1600 WULM sold to Radio Maria

[gr8oldies]

From the Springfield News-Sun

http://www.springfieldnewssun.com/n/content/oh/story/news/local/2008/03/09/sns031008wulm.html

 

[SFIND]

The inevitable is now fact.

Goodbye WULM, thanks for ruining the station, Williams, by changing it to music. You think anyone in Springfield wanted to listen to music on AM?

Oh well, no need to beat a dead horse.

Special thanks to Marty Bannister and Scott Leo for giving the station a fighting chance and creating sports programming people would listen to earlier in the decade.

Special thanks to Jim Scoby, Dave Williams, and John Derr for keeping the show on all these years and for keeping HS football on.

And thanks to gr8oldies and the others who tried to keep the station alive.

I've enjoyed growing up and listening to WULM. Without it, I would have not wanted to go into Journalism/Broadcasting.

Hopefully I'll have a couple of more opportunites to call into WULM and talk about sports (saturdays, 9-10:30)

Bryant Billing
The Springfield Paper Sports Writer

 

[nmoore6676]

The inevitable is now fact.

Goodbye WULM, thanks for ruining the station, Williams, by changing it to music. You think anyone in Springfield wanted to listen to music on AM?

Oh well, no need to beat a dead horse.

Special thanks to Marty Bannister and Scott Leo for giving the station a fighting chance and creating sports programming people would listen to earlier in the decade.

Special thanks to Jim Scoby, Dave Williams, and John Derr for keeping the show on all these years and for keeping HS football on.

And thanks to gr8oldies and the others who tried to keep the station alive.

I've enjoyed growing up and listening to WULM. Without it, I would have not wanted to go into Journalism/Broadcasting.

Hopefully I'll have a couple of more opportunites to call into WULM and talk about sports (saturdays, 9-10:30)

Bryant Billing
The Springfield Paper Sports Writer

I too grew up listening to WBLY, with Smilin' Bob, Roger Sharp, Dick Hatfield and many others who I thought then and still do believe were excellent broadcasters as well supporters of the local community. Something that is dying out as these small stations fall one by one. I would guess that the next step will be an application to move the transmitter to Dayton.

AM radio can survive and music will work if it is filling a need. I think though that WBLY was better as a news sports talk format. I was unable to hear it because they never streamed until after it became WULM.

 

[alans613]

Just wanted to point out that just off of the US 40 overpass that connects the east and west ends of Springfield...A huge sign still sits amongst the trees that says in big gold letters "1600 WBLY Country". You can see it in the winter when the trees are bare. Sad to see WBLY/WULM getting sold. Years ago Springfield had a huge CHR in WIZE(The first station I ever listened to on an old Popeye AM transister radio back in 1982)as well as "Smilin'" Bob Yontz on WBLY, as well as AC on 103/102.9 WAZU. Now we have nothing. WAZU was sold to Osborne in January 1989, WIZE was passed around until CC snapped it up('IZE was doing well even as a repeater when they did Standards, until CC flipped it to a repeater of a repeater doing a sports format out of Cincy that does zero ratings), and then at least 'BLY, later known as WULM, sold from the Yontz family to Urban Light, was at least still locally owned and operated. No longer. RIP Springfield radio. :'(

 

[gabigley1]

According to this post http://www.radio-info.com/smf/index.php/topic,100879.0.html
they are already on the air. Then signed on May 31, 2008 at Noon.

Is there still a move to Dayton in the works?

 

[kirkiefan]

At present they are still in Springfield. They stepped inside the Miracle Mile studios on Saturday to realign the sattellite dish for the RM audiofeed from Alexandria.

There is a lot to be done so there is no word on any move to Dayton. As for now they are still in Springfield as mentioned on its top of hour ID.

 

[gr8oldies]

It's a group ID for the whole chain (much like Jimmy Swaggart's stations do). WULM was missing from the first one I heard Monday morning but was there by the second time.

 

[spfldgrandpa]

WULM had to change to music because they could not get enough listeners to support a talk format.

