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105.9 The Edge Flipping To WMAL-AM Simulcast Monday

My quickie analysis on this is that they're trading a high cume format for a low cume format. That's not good.

The classic rock cume is outperforming its ratings, while the conservative talk gets double the share but half the cume. Today, radio stations are selling cume.

The other problem I'm seeing, at least in markets where it's been done, that conservative talk on FM isn't attracting a bigger or younger audience. In Buffalo, where Entercom made this move a few months ago, it's a failure. But at the same time, WMAL hasn't really solved its morning drive problem yet, have they? That shift has been a revolving door all year. So it's too early to move a work in progress to FM. Wait until you have a hit that's ready to be tried on an FM audience.

However, I'd be concerned that this will alienate the boomers that make up the classic rock audience. That even if they have a good product on MAL, it will not keep any of the current Edge audience, and won't grow what they already had on AM.
 
I bet WBIG will fill the Classic Rockers shoes now. I heard them playing Pink Floyd the other night.
 
TheBigA said:
this will alienate the boomers that make up the classic rock audience. That even if they have a good product on MAL, it will not keep any of the current Edge audience, and won't grow what they already had on AM.
Click to expand...
Talk and Sports are moving to FM all over the place because radio needs to get its unique content into the ears of the younger demos that tune out interference-plagued AM. Anyone can plug 300 songs into a file player and recreate 90% of The "Edge". It sounds like Citadel was trying to nuture a morning show and some personalities along with the stale format, but that alone doesn't always cut it, and Edge's ratings were slim indeed. As mentioned, WBIG or WWDC can easily pick up the slack by throwing in a few harder Classic Rock tunes, if they want to.

Even though WMAL in its current form isn't in great shape, it's as good as it's going to get until programmers figure out a way to lower the demos, perhaps through younger hosts and/or less political content. Attempts to date (Free FM, generic lifestyle talk, and the current "News FM" messes in NYC and Chicago - albeit early in their lifespans) aren't promising. Generic music - especially rock - is on the way out, because just about anyone but the lowest of the lowest common denominator prefers their own music mix to 300 generic consultant-selected burnouts. Add to that Washington's tradition of tuning to FM due to generally lousy AM signals (witness WTOP's ascendancy to the top after the move to 103.5), and moving MAL makes sense.

WMAL's programming on 105.9 is a good start. The morning show can be tweaked and other programming can be gradually improved as it becomes apparent what works. But 105.9 can be branded as unique content starting right now.
 
musichead1029 said:
TheBigA said:
this will alienate the boomers that make up the classic rock audience. That even if they have a good product on MAL, it will not keep any of the current Edge audience, and won't grow what they already had on AM.
Click to expand...
Talk and Sports are moving to FM all over the place because radio needs to get its unique content into the ears of the younger demos that tune out interference-plagued AM. Anyone can plug 300 songs into a file player and recreate 90% of The "Edge". It sounds like Citadel was trying to nuture a morning show and some personalities along with the stale format, but that alone doesn't always cut it, and Edge's ratings were slim indeed. As mentioned, WBIG or WWDC can easily pick up the slack by throwing in a few harder Classic Rock tunes, if they want to.

Even though WMAL in its current form isn't in great shape, it's as good as it's going to get until programmers figure out a way to lower the demos, perhaps through younger hosts and/or less political content. Attempts to date (Free FM, generic lifestyle talk, and the current "News FM" messes in NYC and Chicago - albeit early in their lifespans) aren't promising. Generic music - especially rock - is on the way out, because just about anyone but the lowest of the lowest common denominator prefers their own music mix to 300 generic consultant-selected burnouts. Add to that Washington's tradition of tuning to FM due to generally lousy AM signals (witness WTOP's ascendancy to the top after the move to 103.5), and moving MAL makes sense.

