Atlanta's 1010 airing Liberal Talk

[Snozz]

WGUN's new Progressive talk lineup has been released.
...
Sounds like every other liberal talk station in America...... boring idiots talking crap about Mitt Romney, That's all we need, isn't it.

Yes. Yes it is.
At least we can be reasonably confident there will be no racist diatribes, no college students called "Sluts", no looney hosts

My point is, conservative talk is ALOT more entertaining than liberal.

Agreed; fiction is almost always more entertaining than non-fiction. It's made-up, but entertaining, granted.

My favorite talkers are Boortz and Beck.

Again, I have to admit that if you're into fiction, you could definitely do worse than Boortz and Beck.

My point is, these people are just plain dumb. NOOOO Listeners, NOOOOOO Brain, and NOOOOOO point. No one likes progressive talk. Boortz just talked WGUN. They will not last long.

Wow! "No one likes progressive talk"? Really? And here I am, thinking perhaps I did! Gosh, I wonder what I do like... well, being "just plain dumb", I may never know. Perhaps that genius Beck will tell me! If he ever stops screeching about liberal conspiracies to take over the world, that is.

Well, I guess we'll just have to wait and see- but waiting is OK, a friend gave me a novel to read- it's called 'Decision Points', by George Bush.
"My point is", how about perhaps we all we wait and see how WGUN turns out?

 

[borderblaster]

We could though, have a host talking about tornado victims being "turned into grease spots" and ridiculing them for not being atheists.

 

[amlover]

No one at WGUN understand what local sunrise and sunset mean. I noticed tonight that they reduced power to 78 watts at 6:45pm instead of 7:45pm which is local sunset cheating the audience,(if any) out of the 45,000 watts. They don't understand you leave the remote unit on standard time and when the clock is moved forward the remote still will be 6:45 but the power will drop at 7:45. Guess they could use a skilled engineer.

 

[wpb1999]

No one at WGUN understand what local sunrise and sunset mean. I noticed tonight that they reduced power to 78 watts at 6:45pm instead of 7:45pm which is local sunset cheating the audience,(if any) out of the 45,000 watts. They don't understand you leave the remote unit on standard time and when the clock is moved forward the remote still will be 6:45 but the power will drop at 7:45. Guess they could use a skilled engineer.

I guess not only the talk show hosts are the only ones who are really dumb.....

 

[jabba17]

I disagree, Brent. 1690 had a fairly large audience for an AM station and the demos were very desirable. If WGUN can come up with the resources to market the new format it could possibly do a 1 share 6+....maybe a little more.
Even if they can start coming up with some numbers they still will need skilled sales people to get the dollars coming in. And they will need a goodly dose of patience. I'm thinking it will take a year or so of day in day out hard work to get this programming established and sales to a level of profitability. Most owners are looking for the quick fix.....this ain't it.
I liked the old school soul music, too! But music on AM is a tough row to hoe....I think they made a good choice to go this direction. Guess we will have to wait and see what happens.......

Didn't WWAA 1690 have just over a 1 share when they were doing Air America? Wonder how progtalk will do in a PPM world. What does WRFG pull (SWAG)? Maybe double or triple that. Or maybe divide WABE by 3 or 4.

I liked the old-skool R&B, and it sounded GREAT!...for AM. No way, no way they knock off any of the urban FMs in this town with that.

 

[amlover]

No one at WGUN understand what local sunrise and sunset mean. I noticed tonight that they reduced power to 78 watts at 6:45pm instead of 7:45pm which is local sunset cheating the audience,(if any) out of the 45,000 watts. They don't understand you leave the remote unit on standard time and when the clock is moved forward the remote still will be 6:45 but the power will drop at 7:45. Guess they could use a skilled engineer.

I guess not only the talk show hosts are the only ones who are really dumb.....

Well this morning they powered up at 6:45am before local sunrise, (1) hour to soon which is a violation. They should power up at 7:45am local sunrise and power down at 7:45pm local sunset. WGUN...we are on daylight savings time! My guess is they will power down at 6:45pm again today (1) hour to early.

 

[secondchoice]

No one at WGUN understand what local sunrise and sunset mean. I noticed tonight that they reduced power to 78 watts at 6:45pm instead of 7:45pm which is local sunset cheating the audience,(if any) out of the 45,000 watts. They don't understand you leave the remote unit on standard time and when the clock is moved forward the remote still will be 6:45 but the power will drop at 7:45. Guess they could use a skilled engineer.

