With their numbers at an all time low (I don't know what they are billing) and with WINS-FM being the third highest biller in the country, according to info found in another post, what does Audacy do? Should they find a FM for 880 or just say WINS is it and switch to brokered programming? Your thoughts?
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What happens to WCBS 880 now?
- Thread starter sjs1959
- Start date
With the "shared staff" with WINS, the cost of keeping WCBS going has come down. As long as they keep billing well, they keep it going. At a certain point, the math will change, and then a format change or a sale of the station is probable.
The billing is still huge... among the top 25 or 30 billers in the whole country.
Yep! To add to what you said, news, talk and sports shows very often bill in disproportion to (and well above) their ratings. Lots of advertisers like the foreground effect of talk formats. And those stations make up for lower rates by having a heavier commercial load.
WCBS was tenth in 2023.
Spoken Word, Led By Washington’s WTOP, Dominates BIA’s Top Billing Stations.
BIA is out with its list of the top-billing radio stations of 2023, and a familiar set of call letters tops the tally. Hubbard Radio’s all-news powerhouse WTOP-FM Washington, D.C.
Do they still have chopper 880 ? I ask because to me, if they eliminated that it would save Audacy a lot of money. Traffic information is mostly monitored these days by camera & other technology
That's part of a larger question about whether radio traffic reports are still relevant, given their replacement by in-vehicle navigation and apps that provide information which is both more timely and accurate.
Yes, WCBS still has its chopper flying in Morning Drive Time. Not afternoons anymore. It's the only airborne traffic in NYC these days.
I still am not sure how to get traffic info from my phone without doing a lot of things I'm uncomfortable with. Let's say I'm on my way to NYC. How do I find out which is better, the George Washington Bridge or the Lincoln Tunnel? I know I can take out my phone, hit the Waze app, move my finger around the map while looking at it to see where there is more red, GWB or Lincoln. But those are all things I don't want to do while driving.
Yes, if I programmed it before I put the car in gear, it would tell me the best route. But I didn't plan ahead. Other than pulling over and doing all these steps which take some time, I don't know how to replace radio traffic reports with my phone and still drive safely.
And by the way, the voice in Waze and Google Maps only speaks to me when I have "Media" punched up on my car radio. If I'm listening to AM, FM or Sirius, the voice doesn't override those channels. Only if I have a music app like iHeart playing, with the "Media" button pressed, do I also hear the traffic voice. Is my VW different than most other modern cars?
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Great point. You’re looking at the Big picture which in retrospect I should have done. Before asking my helicopter 🚁 Question
You make it sound like people in radio don't know about this. WCBS has a co-op deal with WAZE.
There are lots of ways to get news, traffic, weather, and music. Radio is one of them.
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Get used to saying it over and over.
Wait, radio is there to make money??? (sarcasm switched on)
Which is amusing, considering the Mets have one other station on their network other than WCBS and SXM for a total of three.
You make is sound like people in radio don't know about this. WCBS has a co-op deal with WAZE.
There are lots of ways to get news, traffic, weather, and music. Radio is one of them.
You can always call 511 on your cell phone before you even put your vehicle in drive & ask about the roadways & crossings you will be traveling
Made-up scenarios like this feign willful ignorance, in my opinion. At this point, the technology is here and it's not going away. One can either choose to learn how to use it and utilize it to their benefit, or not. It's that simple.
Once again, what people do is their business. They may be ignorant, cheap, or lazy. Nobody cares.
WCBS does traffic reports because they're sponsored.
My Subaru, like most modern cars, has Android Auto (and Apple CarPlay, but I'm Android).
When I start up the car, it automatically connects to the phone. The Google Maps app automatically comes up on the screen. If I haven't already punched in a destination, I can use voice commands to tell it where I'm going, and it will give me what it thinks is the best route and the ETA. As I'm driving, it will offer me alternatives if traffic changes, warn me of speed traps ahead, etc.
If I have driven the same route or searched for the same destination over the last few days, it will even guess where it thinks I'm heading and offer that as a suggested destination. One tap of the screen and I can confirm or dismiss that.
That's the 2024 driving experience, if you want to avail yourself of the tools that are available these days.
When I'm in NYC, where my usual route takes me from Rockland over the GWB into Harlem, I will sometimes hit up 92.3 (the 1010 signal is awful up there) or 880 for traffic reports, but only as a backstop to what's already on my screen, especially to clarify which level of the bridge I want to be on for the fastest trip across.
When I start up the car, it automatically connects to the phone. The Google Maps app automatically comes up on the screen. If I haven't already punched in a destination, I can use voice commands to tell it where I'm going, and it will give me what it thinks is the best route and the ETA. As I'm driving, it will offer me alternatives if traffic changes, warn me of speed traps ahead, etc.
If I have driven the same route or searched for the same destination over the last few days, it will even guess where it thinks I'm heading and offer that as a suggested destination. One tap of the screen and I can confirm or dismiss that.
That's the 2024 driving experience, if you want to avail yourself of the tools that are available these days.
When I'm in NYC, where my usual route takes me from Rockland over the GWB into Harlem, I will sometimes hit up 92.3 (the 1010 signal is awful up there) or 880 for traffic reports, but only as a backstop to what's already on my screen, especially to clarify which level of the bridge I want to be on for the fastest trip across.
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