all news in Miami?

[benale]

WYAY in Atlanta is switching to all news next month. This move makes Miami-Fort Lauderdale the largest market without an all news or at least a daytime only all news station. WFTL does run an all news block in the morning,and that's about it. The weekends are infomercials and specialty shows on both WFTL and WIOD.

I don't understand how the market can support three all sports stations and on full power AM signals. Do all three make money? With the call letters WINZ, you would think 940 would be a great candidate for an all news station. I guess they were back in the 70's running NIS.

Having spent quite a bit of this past winter in Fort Lauderdale, I missed not having an all news station to listen to. I even listened to WWBA on 820 on a marginal signal from Tampa to hear all news with America's News Network and local supplements.

I picked up a fourth sports station WMEN out of West Palm. Four all sports stations that came in clear as a bell, and not one all news stations. A little lopsided?

 

[jmtillery]

With the call letters WINZ, you would think 940 would be a great candidate for an all news station. I guess they were back in the 70's running NIS.

You are correct! Back in the 1970s, while owned by Guy Gannett Broadcasting Services, WINZ-AM 940 did, in fact, program an all news format.

 

[longtime listener]

If you mean an actual all news - and no talk - station, I think those days are over. Most people have gravitated to the internet for their news. News on the radio now means a canned minute of national headlines, a word for word cut and paste of a TV news report (from a sponsor) and a traffic report that is farmed out to the remaining dozen stations in the market. There is very little no original news reporting on commercial radio in most of the country. Even the old local station "rip and read" from the AP machine was better than nothing. I would even like a hybrid news/talk - with the news blocks in the am and pm drive with local talk middays, evenings and overnights. But that's just cost prohibitive.

 

[cd637299]

Given the high Hispanic percentage of folk in the metro, Miami is unique in that many stations are Espanol-only. This would reduce the chance of a station trying out something that would better work in Atlanta.

Having said that, with WINZ's ratings today, IMO a return to all-news wouldn't be a bad idea.

An all-news *FM* here? Forget about it....at least for the next 5 years, I'd say.

cd

 

[Ai4i]

While not exactly what you are looking for, they are branded as "All News".
If you can't hear the puney little HD to analogue translater, their parent station is 90.7-HD2.

 

[chrocket87]

If you mean an actual all news - and no talk - station, I think those days are over. Most people have gravitated to the internet for their news.

News stations dominate most of the markets they operate in- in ratings and billing.

 

[Ai4i]

I would guess that the local stations might be streering away from the most expensive format to run, as well as being a magnet for older demographics, although this is a large retirement market?

 

[jmtillery]

Actually it's a big mistake to completely ignore the "older" demographics. Not every station can successfully attract the 25-54 female listener. Otherwise a market the size of Miami will result in an overly fragmented 25-54 female demo. And, when it comes to AM or Standard Broadcasting, the older demo is the only one that will actually listen to the AM medium. Younger demos under 45, for the most part, have never heard of AM, nor do they care, so this leaves a 50+ target demo for AM broadcast if one expects AM to survive and succeed.

Although there are exceptions, the four main talk formats: All News, News-Talk, Talk and Sports programming are virtually entirely 35+ male dominated in TSL, AQH and Cume. Additionally these are the very formats, presented correctly, that are highly rated and are high billers in all markets. Female targeted talk programming has performed poorly while adult contemporary variations are the common female 25-54 dominate formats of choice.

 

[gordonlee]

All news in Miami? Never again.

 

[NewsStud]

As much as an all-newser in Miami would warm my heart... I'll have to agree it likely won't work, on AM or FM.

1) You have enough stations already doing news-heavy programming in the preferred language of much of the population. You also don't have enough of a non-espanol audience to support the station. Perhaps a WPB station with reach into Broward could accomplish success if it focused on those two locales.

2) One way or another, no matter where you do it, all-news is a big investment. You can't do it on the cheap and win. It's not like music radio where you can pop on a station similarly formatted to an already proven winner in town and hope the automated music steals listeners. America's Radio News Network won't win you a big audience the way having reporters covering city hall will.

