94 WIP... A Reflection on The Industry or The Population?

[Radio Wreck]

WYSP in its current state is a failure. But is utilizing another FM Stereo frequency for talk radio really the answer? I don't accept that there is no other music format that CBS could sell on 94.1 There was more variety on AM and FM 15-20 years ago when the population of the Delaware Valley was even less diverse than it is now.

Can anyone explain this? Is it because the radio industry is less creative than it was in the past? Have they gotten worse at selling their products? Or is it because the entire population of people in their 20's can't think past the 10 or 15 current hip hop tracks and people over 35 can't stand anything other than the so-called "greatest hits" of their youth?

Are there other factors at play here such as ipods, mp3's, etc? Or is it because the AM band is too noisy even for talk radio these days?

It's a shame to lose another FM frequency for a talk format that sounds fine on AM radio. Any thoughts?

 

[jhguthlac]

Its a reflection of both. In my home Wilmington market, AM listening is down to 7% of the total audience. People have left the AM band in droves. All that had to happen in Philly was for Greater Media to put sports on FM and WIP went down. The WIP audience is vanishing. Only KYW and WPHT are still in the ratings. The move to FM must take place.

 

[JH_Radio]

AM is interpherence prone in my area of Bensalem.
IF you look at a t thread on c coast to coast, I have a somewhat detailed listing of stations and what I can get.
Also remember, the quolity of receivers for the most part sucks.
On top of that, you got HD on Am which degrades the anolog frequency responce by a major amount.
I doubt most care. Its either there fave. program in mostly quieting or they go off to something else.
I'm not much into talk these days, and AM doesn't have much music. What music is on AM isn't music I'd listen too, or its horid reception that I can't make die.
Now when I'm in The Villages, WVLG is a good music station with excelent daytime reception, and I can make the co-channel interpherence go away at night, and some static still remains. WRZN is a mixture of Soft AC/Standards there, and I like that sometimes, there's static, but its listenable to me.
I use a Turk Advantage loop with Maduci tuner.

I used to like WHAT when it was doing oldies not long ago.
When I was a kid I liked WPGR at times, and WOGL 1210. Also I remember listening to WBUX the 70's connnection, and WBCB when it played more oldies.
WPEN's standard was never my thing, WWJZ you can get on serius, (not that I listen to that either.)
WFIL's christian CHR programming I'd listen too if it was in AM Stereo.
Even on a high-end receiver, anolog stations that have HD on there sidebands sound horible.
I can listen to it yes, but the high's are so not there.
Dad will listen to sports on 97.5 or the Philly's on WPHT regardless of audio. He'll notice the horid sound on 1210 when I point it out to him, but he's happy to hear the Philly's and leaves it at that.
KYW is always the sorce for traphic here. Again regardless of audio, if we're stuck on 95, he's just happy to hear traphic and weather.

 

[TimeIsTight]

is it because the AM band is too noisy even for talk radio these days?

Unfortunately, with the exception of the 50-kw stations, there are too many places where the AM signals get buzzed, clicked and noised out. Higher voltage utility upgrades along major and secondary roads are making AM harder and harder to listen to for the vast numbers of motorists who drive by. Just look at the ratings and cumes of most of the AMs and compare it to the major FMs. And then the AMs also have far less desirable demos.

Then you have younger people who have never really had a good reason to listen to AM, who never even check it out.

And finally you have cluster strategies that are distorting what used to be a different format competition where each owner only had an AM and an FM and picked just one target market slice for each to serve. Now some stations are used defensively just to damage the ratings of particular stations in other clusters, and to protect the demo leadership ratings of major stations in its own cluster. All of that adds up to more of the same formats, and less variety in programming on the air. Thankfully, internet radio is likely to be easier to use in cars, and portable situations in a few years and then the choice of programming may be almost unlimited.

 

[fmradio1]

Actually Time, cluster strategies have given markets more formatic variety. Before consolidation, you often had three or four stations in a market programming the same format (whichever was the most popular at the moment.) There was one point where Pittsburgh had 4 country stations, and NYC had four Top 40 outlets. After 1996, cluster managment allowed for "flanker" formats playing different music (or talk) to thrive. Chances are Philly would not have had a fulltime classic rocker, or FM gospel format, or even an Alternative outlet, without consolidation.

It's becoming obvious that AM is quickly dying, and operators of relatively successful AM franchises are trying to save them before the band becomes totally irrelevant. WIP is the latest to move to FM, but they've also shaken up their on air lineup, recognizing that content is just as important, if not more so, than band. That leaves KYW as the only major station that gets major ratings and revenue, left on the AM dial. It will hang in there for awhile, but eventually it too will have to migrate to FM as well. I'm not counting WPHT at this point, because when the Phillies move off 1210 (which after this season is highly likely,) that station is just as screwed as 610, 950, and all the rest.

Lastly, no matter how many terrestrial stations a market has, regardless of band, internet radio is coming. It will hit car dashboards in the next few years. You can already stream stations on your smartphone and patch them into your sound system. I can listen to any station I want, wherever I want, on my iPad. Who needs a radio or antenna? The future is coming, quicker than most realize, and terrestrial radio isn't part of it.