Since WULM is licensed to Springfield, the tower has to remain in Clark County. All of the Springfield stations that have forsaken the community for Dayton still have their towers in Clark County. WIZE tower is on Miracle Mile; 102.9 and WULM share the same tower on Miller Rd. just off of Troy Rd.

 

[Limp73]

WULM had to change to music because they could not get enough listeners to support a talk format.

Since WULM is licensed to Springfield, the tower has to remain in Clark County. All of the Springfield stations that have forsaken the community for Dayton still have their towers in Clark County. WIZE tower is on Miracle Mile; 102.9 and WULM share the same tower on Miller Rd. just off of Troy Rd.

Another reason to take back WIZE from Clear Channel and bring it back to Springfield where it belongs.....and keep Kiss Country local as well. It's time for Spingfield to forgive WIZE of its past mistakes and damage done by Joe Taylor and Jerry Staggs among others.

John Hall (I'm sure) would have agreed if he were still with us. (are you listening Mainline?)

AS for the junky equipment,that's debate-able. I voiced liners for WULM's oldies format in 2004 on its LPB production console. Had no real problems when I did,except for some occasional RF from WIZE. I also did a couple of voicers on the Wheatstone slide rule console in the old WBLY studio...still no prob. Never worked with the Arrakis console in the old WIZE air studio since I only did freelance voice over work and didn't jock there. According to past posts by gr8oldies,it was NOT a good console. The driveway and parking lot needs re-paved and the drinking water wasn't all that great for the coffeemaker....yet I applaud Bob Pitch and his crew for making do with what little they had...and that's commendable. After Rock n' Soul classics gave way to the "Sunshine Station" imaging I was told another voice was needed to convey the programming change and I moved on and discovered RM later that year when WHJM-FM in Anna (actually Botkins with its transmitter there)came on the air that summer.

Since I now do voicers for Radio Maria,the infamous "half-broken transmitter" has been repaired by a member or the World Family engineering department with new modules installed according to operations manager John Koenig who is a great individual to work with (and a fellow parishioner) showed me around the transmitter site recently with the repairs made. John beforehand came from a Catholic station out west. WULM will get better as Radio Maria slowly grows...were slowly getting the bugs and anomalies out.

My thanks also to Kim Faris for voicing the new top of hour ID

I sincerly hope that WIZE will somehow come back home and Kiss Country will stay in Springfield as well.

When WULM came up for sale I mentioned it to RM's Dayton volunteers as a suggestion to bring Radio Maria to the Spingfield and Dayton area..so if you want to blame anyone blame me...not Radio Maria....and yes I'm Catholic.

I wish Bob Pitch,Dale Grimm,Marco Simmons,Brad Lovett,Larry Spicer,Michelle Phillips,Joe Madigan and of course Eli Williams my best...it was a pleasure meeting (and breifly working) with all of you and miss all of you...you were a great bunch of sincere people who have a passion for radio in its puerst form....and without the corporate greed.

Peace be with 'ya

Limp73

 

[KFodor]

WULM had to change to music because they could not get enough listeners to support a talk format.

Since WULM is licensed to Springfield, the tower has to remain in Clark County. All of the Springfield stations that have forsaken the community for Dayton still have their towers in Clark County. WIZE tower is on Miracle Mile; 102.9 and WULM share the same tower on Miller Rd. just off of Troy Rd.

Another reason to take back WIZE from Clear Channel and bring it back to Springfield where it belongs.....and keep Kiss Country local as well. It's time for Spingfield to forgive WIZE of its past mistakes and damage done by Joe Taylor and Jerry Staggs among others.

John Hall (I'm sure) would have agreed if he were still with us. (are you listening Mainline?)

