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Format change in the Upstate

AMRocks

AMRocks

It looks like WYRD and WORD (the AMs) are now running another conservative talk format. "Upstate Red." They are also on WYRD-HD2. That means Magic is only on WFBC-HD4. (No idea about the small translators.)

They are running Glenn Beck and using Salem Radio for their news. I only listened for a couple of minutes at the top of the hour at noon today.

I wonder why Audrey would launch a competitor to their own conservative talk powerhouse?

I assume The Fan is just on the translators and a couple of HD channels. They must have relicensed the main stations for the translators.
 
AMRocks said:
It looks like WYRD and WORD (the AMs) are now running another conservative talk format. "Upstate Red." They are also on WYRD-HD2. That means Magic is only on WFBC-HD4. (No idea about the small translators.)

They are running Glenn Beck and using Salem Radio for their news. I only listened for a couple of minutes at the top of the hour at noon today.

I wonder why Audrey would launch a competitor to their own conservative talk powerhouse?
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They're running Premiere Networks' catalog of syndicated talkers from 6am to 9pm. Wouldn't be a shock if there's some compensation from iHeart/Premiere for the clearance. In this day and age, two AMs and an HD2 are not much in the way of competition but also allows Audacy to bonus some of 98.9's advertisers on the AMs or sell smaller packages.

AMRocks said:
I assume The Fan is just on the translators and a couple of HD channels. They must have relicensed the main stations for the translators.
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97.7 has been licensed to rebroadcast WFBC-HD3 since 2016. 97.1 still tied to 950 but that will likely change.
 
This is a very rare case, if not the only, of Audacy carrying most of Premiere’s content on a station. Audacy typically avoids Premiere content if they can, and even WW1, save for some shows like Levin and Coast to Coast.

They might get some listeners on the AMs, actually, considering the average age of who’s probably listening.
 
101tm said:
This is a very rare case, if not the only, of Audacy carrying most of Premiere’s content on a station. Audacy typically avoids Premiere content if they can, and even WW1, save for some shows like Levin and Coast to Coast.

They might get some listeners on the AMs, actually, considering the average age of who’s probably listening.
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Not really. Looking simply at the prime 6am-6pm dayparts, a number of Audacy talkers have Premiere programming. In the past there have been pushes to deemphasize Premiere content such as when Audacy put Dana Loesch in after Limbaugh's death. But in most cases it comes down to iHeart/Premiere wanting a station in the market to clear their shows.

WSKY-FM Gainesville carries Beck, Travis & Sexton, and Hannity live, 980 KMBZ Kansas City and KNSS Wichita have Beck and Hannity, and KJCE Austin carries Hannity. A few others such as WRVA Richmond and WTIC Hartford carry Hannity from 9pm to midnight. The Kansas City arrangement is most similar to what Audacy just did in Greenville. There KMBZ and 98.1 KMBZ-FM simulcast their local morning news block while KMBZ-FM does locally originated general Talk in the daytime and the AM carries syndicated Conservative Talkers.

This also may have prevented WORD from getting a direct FM News/Talk competitor. If iHeart was adamant on getting a clearance in the market, would they have flipped 104.9 from Sports?
 
Interesting possibility on 104.9 going talk. This definitely blocked it. But I would think iHeart would have wanted to keep it in-house. They could have taken WESC-AM and put the FM portion on one of their own HDs. But I guess Audacy would rather keep a real competitor off the air. Plus, given the signals, it probably won't eat at WYRD-FM very much at all.
 
lanceventa said:
Not really. Looking simply at the prime 6am-6pm dayparts, a number of Audacy talkers have Premiere programming. In the past there have been pushes to deemphasize Premiere content such as when Audacy put Dana Loesch in after Limbaugh's death. But in most cases it comes down to iHeart/Premiere wanting a station in the market to clear their shows.

WSKY-FM Gainesville carries Beck, Travis & Sexton, and Hannity live, 980 KMBZ Kansas City and KNSS Wichita have Beck and Hannity, and KJCE Austin carries Hannity. A few others such as WRVA Richmond and WTIC Hartford carry Hannity from 9pm to midnight. The Kansas City arrangement is most similar to what Audacy just did in Greenville. There KMBZ and 98.1 KMBZ-FM simulcast their local morning news block while KMBZ-FM does locally originated general Talk in the daytime and the AM carries syndicated Conservative Talkers.