 

[imhomerjay]

Here's my question about that: what about the cost? With the increasing use of data caps (and hefty overages), is it possible that it would limit the willingness of people to, say, stream Pandora via their wireless carrier on a road trip? For those grandfathered in to unlimited plans, it may not matter, but the moment they switch...bam....that drive to the shore streaming their favorite music suddenly takes a bite out of the data they have to work with.

And when it's integrated in the car's dash...who will foot the bill for the mobile bandwidth? Certainly, there will be affluents and technophiles for whom the cost is not a concern. But at what point do we reach a tipping point in the broader public's willingness to pay more and more monthly costs? Just because the website is free (though not all are), the data will bite you big time.

Just throwing it out there....

 

[MikefromDelaware]

AM has been dieing for years. What has kept it alive is talk, sports/talk, news, news/talk, sports, religious, and ethnic programming. Essentially all spoken word programs other than ethnic music (but as those groups become more wealthy they too won't want AM, but want FM for their music too). AM could attract plenty of older listeners IF they played the music the older folks want to hear which FM generally avoids, but as advertisers don't want anyone older than 49 they've cut out the legs from AM radio.

In Wilmington we had AM 1290 WJBR-AM that played a great selection of Standards from Westwood One. This 1K station got great ratings, but no one wanted to buy radio time there. Today, WWTX, 1290 THE TICKET get's crappy ratings as it airs Fox Sports Radio, but the advertisers want that younger male audience so they actually get more spots than the more popular AM-1290 did, even though they reach far fewer listeners. It is what it is. Interestingly, both WIP and WPEN-AM / 97.5 the Fanatic get better ratings in Wilmington than 1290 the ticket does.

So WIP one of the nation's oldest AM stations, one of Philly's greatest stations, is doing sports/talk, but lets' face it, the younger demo for the most part won't tune in to AM radio, so CBS radio is doing what makes sense, adding one of their strong FM stations with AM 610 WIP to make a solid AM/FM signal 610/94.1 WIP Sports Radio. They'll get me now as a listener during the work day, as I can't get 610 WIP very well in New Castle, Del, but 94.1 comes in great. My guess is, there are plenty of others in the Philly/Trenton/Wilmington area with the same problem. Now you have a choice, 610 or 94.1. As someone on one of the other Philly board threads pointed out, that when there's a conflict as in a 76'ers game and a Flyers game, or whatever, one can be aired on 610 and the other on 94.1 which is a win/win for WIP as they carry both games get spot revenue for both games and the Philly radio audience can hear whichever game they choose.

Some have expressed concern that Philly now has 4 Sports/Talk stations. I sometimes listen to the Fanatic 97.5 (can't get 950 WPEN at work) and both WIP and WPEN are Sports/talk stations, but both are very different from the other and will attract different types of listeners or give the sports listener a choice, depending on what's being discussed, etc. As this region takes its Philly sports seriously, this could and should be a money maker for both stations. Philly is a sports city/metro area where two sports stations which is what you really have, not 4, can do well ratings wise and spot wise. And lets' face it, that's what radio is all about. Making money for the owners. So those who can't get 97.5 well, but can get 950 will listen to 950. Those who can't get 610 well, but can get 94.1 will now have that opportunity to hear what WIP sportstalk is doing. A win/win for Philly sportsfans.

Let's face it, the music world is not working as well for radio as it used to. Today's kids get their music from online, down load to I-pods, Blackberry's, MP-3's, etc. It is logical that spoken word programming which isn't down loadable as it's new and fresh every day unlike hearing your favorite artist via CD's on the Radio isn't. So AM will continue to die off, but FM will continue to migrate more and more to spoken word programming. I could see a day when WPHT will also become WPHT AM/FM simulcasting their local talk on 1210 and pick one of the FM's left in the CBS Philly Cluster, same with KYW where you'd have KYW AM/FM. The advertisers want YOUNG, not Boomers. The boomers were the last demo who grew up with AM radio and as even we Boomers ( I'm 60) will pick FM over AM if it plays what we want to hear, how much less will Gen X, Y, etc, be towards AM radio. FM's chance to continue to flourish is to move more towards spoken word programming.

Radio is around 90 years old. One thing radio has done well over the almost century of its existence is to be good at changing and adapting to what's going on in the larger world. It will be interesting to see IF AM radio has any more tricks up its sleeve to keep it viable. It's had a good long run, 90 years. Time marches on and maybe its time for AM to bid farewell. Eventually this will happen just as the Victrola disappeared. For those who don't know, a Victrola was a phonograph, a record player, that played one sided shellac records at 78 RPM's and the sound came from vibrating a needle that moved as it hit the grooves cut in the record and the sound vibrated through a hollow tube that the needle was attached to and came out of a horn or bell. These Victrola's were powered by a spring, no electricity, you cranked it up, like you'd do for a wrist watch, wait we have batteries now in wrist watches. Anyhow, you'd crank up the tension on the Victrola and it played a couple of records before you had to crank it up again. If you want to see these interesting machines, there's a great museum in Dover Delaware called the Victrola Museum. They'll play you a record on one of their Victrola's of Caruso singing an opera piece. Who's Caruso? He was a famous opera singer of his time like Pavarotti is today. Who's Pavarotti? Go Google it. My point is Time marches on. Cool marches on, and what we think is cool today, will be what was that?? to a future group of folks in a few short years.