WMAL's programming on 105.9 is a good start. The morning show can be tweaked and other programming can be gradually improved as it becomes apparent what works. But 105.9 can be branded as unique content starting right now.
Click to expand...
Actually WTOP was #1 in its final book before simulcasting with 103.5 IIRC. I for one would like to see the two stations to be able to split off in certain day-parts, if possible. I'll assume that the stereo will be shut down thus allowing better broadcast range to possible each direction save for north-east of, say, Laurel.
 
Last songs:

Van Halen - Dreams
Bruce Springsteen - Born To Run

Went right in to a snippet of Reagan's "Tear down this wall" speech, then to a WMAL sweeper.

It seems like the Edge will remain as a HD-2???

Radio-X
 
So you're reporting 105.9 went to a WMAL simulcast at 5 AM?

According to Yes.com, The Edge is still playing music - "Black Hole Sun" by Soundgarden followed the two songs you mentioned at 4:59 AM - and right now, they're playing Nirvana.
http://www.yes.com/#WVRX

Hmmm...
 
musichead1029 said:
WMAL's programming on 105.9 is a good start. The morning show can be tweaked and other programming can be gradually improved...
Click to expand...

Here's an idea: Dump Sean Hannity! He has not been able to hold onto Rush's lead-in ratings every week for the past several years. Each PPM blurb on DCRTV shows WMAL going from 3rd place to 14th place on average in the afternoon.
 
The move to FM is vital, given the lowering total AM audience. There is no choice but to move the major talkers to FM.

I agree on dumping Hannity. Like Glenn Beck, the TV gig is getting so much attention that they both let the radio show go to the back burner. Beck got dumped in NYC and Phillie. Hannity is off in Phillie and I think dumping him on putting on a lower power station in DC makes sense.
 
I suspect that we are witnessing the beginning of a process to rebuild WMAL.

WMAL's AM signal was arguably the best in town, but no AM covers all of the DC market. 105.9 will better cover the western and northeastern suburbs. It won't be perfect, but it will be better, and it will penetrate into offices where the florescent lighting made listening to AM impossible.

I am sure that Cumulus is well aware of the baskets of money that WTOP trundles off to the bank each week. For Cumulus to survive, it needs a bigger chunk of the pie.

Now WMAL's programming will be under the gun to produce a station that is consistently in the top 5 in all major dayparts. Any program that has not measurably improved in ...oh, say the next year or so won't see 2013. Limbaugh will be the leader that all other dayparts will be judged against.

The big question will be whether Cumulus is ready to spend the BIG bucks needed to pull it off. Because it will require new LOCAL programming and the reconstitution of WMAL’s top notch News Department, not satellite roulette.

They now have location, location, location. The next step is promotion, promotion, promotion.
 
Where one is on the pol. spectrum matters as to how talk is perceived. Conservative talk on commercial radio tends to be more successful, while liberal talk has only succeeded on taxpayer-funded NPR. The likes of Schultz, Miller, etc. are only marginally successful compared with Limbaugh, Hannity etc. Even in Boston where right wing talk does fairly well, while someone has to pay a station to put liberal talk on (commercial radio)*. No doubt the NPR stations in town command most of the ears to those on the left. Right wing talk
makes money.

*--the station, WWZN, does not show up in the ratings at all. Conservative talkers WTKK, WRKO,
WBZ--at least one prom. show, and WXKS do very well.

>>Rush Limbaugh Remains Most-Listened-To News/Talk Radio Personality. The latest numbers have been tallied and there has not been significant change in the landscape of the national scene. Premiere Networks talk superstar Rush Limbaugh maintains his spot as the top news/talk personality on the newly released bi-annual Top Talk Radio Audiences chart with a cume of 15 million-plus weekly listeners according to research from TALKERS.
http://www.talkers.com
 
I don't see the migration of Talk radio to FM as pioneering. I see it as reactive, and as a conditional surrender without an official announcement. I also see it as a shrouded confession (which we'll never hear revealed) that radio has lost its last grasp on connecting with youth through music.

