Even though it's a New York station, WCBS can be heard over a large area of eastern/midwest/southern part of the country. I've picked it up as far south as Florida & Tennessee. and as far west as the Indiana/Illinois border. Haven't been in the northeast [say Maine] for about 30 years so not sure about there. For some people it's the only place where they get news OTA anymore while in their car/truck.tricycle/whatever. I think it's a brand-name legacy station that the "powers-that-be" may be reluctant to blow up plus, even though they sold it to Entercom/Audacy, CBS might put some pressure on them as it cross-promotes some of their TV brand [Face The Nation, 60 Minutes simulcast, maybe more]. So if they did blow it up, I assume CBS could say "Fine, you know longer have the rights to use our call letters, change them". Just don't put a damn sports format on it like they play on WNBC....errrr, WFAN now.
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Alt 92.3 to Become WINS Simulcast
- Thread starter atthestars
- Start date
That was laid out in the sales contract, and no stipulations were made other than a year when those letters either get renewed or not. They can't say what you suggest.
Yeah, they can. That's what lawyers are for. Same thing with actors/ball players/etc. Have a breakout sitcom/drama or a ball player has a banner year or two, all of a sudden they want to "renegotiate" their contract. I am betting if Audacy decided to change format to mating calls of Bolivian Buttslugs, CBS be saying "Nah, you're ruining our brand, give us our call letters back. Our lawyers will be contacting you."
You're basing all thing on your personal speculation that WCBS wants to throw away $30 million a year and change formats.
I see them working to try to retain that revenue stream.
Yeah, like corporations really care about money. Like the new studio head that comes in and cancels ump-teen millions or billions of dollars worth of stuff just because it was someone before them who approved it. [See "Warner Brother's 'Batgirl'"]
At least Audacy is making it known well in advance that the Alt format will continue on HD2, so that fans of the station will know where they can hear it on air.
In the case of New York's Country 94.7, listeners were only informed that the station was dropping the format hours before the fact. No mention was made of the Country programming continuing on HD2. I think that was a mistake. Probably most of the former listeners have no idea that if their car has an HD radio, they can still listen. I realize that the bulk of the audience probably wouldn't tune in on HD2, for various reasons. But even if a small percentage did hear about it on air and start listening, that could have been a significant addition to its audience.
In the case of New York's Country 94.7, listeners were only informed that the station was dropping the format hours before the fact. No mention was made of the Country programming continuing on HD2. I think that was a mistake. Probably most of the former listeners have no idea that if their car has an HD radio, they can still listen. I realize that the bulk of the audience probably wouldn't tune in on HD2, for various reasons. But even if a small percentage did hear about it on air and start listening, that could have been a significant addition to its audience.
The thing is if the station just becomes a jukebox, with no personality, no one is going to care about it. Personality was the only thing that really could have saved 92.3. Listeners can go somewhere else for the same songs without imaging or voicetracks interspersed, they aren’t going to give a damn about HD Radio or trying to stream it. Even when it goes to 92.3 HD2, the interaction that the hosts had with the audience goes away, and it will ultimately fizzle out.
I was up in that area a few months ago, when I was up there I was very close to the site for 710 WOR and 1010 WINS in Lyndhurst.
When I was there I noticed an FM 6 Bay antenna on the westernmost tower of the WINS site array. I wonder who it belongs to, I know it can't be for 94.7 as that is about 1 mile east of there at the WOR site, but it was pretty close. Right near the intersection of Routes 3 & 17 off of Polito Ave.
When I was there I noticed an FM 6 Bay antenna on the westernmost tower of the WINS site array. I wonder who it belongs to, I know it can't be for 94.7 as that is about 1 mile east of there at the WOR site, but it was pretty close. Right near the intersection of Routes 3 & 17 off of Polito Ave.
All valid points, were it 1948.
The only thing WCBS AM 880 has going for it is excellent coverage of almost all of the New York City Metro Survey Area day and night.
They make no extra money from the tiny and unmeasured listening in TN or FL or ME or other out of metro areas or states. And listening at night produces nearly zero revenue anyway, local or elsewhere.
Aux site for WNEW.
They make no extra money from the tiny and unmeasured listening in TN or FL or ME or other out of metro areas or states. And listening at night produces nearly zero revenue anyway, local or elsewhere.
Well, one of their advertisers was flabbergasted when I called from Ohio and ordered an item from them. They said "We don't even advertise or have our product available in Ohio [although they do now]. How did you even hear about us?" Told them I heard their ad on WCBS and they were thrilled that I responded. So I told them to tell their ad rep at the station. I actually had someone, don't remember who, from WCBS that called me [guess they got my number from the company I bought stuff from, which I wasn't really happy about but, what the hey!] and asked how long I'd been listening, how well did the signal come in in Ohio, blah, blah, blah. Or maybe it was just a bored engineer wondering how well and how far the signal was getting out. Could only assume that they could tell advertisers that "Look, people well beyond NYC can hear us and order from people/company that advertise with us." Except Dr. Leiderman......if I ever hear another one of his ads........... So they may not have personally made money from ME but bet the company decided to keep advertising a little longer than they planned to so they made money off them. I'm probably the exception to the rule but I'm weird that way.