AS for the junky equipment,that's debate-able. I voiced liners for WULM's oldies format in 2004 on its LPB production console. Had no real problems when I did,except for some occasional RF from WIZE. I also did a couple of voicers on the Wheatstone slide rule console in the old WBLY studio...still no prob. Never worked with the Arrakis console in the old WIZE air studio since I only did freelance voice over work and didn't jock there. According to past posts by gr8oldies,it was NOT a good console. The driveway and parking lot needs re-paved and the drinking water wasn't all that great for the coffeemaker....yet I applaud Bob Pitch and his crew for making do with what little they had...and that's commendable. After Rock n' Soul classics gave way to the "Sunshine Station" imaging I was told another voice was needed to convey the programming change and I moved on and discovered RM later that year when WHJM-FM in Anna (actually Botkins with its transmitter there)came on the air that summer.

Since I now do voicers for Radio Maria,the infamous "half-broken transmitter" has been repaired by a member or the World Family engineering department with new modules installed according to operations manager John Koenig who is a great individual to work with (and a fellow parishioner) showed me around the transmitter site recently with the repairs made. John beforehand came from a Catholic station out west. WULM will get better as Radio Maria slowly grows...were slowly getting the bugs and anomalies out.

My thanks also to Kim Faris for voicing the new top of hour ID

I sincerly hope that WIZE will somehow come back home and Kiss Country will stay in Springfield as well.

When WULM came up for sale I mentioned it to RM's Dayton volunteers as a suggestion to bring Radio Maria to the Spingfield and Dayton area..so if you want to blame anyone blame me...not Radio Maria....and yes I'm Catholic.

I wish Bob Pitch,Dale Grimm,Marco Simmons,Brad Lovett,Larry Spicer,Michelle Phillips,Joe Madigan and of course Eli Williams my best...it was a pleasure meeting (and breifly working) with all of you and miss all of you...you were a great bunch of sincere people who have a passion for radio in its puerst form....and without the corporate greed.

Peace be with 'ya

Limp73

Glad to hear you're getting your arms around the transmitter problems. That can be nothing less than an improvement for the station.

No one should blame you at all for bringing RM into the mix. Had RM not bought the station, it would, eventually have gone silent. No one would have paid Urban Light what they wanted, as there was little in the way of assets to the station, just, basically a license and a (former) transmitter badly in need of some TLC. So in doing what RM did, it kept a station on the air in that local community.

Could the station have succeeded in a music/community format of some sort? Yes, but it would have taken a hands-on, professional owner with cash to invest (and money to initially lose) who would have demanded nothing less than a totally professional operation, while spending his or her time shaking hands and convincing local business people (and listeners) that there was value to the station. The staff of WULM did the best they could, and they should be commended for the attempt and hard work. They just didn't have the backing, or the leadership to pull it off.

It is not easy to run any radio station - large or small. And it's especially tough to be a stand alone AM with nighttime signal issues in a small town.

I knew John Hall, and respected him greatly. But he's gone now. Some of you need to understand that. The days of WIZE are gone. Just like the days of WING in Dayton and WCOL in Columbus. That's the painful truth (and those of you who know me know how much I respect and revere the impact stations like WING had back then.) Could a WIZE be resurrected? Perhaps. But, it would take the type of owner described above. There's little reason for Clear Channel, or Mainline, or anyone to put any big money into a Class C AM station that hasn't turned a profit for...how many years now?

When WIZE was at its' peak, it pulled around a 1.5 to a 2 share of the Dayton market. It's a cipher today, and has largely been a cipher for a decade or more. You don't make money with that with any owner. That's why the combo with WONE...it shored up WONE's terrible nighttime signal (or non-signal) in Clark County and allowed the sports programming on WONE to be heard in Clark County at night. It's sad, but it's about the only smart thing an owner could do given the circumstances. Otherwise, there's no reason to continue to pay the electric bill for WIZE, absent, of course, the type of owner described above.

I've never been against what Radio Maria is doing. Will it eventually get a big audience? I don't know. But, I think Radio Maria isn't looking necessarily for "quantity" (if they get it, great...if they don't, oh well), but "quality" (as in the souls that can be brought about to its' message). More power to them.

 

[gr8oldies]

Bringing a local WIZE back would have a lot to do with how much Springfielder's actually would turn off the Dayton stations and support a Springfield station. Others have tried.