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Beasley is making Audacy look good

A switch to what, though? Is support for country waning? Once a proud award winning station for the format, now cost cutting.
Bloomberg 92.9 will certainly have some newscasts. I tuned to 106.1 and it was fighting it out with, apparently, WCOD.
That will change.
So I went to 1330. I recall their past formats including "Boston Country WDLW" and showbiz radio as (current calls) WRCA
 
CassChopper96 said:
I meant to say why are they outsourcing the morning show. And will the station have any local boston based on air personalities
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Because it’s cheaper to have a syndicated show (especially one that the company already owns) than a local one. It’s also not clear to me that “local” is necessarily better by default. Good product is good product regardless of where it is produced. Do listeners actually care if the radio personality knows the name of a high school in Waltham off the top of their head?
 
Here we go again. A company makes changes we don't like, and the company becomes the enemy. Which ignores the root cause of the problem, which is that PEOPLE are changing the way they listen to things. There used to be a local morning show at WKLB. They won awards for what they did. They made money for their employers. But as they were doing this, fewer people were listening, and fewer advertisers were buying commercials. Yes, when you look at the 6+ Nielsens, they're still getting good share numbers. But that's a share of people who use radio. That number is declining. It's not just Boston. It's not just radio. The same exact thing is happening in TV. It's leading to TV companies laying off staff. It's even happening in streaming, because the audience for media is splintering among many things. Get ready to see lots of things you used to love and enjoy go through change. It's not the companies. It's US. We're changing how we get and use media, and that means the old media can't do what they used to do anymore.
 
luperm said:
Because it’s cheaper to have a syndicated show (especially one that the company already owns) than a local one.
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It's more than just that. Great talent is more popular than mediocre local talent. Listeners don't know, nor care whether an AM show is live at the local station. Boils down to whether the listener is entertained.
luperm said:
It’s also not clear to me that “local” is necessarily better by default. Good product is good product regardless of where it is produced. Do listeners actually care if the radio personality knows the name of a high school in Waltham off the top of their head?
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Great point.
Yesterday my wife and I were having lunch at a local deli. Two 40-something women were sitting at a table next to ours. One of the women commented about something she heard on the 'Country station'. The other woman asked; which country station? (given there are at least four within range) The original said: "I don't know, I like the morning show on the way to work and they play Country."
All this radio nerd thought about how listeners are so brand loyal, or pay attention to call letters or branding is in fact insignificant in the real world.
 
Kelly A said:
All this radio nerd thought about how listeners are so brand loyal, or pay attention to call letters or branding is in fact insignificant in the real world.
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The brand they're loyal to is "country" or the "morning show," not the station. For all you know, she could be talking about Sirius or Apple Radio.
 
Kelly A said:
Great point.
Yesterday my wife and I were having lunch at a local deli. Two 40-something women were sitting at a table next to ours. One of the women commented about something she heard on the 'Country station'. The other woman asked; which country station? (given there are at least four within range) The original said: "I don't know, I like the morning show on the way to work and they play Country."
All this radio nerd thought about how listeners are so brand loyal, or pay attention to call letters or branding is in fact insignificant in the real world.
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Which is why if iHeart eventually starts the "iHeartCountry Network" with Bobby Bones in all its stations I wouldn't be surprised.

If anything, Beasley's problem is that it doesn't have a nationwide station footprint like iHeart and Audacy do to pull off something like this.

Look at television. Even the most podunk rural town has an NBC or CBS affiliate. You certainly don't see any of them opting to play a local host instead of Fallon and Colbert.
 
Identnut said:
If anything, Beasley's problem is that it doesn't have a nationwide station footprint like iHeart and Audacy do to pull off something like this.
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Nobody has a truly nationwide footprint. Even iHeart. What iHeart has that Beasley doesn't is a national syndication company that puts their programming on stations they don't own. Bobby Bones airs on some stations owned by other companies. They do it because Bobby does a good show that people like, and that audience can be sold to advertisers. So you have two stations in Boston, and both will have outside morning shows. Why? Because the advantage WKLB had with local wasn't enough to pay for it.
 
Yes. Shows like Bones in morning and After Midnight overnight are via Premiere and run on stations in Bos., Seacoast NH, Pittsburgh etc (on iHR country outlets). Some years ago iHeart switched their conservative talk on 104.7 in Pitt. to country; there, Audacy has Y 108 and Forever has Froggy stations on
several frequencies. The nicknames and frequencies are what they remember and iHeart was going after CW to compete in a market where it's popular.

Some local jocks along with the national, yet Beasley is wiping out full time local jocks on KLB, it seems, to save money.
iHeart's 1200 satisfies the national ad campaigns even if ratings are low, with conservative talk. BZ used to have live local talk overnight but now only traffic is live.
RKO, XKS AM, and BZ AM share newscasts
and run promos for each other.
1200 did briefly try local with Jeff Katz and the now-late Jay Severin--and they do
run regional w Jim Polito--syndie otherwise.
Local talk is RKO by day, Rea/WBZ evenings
 
Kelly A said:
All this radio nerd thought about how listeners are so brand loyal, or pay attention to call letters or branding is in fact insignificant in the real world.
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TheBigA said:
The brand they're loyal to is "country" or the "morning show," not the station. For all you know, she could be talking about Sirius or Apple Radio.
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Which also means that whatever imaging that station uses is obviously not memorable. No listener retention at all.
 
K.M. Richards said:
Which also means that whatever imaging that station uses is obviously not memorable. No listener retention at all.
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But which station isn't doing well at imaging? In my example, there are four country signals within earshot.

The point that I'd argue, is most media consumers tune out all the imaging and instead rely mainly on habit.
Back in the early 2000's the company I worked for did several focus group sessions. We were amazed even back then, how few of the participants keyed in on slogans, call letters, or imaging. It's amazing how many women in particular, made comments like: 'I just know that when I press this button on my radio, I hear the kind of music I like.' Same went for local TV stations; Demo's under 50 only watched local news for the weather forecast. Older demos (55+) liked certain anchors because of how they dressed or appeared.
 
> Beasley in theory should not be levereaged but...............

Beasley has significant debt problems, much like the other big radio chains. I'm not ready to say they will file bankruptcy, but it is a possibility. Let's say they're hoping for a big $$$ political season for their stations in Charlotte, Philly, Vegas & Detroit.
 
PTBoardOp93 said:
Beasley has significant debt problems, much like the other big radio chains. I'm not ready to say they will file bankruptcy, but it is a possibility.
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But like the other big radio chains, the debt would not have been a problem if the revenues also hadn't dropped over this time. Let's just say that they can't solve their debt problem by cutting staff. The staff cuts just keep them from losing even more money and adding even more to the debt.

The problem Beasley has that's common with Audacy is they're a family-run company, and a bankruptcy would mean the family business would be destroyed, a lifetime of equity would be wiped out, and the family management would be replaced. So the family would really prefer not to go bankrupt. But once again, even that wasn't enough for the Field family and Audacy (or the Dickeys and Cumulus). Not that anyone should feel sorry for them, but that's the reality behind this process.
 
luperm said:
Because it’s cheaper to have a syndicated show (especially one that the company already owns) than a local one. It’s also not clear to me that “local” is necessarily better by default. Good product is good product regardless of where it is produced. Do listeners actually care if the radio personality knows the name of a high school in Waltham off the top of their head?
Click to expand...
I understand that Boston is a major market so you would think they would have some local
 
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