This could be a decent full service station again. If its programming were local to Kent County (news, info, talk, sports) it could do well. I just don't see many people listening to ESPN radio. Local sports fans are over on 103.7 or 98.5. Why Hall keeps this is a puzzler. Have they ever sold a station? I know they killed off WNLC/1510 back around 1998.
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1450
- Thread starter N1WVQ
- Start date
Hall hasn't sold stations since the 70's, when they unloaded stations in Beavers Falls, PA and somewhere in Kentucky. WNLC 1510 wasn't sold, the license was turned in because the cost to repair the facility far exceeded the station's value. It was cheaper to purchase 98.7 East Lyme and turn in the AM license.
I once asked one of the Providence AE's how she sold the ESPN AM combo and she said "two words: added value." Buy Cat, get a bunch of bonus spots on the AM's.
It'd be tough to build 1450 into a community station again.
I once asked one of the Providence AE's how she sold the ESPN AM combo and she said "two words: added value." Buy Cat, get a bunch of bonus spots on the AM's.
It'd be tough to build 1450 into a community station again.
I don't know if it's because I'm from Connecticut but a few times I've tried listening to WEEI - 103.7(Rhode Island) and 105.5 (Western Massachusetts) come in at various strengths in greater Bristol and Southington, Connecticut and I found their hosts to be loud and obnoxious. I would much rather listen to ESPN Radio. (97.9 out of Windsor Locks, CT). I like both Mike & Mike and Cowherd. (Plus 97.9 has a decent local afternoon show "The Bower Show"). As for FOX Sports Radio - compared to ESPN Radio it's a snooze fest. The only decent show is the local morning show on WPOP 1410 - The Nanos Show hosted by Paul Nanos.
N1WVQ said:
I don't know... The station was resurrected as a local full service MOR in 1973. Former Delaware owners spent three years proving that a Class C AM rimshot signal needs more than Johnny Mann jingles and Top 40 to dent a larger market. Original WWRI calls had been replaced with WSVP and were changed to WKRI to reflect local coverage for the entire Kent County. They re-established themselves as a local voice and had a tremendous boost in 1978. Mid January 1978 a crippling ice storm devastated the Pawtuxet Valley. No power for over a week made a large number of new listeners! WKRI was the sole news source as the rest of RI wasn't iced. The streets were lined with piles of downed tree limbs. Around 10 days later a one foot snowfall insured that there was absolutely no place anywhere that a plow or shoveler could pack one more flake. Nothing melted from the ice storm on because the temperature was consistently 20 degrees below average right up until... February 6! The Blizzard. Four feet of snow paralyzed the Pawtuxet Valley. That is a snowfall depth NO person who experienced the Blizzard will argue! Many people were without power for a week or more and everyone was homebound for a week because the Governor had banned all personal vehicles (the roads were impassable anyway). WKRI became everybody's #1 station!
1450 was owned by some pretty savvy local people and they immediately seized on the opportunity. WKRI was parlayed into a winner for well over a decade. The local market changed. Many local businesses folded or moved. The demographics had evolved. 1450's hot shot local GM was killed in an automobile accident (not wearing seat belt). The station owners felt that the market was no longer interested in supporting the station...
WHIM personnel purchased the station and tried to rimshot Providence against WCTK. WHIM's 1st day on 1450 featured a live remote afternoon/evening broadcast from an auto dealership in North Attleborough. Get it? Enter Hibernia and Radio Disney - until THEY grabbed 550. Hall shows up and bundles 1450 (again WWRI) with 1340 WNBH and runs MOYL. WLKW calls free up and Hall hangs them on 1450. The stations often pulled a 1. Format changed to ESPN. ZZZzzzz...
The main thing to consider here is the fact that those local owners West Warwick couldn't support are still very successful owners of a small market Class C and also Class D. Guys that know the game well can't win with a local 1450. Still feeling lucky with 1450?
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If it were me....I would forget about 1450. To paraphrase an old saying: "There's not enough there there".
Some time ago over on the Boston board, Scott Fybush had mentioned that (from an engineering view)....that it would be technically possible for Providence's 790 to do a significant power/signal upgrade....God!...I wish he had gone into details about that!. THAT would be a good place to start with a Metro-Providence Full-Service experiment.
Failing that....Second choice would be 920.
Failing that....Third choice would be a total re-build of 990.
Some time ago over on the Boston board, Scott Fybush had mentioned that (from an engineering view)....that it would be technically possible for Providence's 790 to do a significant power/signal upgrade....God!...I wish he had gone into details about that!. THAT would be a good place to start with a Metro-Providence Full-Service experiment.
Failing that....Second choice would be 920.
Failing that....Third choice would be a total re-build of 990.