And as an admission that the theory of some people was correct .... that being the likelihood of Classic Rock getting the guillotine as a useful format before Oldies. But that's another topic, really.

An alarming thing about this music-less piling on is that it is being publicized and hyped and executed in major markets -- as if it were some sort of new league with graduating class of superstud players on the roster with no minor league experience. And this new Dream Team Conference is ready to perform on the biggest stages -- at the most crowded venues ? Don't make me laugh. The North American Soccer League of 1980 had a better chance of survival.

These obvious lifeboat capacity jitters, which are chilling major-market management to their bones, were not given hope of remedy by some concept in Allentown or Port Jervis or Annapolis or Winchester. Ironically -- unless I've been misinformed -- the first shot heard 'round the dial was when WTOP topped the list of money-making stations. The thinking that followed this status went no deeper in thought than that. Less music ... fewer royalty payments for streaming.

Look out below. This subsequent lemminglike scurrying ; this Million Wing-Tip March, is apt to turn the FM dial into Short Wave far more swiftly than the way AM did to itself. And as the number of news-talk-religion stations on FM increase, the number of music stations decrease.

The younger demos traditionally had been the prime means of listener replenishment for many decades. But that source of continuity had begun turning apathetic and giving the finger to radio years before iPods, U-Toob, tweeting, smart phones and every other modern device.

Bottom line : Radio management FAILED in its traditional entertainment reponsibilities. They have not kept the new growth anywhere near as cultivated as their older management brethren had done. Now the terminal bumper at the end of the music excursion has been spotted. So this corporate yak about re-situating to the promise of new horizons crammed to the ear lobes with eager and more youthful demos is simply plain denial. This is a dial-wide yard sale in a flooded neighborhood.
 
Steve Green NEPA said:
Bottom line : Radio management FAILED in its traditional entertainment reponsibilities. They have not kept the new growth anywhere near as cultivated as their older management brethren had done.
Click to expand...

Not true. Young audiences for OTA radio are at about the same percentage as they were 25 years ago. And if you look at ratings for youth-oriented formats like Top 40 and CHR, they're doing fine.

What changed is the music. Back in the old days, there were a handful of formats, each with a limited number of artists. The number of artists were limited by the labels who only put out as much music as they can sell. Now, there's no need for labels. Anyone who wants to release music puts it out. Fans of music have splintered into small, narrow niches. Everyone wants to hear their favorites, and has no patience for the favorites of others. So these folks get their music from personalized music devices or their own radio stations at places like Pandora or Slacker.

The reason for moving talk to FM is simple: It's unique, original content that the radio stations own. It isn't owned by record labels. There will always be music on radio...mostly from the biggest formats like pop, country, and urban. But going after the narrow niche formats, or those that attract the over-60 crowd simply doesn't work for radio.
 
Old PD said:
The big question will be whether Cumulus is ready to spend the BIG bucks needed to pull it off. Because it will require new LOCAL programming and the reconstitution of WMAL’s top notch News Department, not satellite roulette.

They now have location, location, location. The next step is promotion, promotion, promotion.
Click to expand...

Therein lies the key: LOCAL! LOCAL! LOCAL! WTOP on FM trumps WMAL on 630 AM. If WMAL on 105.9 FM wants to make a dent against WTOP, WMAL needs to beef up the local news and talk. They could leave the syndicated programming on 630 AM. Being this is Cumulus, I don't know if they have the money or the will to do it. :)
 
radioguy39nj said:
WTOP on FM trumps WMAL on 630 AM. If WMAL on 105.9 FM wants to make a dent against WTOP, WMAL needs to beef up the local news and talk.
Click to expand...

Keep in mind that national programming from NPR on WAMU also beats WMAL, so they key isn't just local.
 
Now playing on 105.9 stream
Stones--Only Rock n Roll
Reagan speech excerpt
Promo for new format
The Who --The Song is Over

Also Changes, Another One Bites the Dust
 
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