97.5 FM now belongs to Greater Media as part of exchange with Nassau

[jayedwards]

Mainstream talk (not hot talk) is possible on 97.5 FM. WPHT and WNTP are not great by any means!

 

[jayedwards]

I guess mainstream is the wrong term. I meant 97.5 could try conservative/middle of the road talk against WPHT and WNTP. (and---do WFIL and WNTP make $$$$ even without ratings? guess so.)

 

[Kenso]

Well, seeing how good YSP is doing with it during the day, do you really think they'd want to start off that way? Geez, I sure hope not.

 

[JustinT]

What if GM made 97.5 Talk? Not Hot talk, but regular talk. After All they own 96-9 FM Talk in Boston. Although i don't live in Boston, 96.9 seems to be a good alternative to WRKO.

The potential issue with FM talk, as seen with the launch of 96.9 FM Talk, is that it takes some time to gain a presence in a market. For the first few months, the ratings for 96.9 were awful; I seem to recall them going below a share 12+ at one point. The only notable personality on the lineup at first was Imus, and the "soft launch" created Imus in the morning and smooth jazz all day long that just created listener confusion.

If Greater Media is able to get well-known local personalities and syndicated talk programs, a "97.5 FM Talk" could be a success. But there's always the potential for failure; just look at CC's new KTLK-FM in Minneapolis: Rush Limbaugh and local morning/afternoon drive shows were all set up before the station launched on 1/2/06; nevertheless, overall listenership is down from the old SJ format.

Launching one of the company's Magic ACs on 97.5 would work well. As a company, Greater Media really knows what they're doing with the AC format. In Boston, WMJX's dominance led to the demise of WSSH and WVBF. In Detroit, GM hired the morning show from CC's AC powerhouse WNIC, and launched "Magic 105.1", a station that was able to take roughly half of the WNIC audience. As others have said, launching an AC would not compete with the other stations in the cluster, and would likely be less expensive to launch than a talk format.

 

[jayedwards]

Guess there's no chance of 97.5 becoming liberal/left talk--- Air America--- Philly! Compared to other large cities---Philly is quite conservative --- correct?

 

[Rick_E]

This stinks! There goes the Free Beer -n- Hot Wings show. I am a regular listener and they do receive many calls from the Philly area. I am hoping they keep the show on if they change the format. And YES they could certaintly do a pure Active rock station which sounds different from MMR because the new station would play the 'real' active rock stuff that MMR and YSP do not touch.

 

[Jul]

Do you think that there is a possibility that GM would move the sports format on WPEN to 97.5 FM and give Nassau 950 AM and maybe put their ESPN radio format that is on 920 AM to 950 AM and finally be a Philadelphia station with a much better signal ?

 

[Herb999]

Lib/socialist talk is for AMs who have nothing better to put on, outside of granola markets like Portland. This is a taker lib town, not a granola lib one.

 

[nd2023]

You better start taping 97.5 The Hawk because it's going away soon. There's always 99.9 and 105.7 The Hawk.

It would not make sense to promote 102.9 MGK on 97.5 when it's still in Trenton, because half its current coverage area does not get WMGK.

 

[wprt949]

when will 97.5 tell its listeners that the hawk will be gone soon ???

 

[trolleyk]

Does Greater Media plan to relocate the studios of 97.5 from New Jersey to Bala Cynwyd, PA?

 

[Starscream]

Does Greater Media plan to relocate the studios of 97.5 from New Jersey to Bala Cynwyd, PA?

Considering the current 97.5 studios are inside of Nassau's offices, I would pretty much assume that they are going to be relocated. To where? Who knows.

Does GM have studio space anywhere near the 97.5 transmitter site outside of the offices in Bala?

 

[Rockin Rob]

I was never sure why GM moved 95.7 out of 4100 Ridge after the demise of FLN.

They probably would have had the space there...

 

[Bill_W]

I'm pretty sure the old WFLN is where WYBE is now. Anyway, GM has 4 stations on the 2nd & 3rd floors at one bala. With 4 stations, it's not hard to squeeze out room for a 5th station there. Anyway, GM is building a new studio for P&S in one bala. Maybe that's part of the plan with a couple of new studios...