This also may have prevented WORD from getting a direct FM News/Talk competitor. If iHeart was adamant on getting a clearance in the market, would they have flipped 104.9 from Sports?
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Thanks for the details. I did think of the Kansas City setup, but didn’t realize the others carried much content from Premiere/WW1. I believe WPHT Philadelphia carries some as well.

The only competition WORD ever had was WGTK, which mostly carried Salem talk hosts and got around a 2-2.5 share. They did carry Hannity live at the end, and Levin at one point before he moved to WORD.

I was always a bit surprised iHeart didn’t go with a talk format or even talk/sports mixture on 104.9, or somewhat clone their talk station in St. Louis (also on 104.9, ironically, and has an almost identical lineup to what Audacy is doing on WORD/WYRD) that’s mostly piped in Premiere fare. My best guess would be sports is a better demo to sell plus FSR clearance vs. higher numbers with the older skewing news talk format and the added costs if they tried to do any attempt at localization.
 
I only listen to 98.9 for Tara or Charlie, and even Joey Hudson's wake up show. Did I hear that legal ID that was posted said WYRD hd2 Greenville? I like having a choice for my 45 minute commutes to work in greenville besides streaming Alex or a favorite talk show of mine from Atlanta. I do agree that such a great signal like 94.5 actually has a format that will draw and audience, Salem could have done more with it but at least EMF owns it.
 
RadioRonnie285 said:
I only listen to 98.9 for Tara or Charlie, and even Joey Hudson's wake up show. Did I hear that legal ID that was posted said WYRD hd2 Greenville? I like having a choice for my 45 minute commutes to work in greenville besides streaming Alex or a favorite talk show of mine from Atlanta. I do agree that such a great signal like 94.5 actually has a format that will draw and audience, Salem could have done more with it but at least EMF owns it.
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Yes. WYRD-HD2 is now "Upstate Red," another conservative talk station.
 
AMRocks said:
I still think iHeart is just plain dumb for not using their HD channels for BIN, currently airing only on 1440AM. How much electricity does it actually cost? 🙄 Personally, I'd tune in on am FM station, but I'm not flipping to a crappy AM to hear it.
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They should simulcast it on 660 so it at least has some decent daytime coverage. 660 is an absolute albatross, just simulcasting 92.5. I’m sure if a gullible buyer came along iHeart would sell it, but I don’t even think there’s a buyer that gullible!

AM in the upstate is dead. It died when WORD/WYRD added 106.3 in 2008. Every station of any significance, other than the trusty WPCI, has added a translator. Whether anyone goes back to AM and finds 1330/950 will be interesting to see. More listeners will probably find it on 98.9 HD2.
 
A Silent Goodbye to Magic Upstate 3.0 (not surprised ... for the 3rd time) once again not even a signoff .. At least they did better than Motel 6 "leaving the light on" ... gone and gladly forgotten 😂💁

Each change was a downgrade ...
98.9 to 106.3
106.3 to Online Only / HD & Translators
and then whoops, Goodbye before some got to say Hello again, or Enjoy ..
at least there's still some commercial free music around the Upstate on
92.1 WGYT-LP in Greer
101.5 WRTH-LP 101.5 in GVL
and 88.1 WUBK in Enoree / WRBK 90.3 Rock Hill
 
KyleSmith1988 said:
A Silent Goodbye to Magic Upstate 3.0 (not surprised ... for the 3rd time) once again not even a signoff .. At least they did better than Motel 6 "leaving the light on" ... gone and gladly forgotten 😂💁

Each change was a downgrade ...
98.9 to 106.3
106.3 to Online Only / HD & Translators
and then whoops, Goodbye before some got to say Hello again, or Enjoy ..
at least there's still some commercial free music around the Upstate on
92.1 WGYT-LP in Greer
101.5 WRTH-LP 101.5 in GVL
and 88.1 WUBK in Enoree / WRBK 90.3 Rock Hill
Click to expand...
Magic Upstate still exists. It's on B93.7's HD-4
 
Wow, So the Talk Format Moved Back to AM After all. Now it's Just a semi-clone of the former WORD-AM (Turned WYRD-FM) ... I say move it off 98.9 and just put something else on Fan Freqs (97.1 - which shares the 950 site) and Relaunch a New Magic (or equivalent) to compete with Star 99.5 (😂) or something better than The Lake, like Classic Hits ...
 
I'm thinking the premiere shows might be a trade off with the Audicy stations now on the IHeart App. Kinda you scratch our back we will scratch yours. Gives Iheart free clearance in the upstate without blowing one of their own formats up
 


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