I guess not only the talk show hosts are the only ones who are really dumb.....

Well this morning they powered up at 6:45am before local sunrise, (1) hour to soon which is a violation. They should power up at 7:45am local sunrise and power down at 7:45pm local sunset. WGUN...we are on daylight savings time! My guess is they will power down at 6:45pm again today (1) hour to early.

If you know WGUN is operating with the wrong power at the wrong time, why don't you call the station and ask to speak the manager or the engineer. I am sure they would take care of the problem and will thank you.

If the problem is not fixed in a day or two call the FCC if it bothers you that much.

BTW

If they are running 45 or 50 KW an hour early I am sure someone (Canada, NYC's WINS, Gallatin TN's WHIN, Savanna TN's WORM, or Black Mountain NC's WFGW all on 1010 AM) will contact the FCC. 45 or 50KW should generate a a pretty good sky-wave, I wonder if any of the DXers have caught this.

 

[jabba17]

No one at WGUN understand what local sunrise and sunset mean. I noticed tonight that they reduced power to 78 watts at 6:45pm instead of 7:45pm which is local sunset cheating the audience,(if any) out of the 45,000 watts. They don't understand you leave the remote unit on standard time and when the clock is moved forward the remote still will be 6:45 but the power will drop at 7:45. Guess they could use a skilled engineer.

I guess not only the talk show hosts are the only ones who are really dumb.....

Well this morning they powered up at 6:45am before local sunrise, (1) hour to soon which is a violation. They should power up at 7:45am local sunrise and power down at 7:45pm local sunset. WGUN...we are on daylight savings time! My guess is they will power down at 6:45pm again today (1) hour to early.

WGST sounded like they were still at full power at 8 PM last night.

 

[acheron1982]

Lets keep this related to radio and leave politics out of it. It is true, liberal radio does not do as well as conservative radio but I still believe Atlanta could use a liberal talk radio station. Let the free market determine how long the station will last. Personally, I think with proper advertisement, the station will do well. No, it won't come close to WSB but that is because of the organization and not the format of the station. Just my two cents but lets keep this radio related..... ;D

 

[lilburncommunityradio]

Keeping it Radio Related... ummm , ok here goes.. WGUN should have done this way before the music thing. The station suffered the loss of listeners, Revenue, and overall respect when letting a supposed KING of all MEDIA change everything, and then he was found out . It was found out that he had not been in radio in over 7 years, and was on a agenda driven selfish trip when the format was changed.. WGUN, should have thought about doing something like this when they let go of all of the brokered programming. I still say and can back up the following,
" THEY wont market it".. theres no money for it. " The write up in the paper is as close to marketing as they will get". FINALLY.... Here's a station that flipped formats, yet now has no website to reflect it. No stream for low power on nights.... They never had a sales staff for the former music flip and you got to do this to get it off the ground.. SO, This will last as long as the music did.. WGUN is simply a great signal for a brokered format.. Just the truth..

 

[agentUrge]

What could have been an interesting thread went to hell two pages ago.

 

[taylorengineer]

Interesting that WGUN is still running Jessie Lee Peterson in the mornings. Mr. Peterson is an African-American conservative talk show host and has been running in the mornings at various times for a while. My guess is he is paying for the time slot(which may explain why he is still on the air.)
Here's the crux of the problem. WGUN has never, in it's entire 60+ year history, had a single, focused, format. Dee Rivers (who originally put WGUN on the air) did the "three R's" format....race, religion, rural. After he died his 5th wife, Marie ran the stations with mostly brokered time programming although there was a short, failed attempt at news/talk. The recent programming efforts have been discussed extensively here on this board.
The Rivers should simply make a choice. Broker the time or pick a format and sell spots. As Mr. Dylan so wisely said....."you can't have your cake and eat it too." This hybrid approach will never succeed either in terms of ratings or financials. Why is that so hard for them to understand?

 

[secondchoice]

WGUN's COL is Atlanta. If they can not get a "good" FM translator, The station could be moved out of the Atlanta market. Most likely the land cost would be less, and the ground conductivity could be better. Also even a 25KW daytime signal would allow a 250 watt translator high on a TV tower, in another city.

