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B101 Drops Delilah again.

From what I've been gathering, there's a couple things going on here.

Audacy is making an effort to eliminate outside syndication especially from iHeart's Premiere Networks where applicable and an internal national AC night show may be on the way from the company. Same with a Hot AC midday show. The majority of Audacy's AC stations are either jockless at night or running syndication that can be eliminated. They've also been clearing people off the schedule at many of their Hot ACs to open up a daypart.
 
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It also doesn't make sense for Delilah to record liners and drop-ins pretending to be a Northeast station's local DJ, when many of her callers have a Southern accent.
 
kevtronics said:
It also doesn't make sense for Delilah to record liners and drop-ins pretending to be a Northeast station's local DJ, when many of her callers have a Southern accent.
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What? That makes no sense. Delilah has been syndicated for decades. She's been 'pretending' to be on hundreds of stations all over the country. Just because her home studio is on Bainbridge Island, doesn't mean she's somehow the property of the PNW.
 
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lanceventa said:
Audacy is making a conceited effort to eliminate outside syndication especially from iHeart's Premiere Networks where applicable and an internal national AC night show may be on the way from the company.
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Interesting thought. The company has had mixed success with internal national shows. The ones they did in alternative were total flops. In that case, they took local shows and simply ran them on all their alt stations. They've had more luck in the country format. There had been talk of them starting their own internal national news department, but that went nowhere. A national AC show was also discussed. They set up a partnership with United Stations. The problem is the company (as configured now) is primarily a local radio company, built on local shows and sales. That's what they've been doing since Entercom. They didn't like national syndication then. They don't have an infrastructure for national programming the way Cumulus & iHeart have. That's why they use United Stations. This is not to say they can't build that infrastructure once they get out of bankruptcy. But they're not very good at creating national shows. They're much better equipped to do what they're doing now, which is hostless music with imaging.
 
TheBigA said:
Interesting thought. The company has had mixed success with internal national shows. The ones they did in alternative were total flops. In that case, they took local shows and simply ran them on all their alt stations. They've had more luck in the country format. There had been talk of them starting their own internal national news department, but that went nowhere. A national AC show was also discussed. They set up a partnership with United Stations. The problem is the company (as configured now) is primarily a local radio company, built on local shows and sales. That's what they've been doing since Entercom. They didn't like national syndication then. They don't have an infrastructure for national programming the way Cumulus & iHeart have. That's why they use United Stations. This is not to say they can't build that infrastructure once they get out of bankruptcy. But they're not very good at creating national shows. They're much better equipped to do what they're doing now, which is hostless music with imaging.
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Audacy is no longer in business with United Stations. Ed Lover is a partnership with Skyview, Infinity Sports/BetQL are still with Westwood One, and the Country shows were the first to be moved internally with more coming.
 
Kent said:
While it might well come down to cheapness, also possible is that research could show the nighttime audience doesn't want anything other than music. On other boards, we have discussed that people, especially younger listeners, prefer services like Spotify and Apple Music to radio at least partly because they have no jocks.
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Put me in this boat. I'm a young guy, and I can't staaaaaaaaaand a lot of voicetracked stuff. Sure, not all of it is my demo (I get that) but a lot of it is just fluff that doesn't add anything. Either I'd like some personality (not someone reading cue cards) or just let the music play...
 
TheBigA said:
Didn't know that. From what I can see, United Stations is getting out of radio and into podcasting.
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Gemini XIII, which bought USRN last year, has a separate podcasting division. They're still very much focusing on syndication too.
 
To the people who say no one under a certain age wants to hear Delilah (and I am generally one of the people saying that as well, since I am not her target demo) -- check out her TikTok page. It's wild how many Millennials and even Gen Z people engage with her. They LOVE her. I suspect a lot of it is the nostalgia of listening to her show in the car with mom when they were kids.

Does that translate to listenership? Probably not. But, I was stunned that so many in that age group not only remember her -- but are still fond of her. She was always best at connecting with people -- in some ways her show really was never about the music. I guess she's still finding success at connecting -- just with a different medium.
 
AMFMTV said:
To the people who say no one under a certain age wants to hear Delilah (and I am generally one of the people saying that as well, since I am not her target demo) -- check out her TikTok page. It's wild how many Millennials and even Gen Z people engage with her. They LOVE her. I suspect a lot of it is the nostalgia of listening to her show in the car with mom when they were kids.
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I suspect it's more because their mother growing up listened to Delilah, or some just enjoy the calls and E-mails about infidelity, health crises, and unrequited love (sticking a finger down the throat). It's not my cup of tea, but remember people used to read Dear Abby? Same thing.
 
When 106.1 the Breeze flipped, Audacy was quick to get Delilah. Now they had Delilah all to themselves with WJBR gone and WLEV wiped out by W264BH. And they still don’t want her
 
nd2023 said:
When 106.1 the Breeze flipped, Audacy was quick to get Delilah. Now they had Delilah all to themselves with WJBR gone and WLEV wiped out by W264BH. And they still don’t want her
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Does WLEV even still air it?

Regardless, it doesn't matter. Business needs change. Not about "they don't want her" so much as a direction the company is taking.
 
Kent said:
It's a Cumulus property. Doesn't look like it has anyone on-air after 7:00 PM, but, if it does, it would either be John Tesh or a local voicetracker.
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"Cat Country 96" WCTO midday host Kristy O'Brian tracks nights on WLEV.
 
TheBigA said:
Interesting thought. The company has had mixed success with internal national shows. The ones they did in alternative were total flops. In that case, they took local shows and simply ran them on all their alt stations. They've had more luck in the country format. There had been talk of them starting their own internal national news department, but that went nowhere. A national AC show was also discussed. They set up a partnership with United Stations. The problem is the company (as configured now) is primarily a local radio company, built on local shows and sales. That's what they've been doing since Entercom. They didn't like national syndication then. They don't have an infrastructure for national programming the way Cumulus & iHeart have. That's why they use United Stations. This is not to say they can't build that infrastructure once they get out of bankruptcy. But they're not very good at creating national shows. They're much better equipped to do what they're doing now, which is hostless music with imaging.
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I’ve seen this over time with my local WYRD here in SC. Entercom/Audacy has removed over time all Premiere programming other than Coast to Coast and added stuff like Clyde Lewis, (re-added) Mike Gallagher from Salem, and Mark Levin from WW1 syndication wise. They had much more syndicated programming under the old, original Entercom a decade or two ago. They’ve doubled down on local programming (even since the Audacy bankruptcy this year). So it seems that while the music stations may be getting more multi-market programming, they’re doubling down on local for talk (and they’ve also expanded locally produced national news) unless something changes.

It might be tough for Audacy to assemble a national news/talk show or two just because they don’t have a ton of news/talk stations like iHeart and Cumulus (or, as those two have, derelict AM signals to clear the programming on), and they have a number of heritage local talk stations like WCCO, KMOX, KMBZ, and KDKA. I’d probably be remiss to not include WPHT although it doesn’t have the strength of those.
 
101tm said:
It might be tough for Audacy to assemble a national news/talk show or two just because they don’t have a ton of news/talk stations like iHeart and Cumulus (or, as those two have, derelict AM signals to clear the programming on), and they have a number of heritage local talk stations like WCCO, KMOX, KMBZ, and KDKA. I’d probably be remiss to not include WPHT although it doesn’t have the strength of those.
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The problem is it could take years to develop local or regional talent to the point where it sticks. Premiere has a couple of decades head start on Audacy. I get it, that owning your inventory rather than bartering it away is ultimately the best plan. But, if the new talent doesn't catch fire, you're sitting there with a whole lot of open inventory.
 
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