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98.7 Jacksonville/Wilmington What A Waste Of A 100kw Signal

Before I go any further I want to make it perfectly clear; this is not a post against hispanics.

I have a burning question; I know ratings fluxuate; but has 98.7 always been at the bottom as it is now?

Back in the 1980s 98.7 played country as "Country 98.7 WRCM" I was not living in the area at the time; does anyone remember how successful it was? Was WRCM live and local? if anyone can shed some light on Country 98.7 WRCM I woulld be appreciat it and you'll see why as you read further into my post.

In 1989 Country gave way to Kool. I remember listening to Kool 98.7 in the late 1990s until it's demise in 2005; it was awful. The Kool 98.7 I remember was a sattelite fed format. While most oldies radio stations played songs from the 1960s to the 1980s; it seemed as though Kool was stuck in the 1950s. Kool would play some 1960s music but it seemed as though I was listening to a Time Life commercial on the radio. How did Kool do in the raitings over it's sixteen year existance? Aside from Brian White I don't remember any jocks on Kool; were there jocks on that radio station besided B dub? My last point is the sattelite fed playlist had about 1'500 songs and Kool only played about 500 or less on heavy rotation.

In April 2005 Kool switched to Lite. Lite 98.7 was a total disaster. Lite 98.7 was another sattelite fed format; again 1'500 songs and only a third of the playlist made it to air. The voiceover guy for Lite always put me to sleep. There were no jingles or imaging. Lite had very little community involvment IE remotes/contest/promotions. I still have my Lite 98.7 mug though :) There was almost no on air lineup to speak of for Lite. Brian White was on in the mornings but he was bareley allowed to talk live; most of his shows were voicetracked. Lite had a female on weekday afternoons but I can't remember her nam. The only decent programe Lite 98.7 had was John Tesh at night. How did Lite do in the ratings? if it ever showed.

Will FM came on the air in July 2006. Will FM lasted for a good while but it was unorganized with little imaging; Will was also a fad format. Same problems little air talent; 1,500 songs and only 500 got played.

It is now February, 2010 and La Grand D is not only at the very bottom of the ratings for both Wilmington and Jacksonville; the signal has also been in trust for sometime now. I realize there is a large hspanic population; and I also know we are in a recession. What are your predictions for 98.7? Will it remain in trust? Who may buy the signal? Do you think 98,7 will change formats to something live and local. I almost forgot to point out that La Gram D is run by Bustos Media. Thank you fro reading this post, any thoughts?
 
Craig Thomas was the first on air personality at Kool 98.7. Other jocks included the late Joel Porter, Sam Swartz and for a brief time, W Alumni Pat Patterson. Tommy "T-Bird" Smith and Fred Rouse did weekend Beach Music shows live from 98.7.

But your point is well taken.
 
TheJermster said:
Before I go any further I want to make it perfectly clear; this is not a post against hispanics.

It is now February, 2010 and La Grand D is not only at the very bottom of the ratings for both Wilmington and Jacksonville; the signal has also been in trust for sometime now. I realize there is a large hspanic population; and I also know we are in a recession. What are your predictions for 98.7? Will it remain in trust? Who may buy the signal? Do you think 98,7 will change formats to something live and local. I almost forgot to point out that La Gram D is run by Bustos Media. Thank you fro reading this post, any thoughts?

You might think it’s a waste of a signal, but perhaps for the Hispanics that listen to the station it’s their only free source of information and entertainment that they have. We all like to have handy the weather and traffic reports, and we are very critical whenever the big groups mess-up. So I praise la Gran D to keep Spanish programming on 98.7 (and I don’t live in this area).
 
When i moved to this area in the summer of 1986, WRCM was live with announcers most of the time, and this continued when
WKOO("Kool 98.7") went "oldies", i remember some of the names posted earlier, but anyone remembers when Pam Houston
was on here?, Also, for a brief time, they had a reverb, but overall this was a good station, and maybe the time is right for
this format to return, the last i heard Tom Campbell, who many know does "N.C. Spin", took control of WLGD when Capitol
Broadcasting had to sell one of their stations, i never understood why they did this, when they could have switched "Sunny
104.5" to 98.7, and with Craig Thomas and Sheila Brothers in place, plus their current format trying to compete against WGNI,
and 100,000 watts, they would have stood a chance, the last thing i want to see is another frequency wasted.
 
The reason for 98.7 being in the trust is ownership caps. Sunrise Broadcasting, owned by Capitol Broadcasting Company of Raleigh, bought out all of Nextmedia's Wilmington Holdings (4 FMs and 1 AM---the former WRQR 104.5, now WSUY, WAZO 107.5, WKXB 99.9, WSFM 98.3 and WMFD 630) and one Greenville-Washington-New Bern-Jacksonville property, WLGD. Since the limit is, I think, still 5 stations, with at least one on a different band than the others, CBC (or Sunrise) was one over the cap.

I had heard the plan was to sell one of the stations, likely WLGD, but Tom Campbell has headed licensee corporations for CBC before, such as when WRAZ-TV went on the air in 1995 prior to dual TV ownership deregulation. He comes from quite a broadcasting pedigree as his family (the Campbells of Campbell University fame) put WNCT-TV on the air as well as WHNC radio in Henderson..Think they may have been involved with Dunn's WCKB radio, too.
 
