• Get involved.
    We want your input!
    Apply for Membership and join the conversations about everything related to broadcasting.

    After we receive your registration, a moderator will review it. After your registration is approved, you will be permitted to post.
    If you use a disposable or false email address, your registration will be rejected.

    After your membership is approved, please take a minute to tell us a little bit about yourself.
    https://www.radiodiscussions.com/forums/introduce-yourself.1088/

    Thanks in advance and have fun!
    RadioDiscussions Administrators

Big changes at WILM starting Monday

M

MikefromDelaware

John Watson announced it this morning on his show and it is also posted on the WILM website. Watson starting Monday is moving to weeknights 9pm-12mid, so that WILM can carry Glenn Beck weekdays from 9am-12noon.

The new WILM weekday schedule is:

12mid-5:30 Jim Bohannan
5:50am-9am Elliot in the morning
9am-12noon Glenn Beck
12noon-3pm Rush
3pm-6pm Hannity
6pm-9pm Savage
9pm-12mid Watson

WILM dropped Mark Levin. Well this way CC can say Beck has clearance in Philly, even though WILM's coverage doesn't reach past the Philly Airport, but that's still in Philly.
 
Elliot in the Morning looks out of place in the WILM schedule now that it's fulltime conservative talk except for Watson and Bohannon. Clear Channel should plug in their Quinn and Rose show from 6 to 9AM. But I guess it's all about Premiere clearances, and Citadel's Levin is the odd man out.
 
Bruce Elliot's show is essentially a newsblock with his interviews with Fox Reporters and his conservative spin to those stories in the interviews. So Elliot's show offers Fox News, local news, traffic, weather, sports, the Rush/Hannity morning rants, and Elliot's interview/spin on a selected news story for that segment. I'd say it fits with the general theme of today's WILM. Watson is definitely odd man out as even though Bohannan is a moderate, he is a conservative on some issues, especially the deficit and government spending issues. Watson and Bohannan do give WILM some balance, even though their shows air in the later evening and overnight. So daytime and early evening (5:30am - 9pm is conservative talk and 9pm-5:30am is moderate to lib talk). Bohannan doesn't only do political talk, some of those hours will simply be interviews with celebrities, folks who've written a book, etc, that are of a non-political nature.

As there are only three other places in Delaware to get local news on a daily basis: The Wilmington News Journal, WDEL, and The Del. State News in Dover so WILM/WDOV doing Elliot offers another place to get local news from within First State. My guess is, with the new format of Elliot's show, he'll pull in many of the Rush/Hannity and now Beck crowd during AM drive time, which will take them or keep them from their cross town rival WDEL.

At least no one can say that WILM is totally on the bird with no local programming. Elliot, Watson weekdays, and some local talk on weekends. That's better than some of the other CC news/talkers that are all syndicated programming.
 
Putting John Watson on late at night when few are listening is a way to be conservative talk from 6am to 6pm, the key audience times.
 
Posted by: jhguthlac
Putting John Watson on late at night when few are listening is a way to be conservative talk from 6am to 6pm, the key audience times

I totally agree, yet on paper CC can say they offer more than just conservative talk and even offer local programming in AM drive and other times. Who would have "thunk" that Wilmington's little WILM would become CC's Wilmington AND Philly clearance affiliate for Beck.

So now from 6am-6pm WILM/WDOV are essentially simulcasting. WILM/WDOV are simulcasting Elliot, but then both air Beck/Rush/Hannity. So essentially 1410/1450 become one station, even though yes both are sold (local spot wise) separately. WICO AM-FM Salisbury, MDalso air Beck/Rush/Hannity from 9am-6pm you could travel most, if not all of the entire Delmarva Peninsula and hear Beck/Rush/Hannity during that entire four hour journey (there probably is a Virginia Beach station that airs the big 3 completing the journey across the bay bridge tunnel. WGMD in Rehoboth Beach only airs Rush, so for that last leg of Delaware the Salisbury station would fill that void. for those so inclined.
 
