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And I thought smart people were supposed to listen to the news!

A

Al Johnson

Guest
Washington Post Radio (WTWP) is running spots to tell listeners who apparently don't know any better that "Washington Post Radio" is NOT WTOP. Looks like news junkies have kept writing "WTOP" in their diaries and Post Radio (Bonneville) blames this for WTWP's no-show status in the Arbitrons (and maybe for WTOP's increased numbers since the stations shifted around). Could it be listeners don't notice 1500 AM has changed? ("Gee, Myrt, it's nice they let interviews run longer these days.") Maybe some people have kept writing "WTOP" in their diaries all the time who never listened much but didn't want to admit they were really listening to Howard or Opie & Anthony? How long before DC gets PPMs?
 
A trip to Arbitron in Columbia reveals that: people write down "630 WTOP", "David Burd - WMAL", "570 WMAL", "1500 WTOP" and a wide variety of other combos.

The way to really combat that is to establish a strong identity seperate from WTOP. But it's pretty common knowledge in the industry that Washington Post Radio is a dismal failure.
 
Newsnow in a post above says >>>It's pretty common knowledge in the industry that Washington Post Radio is a dismal failure.

Geez, they got a 1.0 in the most recent ratings. That's not bad for a talk station building from scratch, less than a year old, especially when you consider maybe some folks still are writing "WTOP" when they listen to 1500.

How fast do we expect a talk station all the way up the AM dial to build its numbers?


Gregg
[email protected]
 
First off, folks from Bonneville have been using that line - that a 1.0 is decent for a startup. They are not a start up. They had a huge audience on 1500 before becoming WTWP. If they had offered something compelling out of the box, they would have been able to hold audience.

Second, their ratings are so great and they are taking such a large bite out of WMAL that they fired several WTWP staffers on the heels of the last book. Meanwhile, WMAL's ratings are up. Bonneville is looking at adding syndicated conservative talkers to WTWP.

At 50kw blasting out a talk format for a year, with a repeater on 107.7 in Warrenton, they should be doing something more than a 1 share.

Before Bonneville started monkeying with everything, they had a top 5 station on 1500am - WTOP, a top 5 station on 103.5 - WGMS, and a middle to low in the pack station with 104.1 - Z104.

Now they have a top 5 station on 103.5 - WTOP. They put the axe to classical and lost a porfitable station. They have an AM signal that covers the east coast at night and hasn't risen above a 1 share after a year. They're paying big bucks for a morning show that is absent for football season, but who will still be heard in segments on a competing station.

Oh, and Federal News Radio. I forgot about them, as apparently everybody in the metro has. I may be wrong, maybe everybody knows what a disaster this has been EXCEPT the folks inside the Ledo's glass enclosed nerve center on Wisconsin Ave.
 
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