I agree Sunny may have been a huge success on 98.7; because of it's coverage area. Does anybody think the sun is going to set on 104.5? They are not doing well at all and singal wise they get pounded by GNI.
 
I think you may be right, and even though they came up to a 3.1 in the Fall 2009 ratings book, can they sustain this as the
Spring 2010 ratings period begins soon, by the way, if this was on 98.7, i could have seen maybe a 5 or 5.5 by now.

In regards to the Campbell Family, they also once owned WGTM in Wilson, i wonder if they plan to keep this station?, If
they try to sell WLGD, i can think of one radio group who would like to have it, Sea-Comm Media, who could move WNTB
from 93.7 to 98.7, go from 6,000 to 100,000 watts, and still keep 106.3 in Brunswick County, i'm sure they would like to
grab the rights to Rush Limbaugh eventually, since he is being heard on many FM talkers in North Carolina.
 
For the longest time 98.7 was the ENC frequency for MTV's stereo simulcast. Around New Bern, the cable was so leaky that I could ride around in my Mutang and clearly hear JJ, Martha, Alan, etc. introducing the lastest New Wave hits. When WRCM made the move from 92.1 to 98.7, the cable company left MTV's simulcast up a little longer, then pulled the plug when TV's themselves added stereo.

Quite a few pirates operated on 98.7 for a while Down East. That's all I'm gonna say about that.

What happened to Joel? We were in the Jaycees together back in the early 90's. I moved away and lost touch. If its sensitive info, email me. Thanks.
 
Actually WHNC in Henderson was originally built, put on the air and managed by S. S. "Sonny" Stevenson (who also owned "The Embassy" movie theater) and Nathan Frank. Mr. Frank became sole owner in the mid '50's. He built/owned WCNF in Weldon, on air in December, 1959. He did build a TV station later in New Bern, channel 12, originally WNBE. He started that process in 1955 and got it on the air in November of '62. The 1955/56 Broadcasting/Telecasting yearbook lists A. Hartwell Campbell as the General Manager but not as a principal stock holder. Although I know the Campbell family has a long history in broadcasting in North Carolina.

RadioDze said:
The reason for 98.7 being in the trust is ownership caps. Sunrise Broadcasting, owned by Capitol Broadcasting Company of Raleigh, bought out all of Nextmedia's Wilmington Holdings (4 FMs and 1 AM---the former WRQR 104.5, now WSUY, WAZO 107.5, WKXB 99.9, WSFM 98.3 and WMFD 630) and one Greenville-Washington-New Bern-Jacksonville property, WLGD. Since the limit is, I think, still 5 stations, with at least one on a different band than the others, CBC (or Sunrise) was one over the cap.

I had heard the plan was to sell one of the stations, likely WLGD, but Tom Campbell has headed licensee corporations for CBC before, such as when WRAZ-TV went on the air in 1995 prior to dual TV ownership deregulation. He comes from quite a broadcasting pedigree as his family (the Campbells of Campbell University fame) put WNCT-TV on the air as well as WHNC radio in Henderson..Think they may have been involved with Dunn's WCKB radio, too.
 
I worked at "Country 98.7, WRCM" in the late 80's. Bill Cox was the pd (after Mac Edwards who moved to Fayetteville I think). Cee Cee Marks did 7p-12mid, I think Joel Porter did afternoons, I did mid-days. I for the life of me can't recall the overnight persons name, but, we were live 24/7. While I was there we increasesd power to 100kw from 50kw. Our plan was to give WRNS a run for there money... Hard to make a giant fall. Ron Brown was gm and a great guy too.

Can anyone tell me what happened to Joel? I worked with him at WSFL also. A Great guy..
 
I think Joel Porter has passed away unfortunately...... Eddie you know more about what happened,,,Joel was a great talent.....
 
firecop947 said:
I worked at "Country 98.7, WRCM" in the late 80's. Bill Cox was the pd (after Mac Edwards who moved to Fayetteville I think). Cee Cee Marks did 7p-12mid, I think Joel Porter did afternoons, I did mid-days. I for the life of me can't recall the overnight persons name, but, we were live 24/7. While I was there we increasesd power to 100kw from 50kw. Our plan was to give WRNS a run for there money... Hard to make a giant fall. Ron Brown was gm and a great guy too.

Can anyone tell me what happened to Joel? I worked with him at WSFL also. A Great guy..

Mac left WRCM to go to Austin, TX, to do for country station there what he'd done for RCM, but apparently the ownership/management talked a better game than they delivered, and he came back to eastern NC a while later.

Were you at RCM while they were still in the JNC building?
 
No. I worked at WRCM in the building on Johnson Blvd I think. It was early in my career but I loved that place. Not sure what happened to Cee Cee, or Bill Cox. I know Joel has passed. Our newsperson was named Anne and she went on to work with Wayne at WRNS for a short time.
 
firecop947 said:
No. I worked at WRCM in the building on Johnson Blvd I think. It was early in my career but I loved that place. Not sure what happened to Cee Cee, or Bill Cox. I know Joel has passed. Our newsperson was named Anne and she went on to work with Wayne at WRNS for a short time.

I was part-timing there when Mac left, and I think I had overnights for a while after that.

Wound up back there on overnights for a while when it was oldies as well.

Did nights just before the move out of the JNC building, having been abducted from JNC by Mac back when WINFAS owned both.

That building on Johnson Boulevard had previously been Ron Brown's mother's house.

They turned it into a pretty nice facility.
 
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