (Unless you want to get technical about CBS network programming in the 1940s.)

However, it won't be the only syndicated morning show in Cleveland.

WZAK carries the Rickey Smiley show, and they're #1.

I'm surprised it took this long, and that any iHeart station still has local shows, which I don't see the logic of. You don't see any NBC or CBS stations not running Fallon or Colbert.

They will usually stay local in mornings when they have in-city country competition, such as Atlanta or Boston. They are also local in Baltimore because of heritage talent.

 

[vjm]

However, it won't be the only syndicated morning show in Cleveland.

WZAK carries the Rickey Smiley show, and they're #1.

WAKS Kiss 96.5 carries Elvis Duran's syndicated morning show, and has done so for years.

WENZ Z 107.9 carried Smiley's show for many years, and in 2020 Smiley was named as Tom Joyner's designated successor, thus moving his show to WZAK (also simulcast on WERE 1490). 107.9 has since carried the syndicated Morning Hustle program

 

[vjm]

This is as good a time as any to kind of take inventory of the morning shows to see who's local and who isn't

WKNR ESPN 850 - "Unsportsmanlike" with Evan Cohen, Chris Canty, and Michelle Smallmon (syndicated - ESPN Radio)
WTAM 1100/106.9 - Wills and Snyder (local)
WJMO 1300/94.5 Praise 94.5 - Erica Campbell (syndicated - Urban One)
WARF Fox Sports 1350 The Gambler - "2 Pros & A Cup of Joe" with Jonas Knox, Brady Quinn, and Lavar Arrington (syndicated - Fox Sports/Premiere)
WHK 1420/102.5 The Answer - Hugh Hewitt (syndicated - Salem)
WERE 1490 and WZAK 93.1 - Ricky Smiley (syndicated - Urban One)
WKSU 89.7 - Morning Edition (NPR national show, but with local segments)
WCLV 90.3 - Jacqueline Gerber (local)
WKRK 92.3 The Fan - Ken Carmen and Anthony Lima (local)
WFHM 95.5 The Fish - Len Howser and Sara Carnes (local)
WAKS Kiss 96,5 - Elvis Duran (syndicated - Premiere)
WNCX 98.5 - Slats (local)
WGAR 99.5 - Bobby Bones (syndicated - Premiere)
WMMS 100.7 The Buzzard - Rover's Morning Glory (locally based, syndicated out to other markets)
WDOK Star 102.1 - Tim Richards and Jen Toohey (local)
WQAL Q 104.1 - Bill Ryan (local)
WMJI Magic 105.7 - Mark Nolan and Jen Picciano (local)
WNWV 107.3 Alternative Cleveland - The Morning Hang with Ryan Lang and Brady Marks (local)
WENZ Z 107.9 - The Morning Hustle (syndicated - Urban One)

 

[Identnut]

They will usually stay local in mornings when they have in-city country competition, such as Atlanta or Boston. They are also local in Baltimore because of heritage talent.

Boston's Bull has always had Bobby Bones and Atlanta also switched to Bobby Bones.

They're local in Birmingham, although that show is syndicated to Detroit on a rock station.

 

[Santa fe]

Umpteen years ago Howard Stern blew up the belief that you had to have a local morning drive show to succeed. That coincided with the change in the way people access the information they need. The local shows provided news, time checks, weather, traffic and school closings. Now people can get all that immediately and on demand from their phones, so the reasons to listen to the radio have changed. If they listen at all, they want to be entertained and it is of no matter if the entertainment they like comes from downtown or thousands of miles away. Besides, as we see there are still many local morning shows. It all comes down to all the different choices the modern media user has.

 

[Identnut]

Umpteen years ago Howard Stern blew up the belief that you had to have a local morning drive show to succeed. That coincided with the change in the way people access the information they need. The local shows provided news, time checks, weather, traffic and school closings. Now people can get all that immediately and on demand from their phones, so the reasons to listen to the radio have changed. If they listen at all, they want to be entertained and it is of no matter if the entertainment they like comes from downtown or thousands of miles away. Besides, as we see there are still many local morning shows. It all comes down to all the different choices the modern media user has.

The only place where locality really matters, IMO, is sports radio. And that is because of regional allegiances. And even then, they'd be better served by regional networks.