That's a whole new issue: It'd be one thing to take an existing AM with a functioning and satisfactory physical plant and try to go 100% local... it'd be a whole different animal to either build a station from the ground up or add to an array. Could you recoup the costs quickly enough to rebuild a six tower array and transmitter plant in Burriville? Would adding towers to the 790 array generate enough additional revenue to offset the cost?
I mean, 790's a pretty decent signal on its own. I don't know if anyone could ever justify the cost of that upgrade.
I mean, 790's a pretty decent signal on its own. I don't know if anyone could ever justify the cost of that upgrade.
Dighton Rockhead said:
There was talk a few years ago on this board that there might be a possibility that 990 could move COL and transmitter to North Providence at I forget either 1000 or 5000 days and reduced nights with one tower.DOnt remember where that conversation went.
kenwood101 said:
Ironically...the engineering nuts and bolts would probably be the easy part of returning 990 to the air at less insane power levels with a pattern capable of serving the market as well or better than at Burrillville (by way of a diplex with 1290).
The speed-bumps in the way would include 1) The expenses of getting the engineering work done. 2) Getting RIPR to agree to the diplex...and...if so...cutting a deal with them that satisfies both parties. 3) The little problem of getting some other station in the market to take the Greenville COL that 990 would have to abandon...(more $$$). 4) OH!...almost forgot...all the billable hours for FCC attorneys to slog through the FCC paperwork associated with all this....(more $$$).
In short...too many real world roadblocks are in the way of getting this done.
DG02816 said:
Hall does not own it. The D is a 1380 kHz ND 2500 Day/ 18 watts night. The C diplexes the same tower. Not certain that both stations are owned by the same entity. However, there is significant cooperation between the stations and both are successful, professional, small market broadcast operations.
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I have questions: when did the town change? Was the station broadcasting solely to W.W. or if to a larger area, to where? Have the circumstances changed since then? Does 1450 have to be solely W.W. in terms of content? Yes, I would still like to give 1450 a whirl if I had the money.
It also seems you think ESPN Radio is boring and if that assessment is accurate, I wholeheartedly agree. But that's probably a better discussion for the sports board.
It also seems you think ESPN Radio is boring and if that assessment is accurate, I wholeheartedly agree. But that's probably a better discussion for the sports board.
Back in the WKRI days, the station moved the studio out of the basement garage it was in, and into a small house next to On The Roch's on Centrevill Road, just over the city line in Warwick. With this move, it tried to be a Kent County station, rather than one just focused on West Warwick.
DG02816 said:
And...if memory serves, the station manager at the time was a fellow named Tom Ianitti (? spelling ?)...the fellow would try just about anything to make WKRI relevant to more than just W. Warwick.
For a time during the mid 80's, Steve White found a home there after having left 920 and also his abortive one-night-stand (literally!) nights on 550.
Does anyone know if Ianitti is even still alive? At some point, I lost track of him, and never heard anything again.
Of course, this was a number of years before anyone in Rhode Island had ever heard of Frank Battaglia, Francis Battaglia, or Christine Trudeau.
N1WVQ said:
1450 served West Warwick and much of Coventry. The Towns are geographically located in the Pawtuxet Valley. In the late 60s the Malls opened in Warwick and the Interstates bypassed the Valley. Businesses began moving and/or closing. Mills were closing. Some tiny blips happened along the way. FM, cable, internet, cell phones, "characters" got old and died off... The Valley became just another homogenized community like thousands of other areas in the country. The only excitement other than the St. Patrick Parade is the Thanksgiving football game between West Warwick and Coventry. It is still always fun to watch the W.W. Wizards dress Coventry's team like ballerinas every year.
Most people are sitting on the couch studying the female anatomy. Kids are texting and playing video games. Who'd you aim 1450 at?
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K
Ken Grady
Guest
WKRI in the 70's and 80's was in the right place at the right time to capitalize on a major teachers' strike in Coventry, the ice storm and blizzard, and a local talk show format. They had actual, real local news with John Parente, and the legendary Gene DeGraide doing morning drive and talk. Roger E. Bouchard and Tom Ianitti were in sales and management, and, as far as I know, the station was successful and profitable. Now, even with that combination of community service and talent, could a local station on AM1450 make it in 2013?
(Bob Allen, who did work at WKRI, had moved to Woonsocket with Roger Bouchard at the time of his car crash, I believe.)
(Bob Allen, who did work at WKRI, had moved to Woonsocket with Roger Bouchard at the time of his car crash, I believe.)
N1WVQ said:
How could I forget 1450's broadcasts of the West Warwick Financial Town Meetings? What a trip!
I agree with Mr. Grady's assessment of 1450.
Place an appropriate regional map of your station's coverage area on a convenient wall in the station. Stick a pin in the map anytime a listener calls or writes and indicates where they are located. In a reasonable amount of time there should (hopefully) be enough pins to depict a pattern of the majority of your audience. That is the general area you want to aim your programming attentions toward.
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