I think it is a joke what WILM is doing to John Watson. This Bruce Elliot guy is a real head case. His show is so bad, and what he is doing as the new PD, I think, is the final nail in the coffin. I hope John leaves for WDEL!!! How awesome would that be? Come on Chris Carl, what do you think? John should go work for a real PD!!!!!
 
musichead1029 said:
Elliot in the Morning looks out of place in the WILM schedule now that it's fulltime conservative talk except for Watson and Bohannon. Clear Channel should plug in their Quinn and Rose show from 6 to 9AM. But I guess it's all about Premiere clearances, and Citadel's Levin is the odd man out.
Click to expand...
I was confusing Bruce Elliot's local WILM morning show with the regionally syndicated Elliot (Segal) in the morning from Washington's WWDC. Mea culpa.
 
Unfortunately for Bruce Elliot, he doesn't seem to do his homework before he interviews his Fox news cronies. Bruce interrupts the reporter on the phone to make some slam at Obama or something, and the reporter has had to correct Bruce in what he thought was the case. In all the years I've listened to Loudell both when he was at WILM and now at WDEL I never heard him be so uninformed about the story he's interviewing as appears to be the case with Bruce Elliot. Bruce want's to slam any and all Dems any chance he gets and the facts shouldn't get in his way. Bruce thinks he's funny, he's not. So, unless he changes his approach I could see Elliot in the Morning, the WILM version losing audience and eventually going away as CC puts a syndicated morning talk show in that slot.

As far as John Watson goes. A little bit of Beck goes a long way, but Beck fits CC's mode of operanti better than the liberal Watson. The minority community is upset as an article about that appeared in today's News Journal. WILM/CC won't bring John back to weekdays. It is what it is. John has had a long run. He still can serve the minority community of Wilmington as WILM's signal is strong in the city at night, whereas in the suburbs, not so good. My guess is, Watson's show will survive the time change and John being a talented host and professional will make it work.
 
I am very saddened as to what happened to WILM. That's despicable what they did to John Watson. Replacing him with Glenn Beck and shipping him to the 9pm shift. And now they really don't have many local reporters.
Also I cannot believe they let go Ted Efaw. He was such a nice guy. I was an intern at WILM from May-August 2008 (my first name is Griffin if anyone on this site was at WILM when I was) and he was a great help to me showing me the ropes and talking about his beloved Phillies.

It's just a crying shame what WILM turned into.
No Valerie Mack, no more Mark Fowser, now a KYW1060 traffic guy; no more Ted Efaw, no more John Watson, no more anyone to speak of. :(
 
If Clear Channel Delaware were a government agency rather than a private concern, the very talk show-hosts now on WILM would have reason to lampoon WILM as a boondoggle!

Let's see: CC pays an incredible $4 Million for WILM. It couldn't have been the equipment. It couldn't have been its sales department. The only thing WILM had was its local news image and community service - however imperfect - which CC proceeded to gut. (If CC simply wanted a conduit for the usual syndicated, cookie-cutter talk, why not put it on 1290 AM?)

In that same deal, CC leases the transmitter site from the Hawkins family for an unspecified sum.

Then, CC leases space in a building near The News-Journal building, and constructs a state-of-the-art studio for many more people. (The old WILM staff would've killed for that kind of facility!)

With all those dismissals / terminations, CC is now leasing vastly more space than required, and most of the facility - from what I understand - is like a tomb, particularly after business hours.

Talk about phenomenal short-sightedness and waste! Seems the CC bureaucracy rivals government in its waste and ineptitude.

Clearly, John Watson doesn't mesh with the current CC vision. Age - graying demographics - may represent a much bigger barrier than race, or even ideology.
 
