• 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

Bob Lonsberry & Dave Allen to WGY Mornings

N

NJnerd19

Bob Lonsberry will host mornings from 6-8. He has been pre-recorded the past few weeks, I'm assuming that continues while he does mornings live in Rochester.

Dave Allen, who does mornings at WSYR will host from 8-9am. He's live there until 9, so pre-recorded as well?

"Gordon Deal" national program gets a full hour 5-6am.
 
Either Bob Lonsberry is Superman or there's something odd going on. I checked the schedule pages for WHAM 1180 Rochester and WSYR 570 Syracuse.

Lonsberry is on WHAM from 8 a.m. to noon. He's on WSYR from 3 to 6 p.m. Now he's going to do WGY from 6 to 8 a.m.? Even if some of those hours are recorded and played back, what happens if news is breaking? How do you talk about whether Matt Goetz should be Trump's Attorney General if he announces during the day that he's dropping out? Then Lonsberry's morning hours can't be replayed in the afternoon.

Dave Allen does "Syracuse's Morning News" on WSYR from 5 to 9 a.m. You say his last hour will be simulcast on WGY. Then I guess it won't be "Syracuse's Morning News" from 8 to 9 a.m.

I'm sure some news items are common to all Upstate NY communities. But some are not. Do you interview a mayor or county executive from Albany and replay it in Syracuse or Rochester? Discuss Hudson River pollution on WHAM, 200 miles from that river? Discuss a lake effect snowstorm on WGY, which might just be having rain?
 
Gregg. said:
Lonsberry is on WHAM from 8 a.m. to noon. He's on WSYR from 3 to 6 p.m. Now he's going to do WGY from 6 to 8 a.m.? Even if some of those hours are recorded and played back, what happens if news is breaking? How do you talk about whether Matt Goetz should be Trump's Attorney General if he announces during the day that he's dropping out? Then Lonsberry's morning hours can't be replayed in the afternoon.
Click to expand...
He also does 12-2 with a partner on "Radio 95.1" WAIO Rochester. @fybush can attest that most of what he does is local and timely for the market. This is nothing new for him as he previously did local mornings in Salt Lake City and afternoons in Rochester.
 
Gregg. said:
Either Bob Lonsberry is Superman or there's something odd going on. I checked the schedule pages for WHAM 1180 Rochester and WSYR 570 Syracuse.

Lonsberry is on WHAM from 8 a.m. to noon. He's on WSYR from 3 to 6 p.m. Now he's going to do WGY from 6 to 8 a.m.? Even if some of those hours are recorded and played back, what happens if news is breaking? How do you talk about whether Matt Goetz should be Trump's Attorney General if he announces during the day that he's dropping out? Then Lonsberry's morning hours can't be replayed in the afternoon.

Dave Allen does "Syracuse's Morning News" on WSYR from 5 to 9 a.m. You say his last hour will be simulcast on WGY. Then I guess it won't be "Syracuse's Morning News" from 8 to 9 a.m.

I'm sure some news items are common to all Upstate NY communities. But some are not. Do you interview a mayor or county executive from Albany and replay it in Syracuse or Rochester? Discuss Hudson River pollution on WHAM, 200 miles from that river? Discuss a lake effect snowstorm on WGY, which might just be having rain?
Click to expand...

He was starting at 6am in Rochester, that has now been moved to 8am with a generic "WHAM Morning News" block from 6-8 on the schedule.

It appears he can do the show live in Albany now, and so can Dave Allen. It did sound a little different this morning.
 
NJnerd19 said:
He was starting at 6am in Rochester, that has now been moved to 8am with a generic "WHAM Morning News" block from 6-8 on the schedule.

It appears he can do the show live in Albany now, and so can Dave Allen. It did sound a little different this morning.
Click to expand...
No, the WHAM Morning News has been the 6-8 offering there for a while now, long before Lonsberry was doing WGY. He's been 8 to noon on WHAM for several years.
 
While to many Buffalo, Rochester, Syracuse and Albany are just "Upstate NY" they are all different markets, literally and figuratively. What may be an issue in Syracuse may have no relevance to Rochester. Trying to do one "local" program that would sound local in each of those markets seems to me to be a guaranteed failure. Unless the program is going to sound more like a national syndicated show, then that's another story.
 
RadioGuy1864 said:
While to many Buffalo, Rochester, Syracuse and Albany are just "Upstate NY" they are all different markets, literally and figuratively. What may be an issue in Syracuse may have no relevance to Rochester.
Click to expand...

