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102.5 WHIZ Move in...

OhioMediaWatch said:
One more time...Hank Littick isn't going to spend a dime trying to run this as a Columbus station. It's a Zanesville station with a really, really far west transmitter site. :D
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The Columbus Dispatch did a tiny story on the WHIZ/WCZQ move-in. Click here to view the story: http://www.columbusdispatch.com/liv...LL03.ART_ART_10-03-09_D1_M3F7CT7.html?sid=101

They say the station will remain country. No surprise there. What remains to be seen is if they open a Columbus Sales office.
The article says it will still cover Muskingum County. The FCC coverage map show the 58 dBu signal covers almost all of the Columbus metro area
but none of Muskingum County. It also doesn't cover Zainesville at all so they have all but totally abounded their Zainesville listeners.
My point, how long can they hold out without a Columbus sales office when they don't have any significance number of listeners in Zainesville? Why not tap into the large Columbus market until they can find a buyer for 102.5 because a buyer may be a long time in coming. This is their FCC coverage map:

http://www.fcc.gov/fcc-bin/FMTV-service-area?x=FM1287095.html

Also, they have a applied for a license to cover their CP today:

http://fjallfoss.fcc.gov/cgi-bin/ws.exe/prod/cdbs/pubacc/prod/app_det.pl?Application_id=1333413
 
gabigley1 said:
OhioMediaWatch said:
One more time...Hank Littick isn't going to spend a dime trying to run this as a Columbus station. It's a Zanesville station with a really, really far west transmitter site. :D
Click to expand...

The Columbus Dispatch did a tiny story on the WHIZ/WCZQ move-in. Click here to view the story: http://www.columbusdispatch.com/liv...LL03.ART_ART_10-03-09_D1_M3F7CT7.html?sid=101

They say the station will remain country. No surprise there. What remains to be seen is if they open a Columbus Sales office.
The article says it will still cover Muskingum County. The FCC coverage map show the 58 dBu signal covers almost all of the Columbus metro area
but none of Muskingum County. It also doesn't cover Zainesville at all so they have all but totally abounded their Zainesville listeners.
My point, how long can they hold out without a Columbus sales office when they don't have any significance number of listeners in Zainesville? Why not tap into the large Columbus market until they can find a buyer for 102.5 because a buyer may be a long time in coming. This is their FCC coverage map:

http://www.fcc.gov/fcc-bin/FMTV-service-area?x=FM1287095.html

Also, they have a applied for a license to cover their CP today:

http://fjallfoss.fcc.gov/cgi-bin/ws.exe/prod/cdbs/pubacc/prod/app_det.pl?Application_id=1333413
Click to expand...

They will never staff a sales office here in Columbus because they do not plan on owning the station that long. it will be leased out at the very least, right now they are carrying the same costs that they were before and using 102.5 as a bonus on sales of 92.7. The dispatch article is just a rewording of the press release sent out by WHIZ. Like has been said many time on this board, what you hear today is a place holder. and it will remain untill the new owner who ever that ends up being, picks a format and runs the station.
 
Allfirdup said:
Like has been said many time on this board, what you hear today is a place holder. and it will remain untill the new owner who ever that ends up being, picks a format and runs the station.
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More precisely, "picks a format to duplicate." My guess is it will stay country, perhaps LMA'd to Wilks as a replacement for Wink. In any event, it will be something that is already being done in Columbus, since that is virtually an unwritten law here -- and the better the signal, the more it is required to steer clear of any of the market's holes. Yes, I sound like a broken record, but I guess that's my own contribution to the duplication effort. Hope I'm wrong, but that's sure unlikely based on market history.
 
Nu_Roo_2 said:
More precisely, "picks a format to duplicate." My guess is it will stay country, perhaps LMA'd to Wilks as a replacement for Wink.
Click to expand...

That's where I'd put my $10 if any PA or WV casino would take the bet. :D

I'm still trying to figure out if EMF/K-Love fits into this, or if they're not willing to go up against WCVO (for financial/fundraising reasons).

Very few broadcasters have spent money on anything recently, but Wilks has - in addition to buying the ex-CBS cluster in Columbus, they were the winning bidder for CBS in Denver not all that long ago.
 
The "New" 102.5 signal stinks in Zanesville. It does OK on the west side of the county but there are several drop outs in the city limits.
 
sparks794 said:
The "New" 102.5 signal stinks in Zanesville. It does OK on the west side of the county but there are several drop outs in the city limits.
Click to expand...

That's why they moved the Hot AC format to 92.7. 102.5 is now a Columbus rimshot.
 
xiradiodotcom said:
sparks794 said:
The "New" 102.5 signal stinks in Zanesville. It does OK on the west side of the county but there are several drop outs in the city limits.
Click to expand...

That's why they moved the Hot AC format to 92.7. 102.5 is now a Columbus rimshot.
Click to expand...

Didn't they migrate Hot AC to 92.7 long before 102.5 relocated? Thought 92.7 has been Hot AC for at least 6 months, maybe more.
 
Nu_Roo_2 said:
Didn't they migrate Hot AC to 92.7 long before 102.5 relocated? Thought 92.7 has been Hot AC for at least 6 months, maybe more.
Click to expand...

Yes they did. I don't recall saying anything about the time frame in my post.
 
92.7 and 102.5 were simulcasting for the first few weeks (?), then they launched "Highway 102", still in Zanesville.

I still don't get Hank Littick pretending that 102.5 can be heard in any significant chunk of Muskingum County anymore.
 
After years of deregulation, and an industry turned into little more than ponzie real estate schemes (I exaggerate just slightly to make a point) -- should this station move be expected to make any sense as well?