 

[Mike Sheridan]

All News is way too expensive to do if you're going to do it properly.

Now having said that....I would think that a big company with lots of stations like Clear Channel could pool their resources and come up with a very good product with national news, regional news, local news, sports and weather. It seems like CC has at least one low rated AM with a decent signal in each market to experiment with.

Then again if you notice, even CNN (TV) isn't all news anymore. :'(

 

[FLjack2]

Paxson was on the right track here in FL. Grab a station in each market and do "all news." If you simulcast all stations and have a local news person for inserts at each during drive times you would have a fantastic operation.

Miami
West Palm
Fort Myers
Tampa
Sarasota
Jacksonville
Gainesville
Tallahassee
Pensacola

I think it would do well.

You could even do local (state-wide simulcast) talk at night.

 

[shel777]

How about WNWS, after it switched from WFUN in 1978? It was a NIS affiliate. West Palm Beach had WPOM/1600, also NIS.

Anyway it's a moot point because fewer people listen to AM anymore. Station owners in S. Florida still think that all FMs should be music - the same garbage under different format names, depending on the station. Thankfully, that is NOT the case in Orlando or Jacksonville, where there are two News-Talkers on FM; WDBO-FM and WOKV-FM. Yet it's the same conservative stuff; neither is all-news.

 

[cd637299]

WNWS was never an NIS affiliate-----I believe that NIS bit the dust just prior to WNWS' start.

I do recall that WNWS took the NIS jingle/liner/whatever you call it for their own news reports, hence the possible confusion.

Even tho' the calls were WNWS, news might have been important, but it was always a news/talker.

cd

 

[shel777]

WNWS absolutely, positively was an NIS affiliate. I discovered the station and was mesmerized by the format, including NIS announcer Alan Walden. It was not, however. NIS 24/7.

I do remember how badly chopped the top-of-hour localized NIS jingle was on WNWS, though, and was surprised they could get away with that in a market as large as Miami.

The call letters were originally on New York's 97.1 FM.

I believe WGBS/710 (before it was ruined as it is today) was all-news, at least during the daytime hours I was able to receive the station ... with the exception of Neil Rogers who did afternoon talk. I still remember the jingles, and got to work with one of the station's former newsmen, "Big Jim" Edwards, at WJNO. Yes, the same "Big Jim" from WFUN. An amazing talent with an equally amazing voice!

 

[cd637299]

WNWS absolutely, positively was an NIS affiliate. I discovered the station and was mesmerized by the format, including NIS announcer Alan Walden. It was not, however. NIS 24/7.

I do remember how badly chopped the top-of-hour localized NIS jingle was on WNWS, though, and was surprised they could get away with that in a market as large as Miami.

The call letters were originally on New York's 97.1 FM.

I believe WGBS/710 (before it was ruined as it is today) was all-news, at least during the daytime hours I was able to receive the station ... with the exception of Neil Rogers who did afternoon talk. I still remember the jingles, and got to work with one of the station's former newsmen, "Big Jim" Edwards, at WJNO. Yes, the same "Big Jim" from WFUN. An amazing talent with an equally amazing voice!

I'd like to take your word, but I lived here----ISTR 790's first day as WNWS (with Prescott Robinson), listening to the NIS jingle and thinking to myself, ah they took the ol' NBC NIS thingy.

Also if I recall was a talk host named Scott (can't remember if 1st or last name), who wanted to poll callers.....he wanted to know, if Nixon came back & ran against Jimmy Carter "today" (early 1978 that is), who the caller would vote for or support.

Then came Neil Rogers, totally ripping that host before him.....it seemed as if Richard Casper wanted an early "Springer" type format. It was Casper who laid the foundation for WINZ as news, and 790 grabbed him to start up WNWS.

I'm never 100% right about anything, but I think I am correct about this one. I wanna say it was March 1978, and WINZ went more local with their presentation by then. *If* NIS was still around at that time, and I don't think it was, and if WNWS adopted NIS from WINZ, then I wouldn't have been concerned about the jingle.

