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Will The WICC 600 WFOX 95.9 Simulcast Impact Long Island Listenership?

S

Schroedingers Cat

Will the WICC 600 WFOX 95.9 Simulcast impact listenership on Long Island? The Longley Rice Map shows 70-80 dBu along the North shore and a few miles inland in Central Long Island from across the sound. If they went in a more News direction, would it take up some of the slack from the loss of a News format from WCBS on 880 near there?

radioinsight.com

WFOX Gives Way To WICC Simulcast In Fairfield County

Connoisseur Media has flipped Rock "95.9 The Fox" WFOX Southport CT to a simulcast of News/Talk 600 WICC/107.3 W297CP Bridgeport
radioinsight.com radioinsight.com
 
WICC targets Connecticut. Not sure why it would be interesting to Long Islanders.
WFOX did not sell advertising in Long Island, so any supposed losses would not likely be material.
Long Islanders looking for news and information would be better served by WINS.
 
Not sure how big WICC specifically will get former WCBS-AM listeners exactly. However Audacy itself has pointed out 1010 WINS-AM and WINS-FM for a majority of former WCBS-AM listeners. Also WNYC-AM and WNYC-FM has been pointed out as major destinations for listeners in response to the loss of WCBS-AM. Since this station is Connecticut wouldn't they have to respond to going after WNPR Connecticut Public Media specifically.
 
Y2kTheNewOldies said:
Not sure how big WICC specifically will get former WCBS-AM listeners exactly. However Audacy itself has pointed out 1010 WINS-AM and WINS-FM for a majority of former WCBS-AM listeners.
Click to expand...

Audacy can try to steer central Long Island listers to WINS all it wants but that station has always primarily served the five boroughs with both its signals and its news focus.
 
WFOX 95.9 has the 5th strongest FM signal in Huntington, NY near ground level.

I agree that a format would have to be created that was more centered on that area. But WCBS 880 has abandoned the format, and neither WINS 1010 nor WINS-FM 92.3 has a really strong signal in that area compared to WFOX. I cant go over and measure the signals with an FIM-41 or FIM-71, but the combination of several sources supports this assessment.

A majority of WCBS 880 listeners will not tune to an NPR affiliate.
 
WFOX 95.9 is about the equivalent of 5.4 kW/100 meters in the direction of Long Island. Many nearby locations are LOS. It is about 17 miles from Huntington, NY.

WINS-FM is 6 kW, 30.5 miles from Huntington, NY.
 
Schroedingers Cat said:
WFOX 95.9 is about the equivalent of 5.4 kW/100 meters in the direction of Long Island. Many nearby locations are LOS. It is about 17 miles from Huntington, NY.

WINS-FM is 6 kW, 30.5 miles from Huntington, NY.
Click to expand...
But WINS_FM is on the ESB at about 4 times the height.

As someone who argued, albeit without success, against the purchase of a semi-suburban Class A just outside "pure" NYC, I know how a low antenna height in a market full of really big (I mean realllllllly big) apartment buildings will make a signal non-viable. It's the same as having great height and just too little power (had one of those, too).

A signal that has to cross the Sound and then hits apartment buildings at a low angle is not going to work.
 
I was under the impression that the North Shore of that part of Long Island was lined with huge single family homes. I realize that the model used might not have a database of large buildings along the path. But I see the really big apartment buildings would a big problem along Lake Shore Drive in Chicago for sure. But there's no signals to the East that are just 17 miles away.
 
For music formats, there's some amount of Long Islanders listening to Connecticut stations and visa-versa. It's easy to pick up stations across Long Island Sound, even though it's not easy to travel between the two sides. In fact, WEZN Bridgeport CT shares its morning show with WALK-FM Patchogue, Long Island, both owned by Connoisseur Media.

But I don't think it's likely WICC/WFOX will have many Long Island listeners. From 5 a.m. to 6 p.m. it has all local hosts. Sometimes they'll discuss national topics but many times the discussion will be specific to Connecticut.
 
Schroedingers Cat said:
I was under the impression that the North Shore of that part of Long Island was lined with huge single family homes.
Click to expand...
And how many "huge shoreline single family homes" will enlist everyone to carry a PPM for two years?

Once you get inland a bit, we have apartment buildings. Lots of apartment buildings.
Schroedingers Cat said:
I realize that the model used might not have a database of large buildings along the path. But I see the really big apartment buildings would a big problem along Lake Shore Drive in Chicago for sure. But there's no signals to the East that are just 17 miles away.
Click to expand...
And the two Chicago preferred sites, which will always be "Sears" and "Hancock" to me, have a bit of a height difference over that of a Class A FM.

Within those 17 miles of the Sears location, you have about 4.5 million people. That CT FM has an uncounted number of fish.
 
Are they going to hang on to the WFOX call letters, or are they going to change it to WICC-FM? I know of a few "call letter recyclers" who have stations and CPs where they park them. It's one of those "animal" callsigns. Although those NPR listeners you discussed can't stand that one.;)

As you DXers might recall, those calls were on 860 in Milwaukee long ago, now WNOV.
 
WFOX has a good, but not great signal. I grew up in Western Suffolk. It was Q-96 back then and had a better signal than the City stations, but was weaker than Long Island's FM stations like WBLI, WBAB, WALK and WCTO (now WWSK). As for large apt buildings, there aren't many on the Island. Many apartments are of the 2 or 3 floor "garden style" communities. The hills running down the center part of the Island and distance would be what weakens WFOX as you head south.

As for the parent station, WICC, it was the last pop-AC AM music station with a good signal in the region. I think they still play music on overnights and weekend programming.

Gregg is right about Long Islanders listening to Connecticut stations. They definitely do. To this day, you sometimes hear the Connecticut FMs in stores. (The few that don't play WALK).
 
I agree that there are limitations and complications. But it seems like with the right format, they could take advantage of the loss of WCBS 880, especially when predictions and empirical first hand accounts suggest that WINS 1010 and WINS-FM 92.3 don't have particularly good signals. I suspect that CFRB 1010 interferes with WINS 1010 quite a bit at Night as you get further out on Long Island.

Then as you get out further, there's WLNG 92.1.
 
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↑ What would you envisage to be "the right format?" Although a few old codgers may be drawn to WICC's TOH CBS News, how many Lawn Guylanders would be interested in listening to a talk station that brands itself as "The Voice of Connecticut?"
 
This a suburban talk station focused on southwestern Connecticut. Not a substitute for a major market all-news station.
I applaud the effort and wish them success, but it is what it is.
Maybe this is the answer...focus on what you are, rather than what you aren't. Hopefully there are sufficient advertiser dollars to support it.
 
luperm said:
This a suburban talk station focused on southwestern Connecticut. Not a substitute for a major market all-news station.
I applaud the effort and wish them success, but it is what it is.
Maybe this is the answer...focus on what you are, rather than what you aren't. Hopefully there are sufficient advertiser dollars to support it.
Click to expand...
And for that area, as someone who lived in the NYC area most of my life, having a local news/talk station with loads of local hosts during the day is a good thing considering when it comes to coverage of the Tri-State area as a whole, they really take CT for granted & news kinda gets undercovered compared to the other suburban areas in the DMA in Long Island, Hudson Valley, & New Jersey & Fairfield County is in the NYC market whereas the rest of the state is in Hartford/New Haven.
 
Schroedingers Cat said:
Then as you get out further, there's WLNG 92.1.
Click to expand...
But that one is almost entirely limited to the very far East End. It does not cover most of Suffolk Country well.
 
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