I think it's a shame, maybe a crime, that so much radio is just so lifeless and little more than stale fast food. There's so much with the medium of radio that you can do - and not necessarily with just one music format 24/7 - to communicate, and even attract an audience! (Just don't forget to budget for some real promotion campaigns off the air, and be willing to give it more than six months to catch on).

I'm afraid it probably doesn't really matter who's can hear a lot of these signals any more. It doesn't seem like they're really being targeted at different audiences, but are put into place just so some other sucker can come along at the right time and buy a license for a lot of $$. We listeners, and the few professionals left who still want to work in radio, just have to hope that maybe the next buyer might want to do something that actually is worth a little effort. But don't hold your breath.

I wouldn't be so cynical about this industry if there were more stations that could attract my attention as something other than the aural equivalent of watching a train wreck or the same silly songs I've heard ad naseum, or else some highly paid right wing talking robots or religious business investors inventing enemies to keep themselves in business and manipulate listeners' emotions. Sorry, Columbus, but you guys running the radio stations really can do better. And the residents really do deserve better.

I guess there's probably a few stations that try, and a very few that buck trends and air programming they believe in. But I'd say most of those nowadays are non-commercial.

Interested in hearing other opinions about what you find worthwhile on the air where you live. Any station around you that you think someone listening online from another state should go out of their way to hear? Political and religious polemics that underscore your pre-existing beliefs not included.
 
I'm STILL hearing ads for Zainesville business. Since the tower move towards Columbus, the vast majority of listeners in Zainesville aren't going to be able to hear 102.5 anymore. Also, why would listeners on the West side of Columbus, a target for the 102.5 move in, drive all the way to Zainesville to shop after hearing a Zainesville business ad. Anything you can get/buy in Zainesville you should be able to get in Columbus. Correct?
 
As I just mentioned on the thread about Columbus LPFM 102.1, maybe the fact that Wilks' 95.5 translator at 102.3 remains fired up adds to evidence that 102.5 WHIZ might be angling to sell/LMA to Wilks (perhaps providing a new home for Wink 107.1 on 102.5+102.3).
 
Wow, there is some real in-depth reporting, not to mention inaccurate! It's hard to figure what they mean by the signal covering Muskingum County, but it's not likely a signal anyone would want to listen to in a car. To be fair, I haven't driven over there to sample it yet, but going by the contour maps and knowing what the terrain is like over there and how rough it is on FM signals just going east on I 70, it's very unlikely many people in Muskingum County will be listening regularly. It's very safe to say that their signal in Muskingum County will now be about even with the many "1 share wonder" Class As trying to serve the Columbus market. Their city grade contour does not cover any of Muskingum County. If they had a format that was not available on any other signals in Zanesville, maybe people would put up with the weak signal to hear it, but that is not the case. WCLT offers the same format and puts a city grade signal over all of Zanesville. It's pretty easy to figure who will win this one.
 
That mini-piece in the TR is just a regurgitation of what Hank Littick said on his own TV station.

I haven't been to Z-ville since the 102.5 move, but I'm told the signal is "basically unlistenable" in Zanesville itself, and not much better in areas of Muskingum County that aren't on the western edge. 102.5 is no longer a Muskingum County signal in any shape or form, and I don't know why Hank is basically not being truthful about that.

Well, I know why, but I figure you could let go of claiming that this automated signal is at all important to Zanesville-area listeners by this point. Your primary FM format was retained by the move to 92.7...who cares, in Muskingum County, what happens to 102.5 now?
 
OhioMediaWatch said:
102.5 is no longer a Muskingum County signal in any shape or form, and I don't know why Hank is basically not being truthful about that.
Click to expand...

He obviously doesn't want to take any heat from the locals for selling them out and taking their station away from them, which he surely did for however much he ends up getting for it.
 
CatFM said:
He obviously doesn't want to take any heat from the locals for selling them out and taking their station away from them, which he surely did for however much he ends up getting for it.
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Understood, but isn't that kind of a moot point right now? The WHIZ configuration is now exactly as it had been for decades, except that 92.7/South Zanesville is the FM, with the same format 102.5 had before all this happened.

The only presence taken away was 92.7's "River" CCM format, and much of that landed on the 89.3 non-comm licensed to Newark.

I'm not sure what the outcry would be over the 102.5 signal, pumping out automated country for the past few months, being gone. Maybe a handful of folks who got a better signal out of 102.5 in Zanesville than they can get out of 92.7?
 
OhioMediaWatch said:
CatFM said:
He obviously doesn't want to take any heat from the locals for selling them out and taking their station away from them, which he surely did for however much he ends up getting for it.
Click to expand...

Understood, but isn't that kind of a moot point right now? The WHIZ configuration is now exactly as it had been for decades, except that 92.7/South Zanesville is the FM, with the same format 102.5 had before all this happened.

The only presence taken away was 92.7's "River" CCM format, and much of that landed on the 89.3 non-comm licensed to Newark.

I'm not sure what the outcry would be over the 102.5 signal, pumping out automated country for the past few months, being gone. Maybe a handful of folks who got a better signal out of 102.5 in Zanesville than they can get out of 92.7?



Well it looks like they are working on correcting that problem as well, Southeastern Ohio Broadcasting has an application in for a new broadcast station on an open allotment in McConnelsville Ohio. Not sure what kind of coverage area that the new station will have, as the actual application isnt up on the FCC site as yet, but they could easily build a McConnelsville station out on the same tower that 92.7 is using.
Click to expand...
 
The 102.5 signal in most of Muskingum County and espcially in Zanesville isn't worth anything - alot of static and picket fencing.

As for the 92.7 signal here - its funny but most of the car radios don't find it when "scanning" the dial on the north end of the city or county. Calling it "South Zanesville" is pushing it - the tower site is south of Crooksville.
 
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