It would be interesting to have some insight into what CC's original intent for WILM was when they bought it. The Hawkins kept the station in its decaying facilities despite at least one offer to finance a move to new facilities in return for the land. Certainly the land was worth something, and that may have figured in CC's purchase decision. The station was overstaffed for the product it was putting out and the ratings it garnered, so some savings could be realized there (the only mystery is why it took CC so long to downsize staff and streamline programming.) The $4M purchase price was a result of misguided optimism and timing in a radio facilities market that was about to tumble.

AM serves a graying market today that isn't going to get any younger. The band is on the way out in electronics due to intractable interference and is almost completely gone from today's dominant portable devices due also to physics (where to put that antenna?). CC puts its talk and sports programming on 1450 and 1290 to attract the youngest portion of the dwindling audience that still uses AM. The economics of AM and radio in general don't support much in the way of local news and features outside drive times. That he's still on the schedule at all suggests that Watson must be doing something right.

Not too many years from now, the only AM signals covering Wilmington, and other smaller markets, will likely be 50kWers from surrounding markets, with perhaps a handful of the existing in-market AMers repeating out of market programming. Any viable local programming will have migrated to FM and the internet.
 
As for 1410 WDOV I honestly wouldn't care if it went off the air completely. It wouldn't bother me one bit. I'm 26 and pretty much the only radio stations I listen to anyway are KYW 1060, 660 WFAN and 880 WCBS. I am a news junkie. I rarely even listen to any music stations. I guess I'm just old school.
 
musichead1029 said:
That he's still on the schedule at all suggests that Watson must be doing something right.
Click to expand...

Or it suggests that either he has a contract that he's serving out in the evening or that management kept him on to avoid any kind of backlash over firing him (or both).
 
Everyone is gone. The KYW Traffic guy is Jim Hubmaster, and he has not been at WILM for over a year. He is back in Philly and is the only one that left on his own. I know this, because I was still there when Jim took the other position. They have gotten rid of everyone else, including me. It is simply a shell, and really horrible to listen to. I never thought I would say this since I worked at WILM for YEARS, but the best in town is WDEL!! Chris Carl and the staff at DEL have done one hell of a job!!!! It is only a matter of time before they are the only game in town.
 
OK, so WILM becomes a computer in a closet. We can mourn the passing of what it was. With a skeleton morning crew and news from Dover and most everything else off the bird, it won't take much for the station to show a profit. Radio's mantra today seems to be minimize costs and make an easy buck. It works for a while, and when it stops working sell out to some preacher, foreign language broadcaster or infomercial outfit.

With stations that used to run satellite conservo-talk, like WDEL, WBAL, KDKA (among others) doing news in AM and PM drive, local talk in-between and ballgames later satellite right-wing talk is well on its way to becoming a bottom-feeder, bargain-basement format like religion, foreign language and brokered time.

Meanwhile, Watson hangs around in the evening until either (1) His contract runs out, (2) he gets bored or (3) people are no longer paying attention and management can let him go. Then WILM throws the switch and takes Dennis Miller (like WDOV). Unless Bruce Elliot really can create a following (and the sales department can make sales), I wouldn't even be surprised if we see a syndicated show in morning drive. Imus or Clear Channel's Quinn and Rose being most likely.
 
MattParker said:
OK, so WILM becomes a computer in a closet. We can mourn the passing of what it was. With a skeleton morning crew and news from Dover and most everything else off the bird, it won't take much for the station to show a profit. Radio's mantra today seems to be minimize costs and make an easy buck.
Click to expand...
In WILM's case, it was a hobby station under private ownership, with extremely aging demos, losing money on purpose. The question, again, is why CC took so long to bring the station's staffing into line with the potential revenue stream. Part of that was done by concentrating the local resources on the drive times and filling the rest of the day with CC's top-tier talkers. By taking their time, CC may have smoothed the transition, but the whole WILM transaction is still baffling. CC overpaid, even at pre-recession rates, then did nothing with an overstaffed station for several years. Maybe there's some back-room politics I'm not privy to, but the execution of the takeover seemed very inefficient, especially by CC's standards.
 