However, this *was* 34 years ago, so maybe I *am* mistaken.

BTW, WGBS was still playing music into about 1984. They were even trying to toot the horn of Harris AM Stereo (remember that co.?) in 1983. I think it was WINZ, around 1983-4, that was all-news-but-for-Rogers, Herbert W. Armstrong, and Bill Calder overnights IIRC.

cd

 

[benale]

The mid and late 80's was an exciting time for talk radio in Miami. WINZ,WNWS and WIOD all had great local talk. This was before Rush and the move to syndicated conservative talk.

Another poster mentioned a group of Florida stations running all news with local inserts. WWBA out of Tampa and a station at 1060(I think) in Titusville run Americas's news with their local inserts. Both stations are audible on a decent car radio or a good AM receiver in South Florida. I spend quite a bit of time in Fort Lauderdale and I really miss having an all newser to listen to.

In my original post I mentioned the fact there are four sports stations that I can get very clearly in South Florida and not one all news station. A little overkill?

 

[dieruff]

WNWS absolutely, positively was an NIS affiliate. I discovered the station and was mesmerized by the format, including NIS announcer Alan Walden. It was not, however. NIS 24/7.

I do remember how badly chopped the top-of-hour localized NIS jingle was on WNWS, though, and was surprised they could get away with that in a market as large as Miami.

The call letters were originally on New York's 97.1 FM.

I believe WGBS/710 (before it was ruined as it is today) was all-news, at least during the daytime hours I was able to receive the station ... with the exception of Neil Rogers who did afternoon talk. I still remember the jingles, and got to work with one of the station's former newsmen, "Big Jim" Edwards, at WJNO. Yes, the same "Big Jim" from WFUN. An amazing talent with an equally amazing voice!

I'd like to take your word, but I lived here----ISTR 790's first day as WNWS (with Prescott Robinson), listening to the NIS jingle and thinking to myself, ah they took the ol' NBC NIS thingy.

Also if I recall was a talk host named Scott (can't remember if 1st or last name), who wanted to poll callers.....he wanted to know, if Nixon came back & ran against Jimmy Carter "today" (early 1978 that is), who the caller would vote for or support.

Then came Neil Rogers, totally ripping that host before him.....it seemed as if Richard Casper wanted an early "Springer" type format. It was Casper who laid the foundation for WINZ as news, and 790 grabbed him to start up WNWS.

I'm never 100% right about anything, but I think I am correct about this one. I wanna say it was March 1978, and WINZ went more local with their presentation by then. *If* NIS was still around at that time, and I don't think it was, and if WNWS adopted NIS from WINZ, then I wouldn't have been concerned about the jingle.

However, this *was* 34 years ago, so maybe I *am* mistaken.

BTW, WGBS was still playing music into about 1984. They were even trying to toot the horn of Harris AM Stereo (remember that co.?) in 1983. I think it was WINZ, around 1983-4, that was all-news-but-for-Rogers, Herbert W. Armstrong, and Bill Calder overnights IIRC.

cd

This guy has it about right. WINZ was all news and a great station when Dave Ryder was the PD/News Director. Then they sent Dave away and brought in a real idiot, a college professor, who tore it apart, person by person. He did a masterful tear-down of a once-awesome news radio station.

 

[shel777]

And I had it wrong, too. Neil was on 94/News WINZ; not WGBS. Now as far as WNWS having been a true NIS affiliate, I have found someone who worked there then and have emailed him..let's see what he has to say. I am open to having to apologize, if necessary.

 

[cd637299]

And I had it wrong, too. Neil was on 94/News WINZ; not WGBS. Now as far as WNWS having been a true NIS affiliate, I have found someone who worked there then and have emailed him..let's see what he has to say. I am open to having to apologize, if necessary.

No prob, dude. I know you....your initials are SS, n'est-ce pas? BTW if you can find out who the Scott dude is, I'd like to know.

cd