Well, one of their advertisers was flabbergasted when I called from Ohio and ordered an item from them. They said "We don't even advertise or have our product available in Ohio [although they do now]. How did you even hear about us?" Told them I heard their ad on WCBS and they were thrilled that I responded. So I told them to tell their ad rep at the station. I actually had someone, don't remember who, from WCBS that called me [guess they got my number from the company I bought stuff from, which I wasn't really happy about but, what the hey!] and asked how long I'd been listening, how well did the signal come in in Ohio, blah, blah, blah. Or maybe it was just a bored engineer wondering how well and how far the signal was getting out. Could only assume that they could tell advertisers that "Look, people well beyond NYC can hear us and order from people/company that advertise with us." Except Dr. Leiderman......if I ever hear another one of his ads........... So they may not have personally made money from ME but bet the company decided to keep advertising a little longer than they planned to so they made money off them. I'm probably the exception to the rule but I'm weird that way.
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I actually do think that Imagine Dragons fits the alternative format. However, I think that two other artists who were mentioned earlier do not. Olivia Rodrigo's "good 4 u" is a rock-sounding pop song that should never have been played on Alt 92.3. As for Billie Eilish? Let's put it this way: if it weren't for her connections, then her music would have been played only on freeform stations like WFMU.
Billie Eilish was on Alternative radio long before she was on pop radio. If she didn't end up with such a huge fan base, it would probably still be that way. It was that fan base that finally forced pop stations to start playing her music. Alternative stations already were at that point.
Olivia Rodrigo was never an Alternative act. Pure pop. What she did do was bring guitar rock sounding music back to Top-40. Led to a new wave of at the very least some airplay for artists making similar music. Avril Lavigne made a comeback. Willow Smith got attention for her rock style of music. Halsey had gone back to recording Alternative music (Halsey was on Alternative radio before she went pop, her duet with Machine Gun Kelly in late 2020 was an example of a return to a more Alternative sound) At the moment we have "Victoria's Secret" by Jax. This is all still basically pop, but if you wanted to blend it together with Alternative it would flow fine in some cases but not on an Alternative station. If you wanted to be a Top-40 station with an Rock lean, it would work out fine.
Olivia Rodrigo was never an Alternative act. Pure pop. What she did do was bring guitar rock sounding music back to Top-40. Led to a new wave of at the very least some airplay for artists making similar music. Avril Lavigne made a comeback. Willow Smith got attention for her rock style of music. Halsey had gone back to recording Alternative music (Halsey was on Alternative radio before she went pop, her duet with Machine Gun Kelly in late 2020 was an example of a return to a more Alternative sound) At the moment we have "Victoria's Secret" by Jax. This is all still basically pop, but if you wanted to blend it together with Alternative it would flow fine in some cases but not on an Alternative station. If you wanted to be a Top-40 station with an Rock lean, it would work out fine.
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same as country music right, especially many older vehicles have to buy new radio receivers to receive HD radio.
Another notable artist who sings in that style is Gayle. Early this year, her "ABCDEFU" went to number three on the Billboard Hot 100 and all the way to number one in several other countries, including the United Kingdom and Germany.
Q101 in Chicago played that a lot earlier this year.
Another one before the pandemic was Dance Monkey by Tones & I. Was a big hit virtually everywhere but here. Alternative radio is where she broke into the U.S. It's not a rock song, but it's an example of how Alternative radio is. CHR kinda picked up on it a little later but the pandemic kinda ruined things. She was about to tour the country at the time.
A Eurovision artist Rosa Linn got airplay with Snap on CHR stations like B96 in Chicago. At the same time Alternative and AAA stations are playing it.
This year has been very good for big name Alternative artists releasing new music. Blink 182 with the original lineup just released a song today. The Killers, Paramore, Smashing Pumpkins, The Black Keys, Panic! At The Disco, Red Hot Chili Peppers, Death Cab For Cutie, Gorillaz, all have new songs out this year getting played on Alternative radio. They've been joined by Maneskin (From Italy), Kate Bush's 1985 song Running Up The Hill that is being played everywhere (The song had success on Alternative with a cover from Meg Meyers a few years ago) and artists like AJR. I wish Mystery by Turnstile would have been played more. That was a good track. The Head And The Heart and Portugal. The Man had new songs earlier this year that were not too bad.
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Any opinions on how Alt Nation, on SiriusXM compares with Alt 92.3?
BTW, I see they're playing a song by Billie Eilish, who is apparently not considered Alt by posters on this thread.
Alt Nation Playlist
BTW, I see they're playing a song by Billie Eilish, who is apparently not considered Alt by posters on this thread.
Alt Nation Playlist
Alt Nation is and always was very new music friendly. It was the first place I heard Kelly - Shoes (Which was an early Youtube video) I think it was somewhat better before the merger
Mystery hit the top 10 on the Alt chart so it did fairly well all things considered.
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