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Black Information Network On Its Way To Columbia

I'm surprised Throwback is flipping with the good numbers they had for a translator. They just had a 2.1 in the holiday book. Hopefully, BIN will pick up some steam here as well. Does anyone see Alpha or Cumulus picking up on the Classic Hip Hop/Rhythmic Oldies format?
 
W288CX at 105.5 MHz. It is powered at 250 watts on a tower at 492 feet above average terrain. According to Radio-Locator.com, it covers Columbia as well as South Congaree, Cayce, Springdale and St. Andrews.

iHeart has put some decent money into the network, hiring good anchors and a few commentators. You do get the feeling everything is prerecorded. All segments must be timed to fit into the automated news wheel.

But in a market like Columbia that has no all-news station, only an NPR news/talk outlet and a couple of conservative talk stations, this might be a good option for anyone, black or not, who wants to hear an all-news format.
 
BIN is perfect on paper, but is awful in real life. I wasn't listening, but the day of the incident at the US Capitol, I was told they were running regular news segments. Seriously? Totally canned sounding.
 
True, it is prerecorded. So when something breaks suddenly, they can't respond immediately. That also means they sometimes are telling us something is going to happen when it already has. Recently BIN was reporting on the preparations NYC was making for an expected snowstorm. But the storm already hit the Northeast and the snow had stopped. Another time, BIN was reporting on steps that civil rights groups were taking to stop the execution of an African-American prisoner. That story was still running after the man was put to death.

These mistakes are not something you hear everyday. But they shouldn't happen at all. Maybe over time, BIN will deal with the hazards of prerecorded news.
 
I don't think so. iHeart seems solidly behind it. It has flipped a number of stations around the country to BIN. You might say, some were underperforming anyway. But some were not. As others have said, the translator in Columbia was getting some ratings before the switch.

iHeart even flipped a full power FM in the Norfolk Virginia market to the BIN network. iHeart has also bought a few stations in large markets, include AM 1600 in NYC, to become BIN affiliates.

It has a number of prominent advertisers as "founding members," including McDonald's, CVS Drug Stores and GEICO. So I think it's going to be here a while.
 
I'm very curious why, here in Greenville, they only have it on a crappy AM. Why not put it on an HD of one of the big FMs? I mean, for god's sake, they are airing freakin' lullabies on 102.5 HD-2. Talk about a waste of signal.
 
The Black Information Network has been running for a number of months in the Miami/Ft. Lauderdale market on 880 AM. I've listened several times and IMO it's not great. As others have mentioned, content is sometimes days old and repeated often, they'll reference upcoming events that have already passed, and though it's basically a 24/7 news network, many stories are stale. It can be especially bad on weekends when congress is in session or there's a significant national or world event and BIN is still repeating news from the previous week that's no longer relevant or correct. There's not much to hold listeners after they've already heard all the stories once, and little about the content is entertaining or captivating IMO. I mostly tune into BIN when on my commute and NPR is airing something I'm not interested in.

Here's the discussion about 880 AM in Miami:
 
BIN has been profitable since day one. The founding members are big business that have promised ample funding for the network. That funding is not simply based on ratings or advertising but rather an investment in the community via BIN. The quest is to get in a certain number of the right markets. Since this was a very fast start with some very good professionals hired, I would say the issue at this point is logistics that will be ironed out. Some of the signals are not ideal. If demand is there, it might move to FM and/or better signals. At this point, I'm sure there is a cap on investment in acquiring stations.

One of the things lots of folks don't think of is the ability to market newscasts and such to non-BIN stations as well as iHeart Urban formats. There can be much more than just an AM signal for BIN. It just has to grow to that point.

Simply put, BIN not set up like traditional radio. It is certainly 'outside the box thinking' on funding and goals.
 
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