Who knows, maybe the Hawkins family had put into the sales agreement that major changes would not happen for a certain period of time, or something to that effect.

What WILM has done is as musichead suggests, they've kept what local on air talent for AM drive time, WILM's best local spot time, so that they can compete with WDEL's AM drive newsblock. WDEL uses far more people to do what they do during that AM drive news block than WILM does. So WDEL has to sell far more spots to make ends meet. WILM which doesn't have the local spot load of WDEL might be able to make it with such a scaled back work force. They offer essentially the same local news stories, but without sound, just Phil Feliciangeli reading the stories for both WILM/WDOV. Same news as WDEL. Allan Krackhour does sports, same as Big Don Volts on WDEL again minus any sound, just Allan reading the stories. Both use a weather service. As broadcasters, WILM's /CC's style is not to most our liking due to other radio folks not being needed, yet CC/Delaware is making that work at WILM.

They're running an AM drive time newscast with really only 4 local people, the fourth being Christie Cooper from sister station WDSD doing double duty as the traffic reporter. So they've got possibly 3 full time people, 2 WILM and 1 at WDOV. Who knows, maybe Bruce Elliot is only part time which would then make it 1 and 1 at WILM/WDOV. From a business sense, that's pretty smart. At least they didn't eliminate any local news and go to the bird 24/7. Sure it would be much better if it was all live and local, especially the news, as WILM/WDOV does prerecord their local news/weather breaks for airing during the day after Elliot. I wonder who gets stuck with coming back at night to produce Watson's 9pm-12midnight show in a way to complete their full time hours? Allan or Bruce? Phil does news breaks throughout the day on WILM/WDOV, so the assumption I'm making is Allan or Bruce come back in the evening to produce Watson. Or maybe WILM has hired back Nancy Lopez part time to do the producing. I've not listened to WILM at night for quite some time.
 
They can get somebody part-time for minimum wage to board-op and call screen for Watson. However, it's even money he doesn't have anybody at all and probably doesn't need anybody. He's probably not getting that many calls at night. His callers in the morning were mostly the same-old, same-old usual suspects, and that is probably even more than case at night (albeit with a much smaller supporting cast of callers). Most telling of all: Sounds like we are all speculating and nobody bothered to listen to find out.

I recall reading some time ago, that Krakower was part-time and was actually a high school teacher. I can't believe anybody would give up a tenured teaching job (better pay, benefits, pension and actual job security) to read ball scores for Cheap Channel. As long as we are speculating, maybe he's still part time and just uploads sports reports from home before he goes to teach.

More speculation: Watson is no longer listed on the station website. Maybe he's part-time or now in the same category as those "community" hosts WILM used to put on in the evening. It's not impossible that his show is brokered like those hosts in Vineland.

It's looking they are down to two full-time programming employees - one in Wilmington and one in Dover. In the fall ratings, about as many people were listening to 1210 in Wilmington as 1450 - when both stations were carrying the same shows much of the day. And Clear Channel's Delaware sales staff has a tough sell, especially since the company's Philly cluster has almost three times as many listeners in Wilmington as its Delaware stations.

Typically, the guy who master-minded Clear Channel's $4 million dollar purchase of WILM got promoted.
 
I believe I've heard Allan Krakower making comments to Bruce about whatever Bruce was discussing prior as he starts his sportscast, so my assumption is Allan's live. Of course, maybe Allan had enough time served to get a pension from the teacher's union or the state, meaning you and I, (wherever the teacher's get their pension from) and retired from teaching and does WILM as a second career to supplement his pension.

WILM still airs those community hosts on the weekend. I was the only talk show host on the weekend to be a WILM staffer, same with Wendy Levine, whom I took over the show from when she moved out of state.
 
Status
This thread has been closed due to inactivity. You can create a new thread to discuss this topic.


Back
Top Bottom