Never mind. Moving a station out of a top ten market for a chance at a translator in a sub 30 market is not that smart.

 

[jabba17]

Interesting that WGUN is still running Jessie Lee Peterson in the mornings. Mr. Peterson is an African-American conservative talk show host and has been running in the mornings at various times for a while. My guess is he is paying for the time slot(which may explain why he is still on the air.)
Here's the crux of the problem. WGUN has never, in it's entire 60+ year history, had a single, focused, format. Dee Rivers (who originally put WGUN on the air) did the "three R's" format....race, religion, rural. After he died his 5th wife, Marie ran the stations with mostly brokered time programming although there was a short, failed attempt at news/talk. The recent programming efforts have been discussed extensively here on this board.
The Rivers should simply make a choice. Broker the time or pick a format and sell spots. As Mr. Dylan so wisely said....."you can't have your cake and eat it too." This hybrid approach will never succeed either in terms of ratings or financials. Why is that so hard for them to understand?

Cash flow until the ad money starts coming in? Running out a contract?

 

[taylorengineer]

There will be no ad money flowing in until they hire a sales staff.
They should have waited to "pull the trigger" (sorry....couldn't resist)until all existing contracts were finished. To make this work they must decide on a potential demo(s) to serve and then superserve that demo with laser focused programming.
Airing programming because it's paid is fine if you're a brokered time station. But don't expect to build an audience......

 

[Powell]

WORM in Savannah, TN has been silent for MORE than a year...and they haven't informed the FCC either. A friend of mine lives there and told me.

 

[onetake]

No matter who they get in sales, they will be sellling against stronger stations with even stronger sales people at those stations. So forget revenue flow. So who is paying for all this? I don't see these shows they are carrying doing any kind of network reimbursement package to cover it. And even if there were revenue, there is no marketing budget.

Forget conservative vs liberal, a lot of people just don't scout around the AM dial. Look at WGKA. Pretty good signal during the day, Been doing a talk format for 12 or so years, and never hit a 1 share. Have no idea what kind of money they bring in but after all these years, most people have no idea they exist. I'm not routing for either one but everytime a station tries something and fails, it weakens radio ..especially AM radio..even further in the eyes of media buyers who need to be on radio's side.

 

[jabba17]

Look at WGKA. Pretty good signal during the day, Been doing a talk format for 12 or so years, and never hit a 1 share. Have no idea what kind of money they bring in but after all these years, most people have no idea they exist.

Probably a way to help with Salem's national ad buys for their programs...to get them on the air in market #9.

 

[taylorengineer]

Onetake offers a great example with WGST.
Bill Bennett, the morning guy on 920, is probably one of the best talk hosts in the nation. Although conservative socially, politically, and financially, he is a gentleman and keeps most discussions on a more intellectual level. But he is practically a no show in the ratings. Why is that?
Yet another media concern who sells advertising but doesn't believe in buying advertising! How do these people go out with a straight face and tell other business folk they "must" advertise to be successful yet don't believe in it's value enough to use it to promote their own product?
You can't just nail up a billboard or two and call that a comprehensive campaign. Advertising 101: Frequency is the key. You must target potential purchasers, create a message which resonates with their desires or needs, and then drill that message into their heads through frequent use of any and all media used by the target group.
When is the last time you saw a station flip formats and everything was ready to go full speed? Jocks hired, imaging perfected, vehicles wrapped and ready to hit the streets, and a comprehensive ad campaign ready to roll 6AM flip day? The last I remember was when the plate company put up Q100....Susquahanna always did things correct from the beginning and were great radio operators.
I sound like a broken record but......todays owners just don't understand the fundamentals of their business. They certainly understand the finance part - and I do understand that profit/loss is the most important fundamental.....but sometimes you have to spend money (loss) to make money(profit.)
Radio listeners want information and they want to be entertained. Are we, as an industry, doing the very best we can in these areas?

 

[RoddyFreeman]

Taylor, I partially agree with you regarding Bill Bennett. He provides good content and does keep things on an intellectual level. However, he doesn't have the broadcast talent and voice side of the equation.

That said, while Salem sells spots on WGKA, Jabba has it right regarding the company's business model. WGKA's main role for Salem is providing an Atlanta affiliate so they can sell spots on their national network.