Re: Yee-haw
SirRoxalot said:
Besides, Legrett needs to do SOMETHING with the mess he's got in Syracuse. Watching it continue to circle the drain doesn't help him justify his paycheck at a time when Citadel is fighting to keep its NYSE listing.
Here's the problem. With Citadel fighting to keep its NYSE listing, does Legrett have the freedom and/or the budget to make such bold moves?
Sure, the timing is right, and it shouldn't take much to come up with a music clock that's better than B. But it still takes a lot to bring down a heritage, dominant station. As we've seen with teams like Beaner & Ken or even Pete & Brenda, CNY listeners don't always take very kindly to out-of-towners. CNY listeners don't really like "robot radio" where every song is followed by pre-produced liners that sound stale after you've heard all 20 of them for the sixth time after listening for just one workday.
Citadel would almost
have to hire Skip Clark away from Movin' (just because he's the only ex-BBS personality I can think of who's still nearby) and bring in at least one other well-known personality for afternoon drive. A good midday jock would be nice too, but they could get away with a "new face"
if carefully-chosen. Heck, now that the Governor has signed the law abolishing non-competes, maybe Citadel could hire away some existing B personalities. Still, no matter what course they take, it would likely cost a pretty penny to make it all happen.
And once Citadel does make its move (or even beforehand -- buzz would almost definitely get back to CC), you can bet BBS would immediately alter its M.O. in order to match and/or counter whatever Citadel is doing.
In the long run, no matter what brilliant things Citadel can come up with... WBBS is firmly-entrenched. No matter how mediocre WBBS is, they already have a massive audience. You could say they're the sleeping bear... and as soon as someone tries to wake up that bear, it will react and it will almost likely win. They continue to do what they do because they have no competition. But if someone else tries to come along, you can bet WBBS will immediately change to cancel out any "advantage" the competition had. (Just look at how WFRG in Utica has defeated one competitor after another over the years.)
In order to be successful, anyone hoping to overtake WBBS would need a lot of money: for great talent, great music consulting, great imaging, and tons of promotions. You need TV, billboards, lots of on-air cash giveaways, and lots of public appearances. Running a new radio station is a lot like running a political campaign. You have to be everywhere all the time, introducing yourself and your product to the market, one listener at a time. That's pretty hard to pull off when all or part of your on-air staff is syndicated and/or voicetracked from out-of-town.
Any competitor would also need a lot of time and patience. Taking over a 14-rating station, where the nearest competitor has an 8, does not happen overnight. A competitor would need his/her upper management to understand and commit to the fact that such a battle could very well take at least 2-4 years. In today's world of corporate radio, it's tough for a GM to get approval for a plan that involves several quarters of spending big money before there's even a chance of any notable success.
Long story short, it might be better for Citadel to keep things the way they are. Sure, they'd be heroes if they could unseat WBBS, but if the effort failed, they'd wind up in an even
worse situation than the current state of 95X.
