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AM radio in Youngstown...

T

Tim

Was in Y'town on business Friday, and couldn't help but notice the stations that are totally off the air, and a couple who might as well be.

1330, 1500, and 1540 are off....maybe forever?

Heard over an hour of the morning show on WHTX 1570....didn't hear a single commercial, announcer rarely gave the call letters, no timechecks or weather forcasts....in morning drive.

And sounded like they didn't have any audio processing....mediocre audio quality IMHO. Transmitter sounded like it was under modulated and sure didn't seem like they're running their regular day power. Who knows.

But, the music mix was the oddest I've heard on a radio station in a multi-station market in decades: it'd go from a late 1940's-early 50's middle of the road song to 70's/80's soft AC. I actually heard a 60-year-old+ plus Tony Bennett album cut go back-to-back with Phil Collins' "Groovy Kind of Love". Many of the 70's/80's songs they did play weren't big hits...some not even midcharts.

Wow...what a way to run off the people age 75+ who like the ancient stuff AND annoy those 50-74 who don't mind soft AC but don't recognize many of the songs.These kind of trainwrecks continued through middays, as I tuned back in after lunch.

Corporate radio in 2013 may indeed play too short playlists...but, WHTX on Friday was so wide open, it was like play anything from the late 40's to the mid-80's. Way, way too wide a gap/scope.

Don't want to sound mean-spiritied, but...our college radio station back in the early 70's was more logically programmed for a target audience.

There are well-programmed AMs...but way too many ones like the one above. Sounded like amateur hour, sadly.
 
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1330 WGFT and 1500 WASN have a STA for a temporary off air until next FEB. 94.3 FM W232AI Niles(soon to be 93.7) will be rebroadcasting 1330 so unless the permit expires, 1330 should return to the air.

1540 according to Mr Lash at some point will return to the air as he mention in another post.

As for 1570, in the beginning they were trying to fill a void left by 600 and 1390 am thinking they could make money when the adult standards format was a money losing and low ratings niche. After seeing this, they started to add newer songs and thus why you have a wide play list.

http://transition.fcc.gov/fcc-bin/amq?list=0&facid=74164

http://transition.fcc.gov/fcc-bin/amq?list=0&facid=72100

http://transition.fcc.gov/fcc-bin/fmq?call=W232AI

Licensee: HELEN M. BEDNARCZYK
Service Designation: FX Translator Station (retransmits signal, different channel than main station)
Channel/Class: 229D Frequency: 93.7 MHz Application
File No.: BPFT-20130712AAH Facility ID number: 56248
CDBS Application ID No.: 1562694

This station rebroadcasts WGFT (AM).
 
A veteran Ohio engineer I know told me a couple of the smaller Y-town area AMs need "hundreds of thousands of dollars" in antenna/ground system repairs "...just to be able to operate legally at full licensed power and correct patterns".

And, that doesn't even address poor studio equipment, failed formats, and no real advertising track record with local businesses.

Hmmm. I don't think ANY AM in the valley is worth that level of investment other than the handful of ones owned by major chains.
 
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That would be 1330 and 1500 that combined needs 100,000 to make fully legal. In the case of WGFT, it has been running illegal for going on 4 YEARS with a messed up pattern (I know as I worked there). 1500 was legal until the local thieves stole its ground system in 2012.

At one point they tried to get Jim Hartzler (former clear channel engineer/WGFT transmitter engineer) and Wes Boyd (cumulus radio engineer) to attempt to correct the signal with no success.

Before now former sister station WYLR 101.9 (WRBP) was sold, GM Ted (Skip) was pricing out making WGFT legal and found if he did the bare minimum he could pull it out for 30,000. If he went to one company it was 75,000.

As for studio equipment, unless things were sold,stolen. or thrown out the stations had a new board from 2010, new mics, and a old scott studios from 2004 in addition to whatever was left over from the WRBP studio.

When WGFT flipped to classic hits in 2012, Ted spent money on new mic's and promo among other things. Depending on the format, they would need a new processing as the processor is from the 1980's.

Also of note when the Y-Town radio stations were downtown Youngstown, the 2 AM's shared a studio and I recall the bleed of a urban talk and a conservative talk as they shared a board. Strange to hear Al sharpton on Dave ramesy mixed together over the air.

As for the track record of advertising 1500 when it was urban talk, was packaged with WRBP as buy a flight on jamz get 1500 thrown in.

The only time 1330 and 1500 did sell spots was when at the end of the week the WRBP advertisers were offer any sports on the AM's for 5.00 each if they brought spots on the FM.

WGFT when it was talk forget about it as there was a sales staff of three who could not sell the format as it did not fit in with the other 2 stations in addition to a liberal business base that despised both Ted and right wing talk.

The urban talk was actually successful as it gave the older WRBP audience a talk outlet. Towards the end, WRBP was the 4th highest rated station in the market and had many listeners, something which 1500 played off of.

WGFT on the other hand was a train wreck format that was hard to sell, had no listeners out side of the Louie Free show, no support in terms of advertising, and no one who cared about it. In fact a few times the 3 people who paid attention to 1330 actually called us to let us know it was off air as nobody that worked there even known it was off air.
 
A 4-tower AM in NE Ohio I know of got a quote of $175,000 for a brand new ground system in the late 90's. They didn't want to spend the money at that time, and checked on pricing again a couple years ago and it was over $300,000 due to the increase in copper prices.

Makes you wonder how many AMs there are in the US who have poor ground systems, and who's patterns aren't right.

When you're dealing with about 15-18% of the total radio audience actually ever tuning in an AM station, plus the steep costs of keeping an antenna site in good shape (especially directional arrays...multi-towers)....is it any wonder the AM band is in the dire straits it's in?
 
From what I was told, they now make some kind of chemical that is sprayed into the ground and acts like a ground system. I have heard little about it but I know they make it.

Most smaller AM's are like 1330,1500,1540 and 1570 old stations with no audience, high costs and few parts. For a company like forever broadcasting, once the station costs too much to fix, they shut it off as they see that it is not worth it.
 
Never heard of a spray that acts as an electrical conductor. That'd be a heck of revolutionary invention.

The way radio is going, many AMs may just turn in the license, and sell the property the transmitter site is on. Often, the property is worth more in real dollars than the station/license. That's so sad, but a real trend, I'm afraid.
 
The average cost of a brand new ground system was at least $40K per tower 20 years ago. 1330, 1500, & 1570 have multiple-tower arrays.

Reportedly that cost has more than doubled in 2013....and, that's just for copper wire....and doesn't include anything else (other transmitter site equipment like phasing units, the transmitters themselves, studio equipment, STL's, and so forth).

These stations were allowed to fall into disrepair and drifted from one owner to another for one main reason I can think of: none of them were able to sell enough advertising to be profitable. Some, had amateurs running the stations. Perhaps people who meant welll, but just didn't have the professional background & financial resources to make these stations on-going successful businesses.

This is pretty typical of smaller stations in markets of all sizes across the country.

When you're only appealing to 18% or less of the population who tunes in any AM radio station...you've got 2 strikes against you right away. It's tough to successfully operate most AMs in 2013.
 
Would it be fair to ask if the only Youngstown stations worth surviving are the ones owned by Clear Channel and Cumulus?

It's sad to see a lot of AMs silenced nowadays, but the costs are tough, especially if there's no sales staff involved. Don't be surprised to see if there are going to be more changes with the AMs in the valley.
 
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