That's why you hire skilled and knowledgeable hosts who know their audience. Lonsberry has been on in both Rochester and Syracuse for some time, and WSYR is still a Top 5 station. I don't know if the intent is for them to "sound local" in each of the markets. The intent is to provide quality talk programming that the audience will enjoy.
 
TheBigA said:
That's why you hire skilled and knowledgeable hosts who know their audience. Lonsberry has been on in both Rochester and Syracuse for some time, and WSYR is still a Top 5 station. I don't know if the intent is for them to "sound local" in each of the markets. The intent is to provide quality talk programming that the audience will enjoy.
Click to expand...
When I was in town earlier in the week he referenced the story of the missing woman’s body from Glendale being found after 11 years.

The intent is to also provide that programming as cheaply as possible.

Sounds like he will be live for 11 hours a day now between WGY, WHAM, WAIO, and WSYR. He must have 3 alimony payments.
 
NJnerd19 said:
The intent is to also provide that programming as cheaply as possible.
Click to expand...

How much do you pay for this service?

From what I can see, he does some local stories and some national stories. The national segments can be run on all stations. The local segments are specific. It doesn't have to all be done in a linear real time way.
 
TheBigA said:
From what I can see, he does some local stories and some national stories. The national segments can be run on all stations. The local segments are specific. It doesn't have to all be done in a linear real time way.
Click to expand...
Does anyone at iHeart fear that even with Lonsberry saying yes to being on four stations, aren't they afraid he'll burn out? Wikipedia says he's 65. And he lives in Canesteo, a small town about 75 miles south of Rochester. Wow, he even has an hour-plus drive to and from WHAM studios unless he mostly works from home.

Even if you are the most organized person in the world, could you keep straight your work on four different stations? Yes, national stories and even a few upstate stories might work for all your stations. But how do you chop and dice the local and the national so that each station gets its fair share? Does he take calls? Does he interact with a newscaster, forecaster, sportscaster? Then add that one of his Rochester stations is on FM and would get a different tone than the AM stations. And on that FM station he has a co-host, further complicating this story.

I heard iHeart wants him to vacuum and empty the trash at the end of his shift so a janitor's job can also be eliminated.
 
Gregg. said:
Does anyone at iHeart fear that even with Lonsberry saying yes to being on four stations, aren't they afraid he'll burn out?
Click to expand...

You must be joking. Who there would do that?
Gregg. said:
Wow, he even has an hour-plus drive to and from WHAM studios unless he mostly works from home.
Click to expand...
Why would he have to leave his house? Of course he works at home. I work at home, so I know.
Gregg. said:
But how do you chop and dice the local and the national so that each station gets its fair share? Does he take calls?
Click to expand...
You have a staff. When you work at four stations, you get a staff. They do that for you.

I've worked in radio my whole life. It's not that hard. No heavy lifting. It's a great job if you can get one.
 
1) Lonsbery lives in Mt. Morris, about a 45 minute drive to WHAM.
2) He seldom works from home, unless the weather is bad.
3) He does all prep himself. Aside from board op/call takers, he has no staff.
4) Yes, he recycles state and national stuff from show to show, but the segmemts are performed live, or live to tape, not pre-packaged for duplicate use.
5) He takes calls on his live shows, but not very often. His iive monologues may sound canned, but they aren't.
 
TheBigA said:
You must be joking. Who there would do that?

Why would he have to leave his house? Of course he works at home. I work at home, so I know.

You have a staff. When you work at four stations, you get a staff. They do that for you.

I've worked in radio my whole life. It's not that hard. No heavy lifting. It's a great job if you can get one.
Click to expand...

i wish i had a staff!

I do some work from home, always have... but theres been alot of heavy lifting.
 
Well for one thing it’s sad to see WGY has been gutted to this.

At least the Capital District still has WGDJ with local hosts in AM and PM drive times after all these years.

When I was up in Upstate NY in the mid 00’s Albany also had WROW but it flipped away from talk ages ago.

I forgot Lonsberry did KNRS’s morning drive while doing WHAM middays 11AM-2PM immediately afterwards before finally infamously getting the shaft at KNRS. Last I had even seen or heard of Lonsberry was him whining about how offensive “boomer” was to him a few years ago.
 
Bob is the energizer bunny for sure. I lived in Rochester for a while 1996/1997 and Bob was doing late mornings at WHAM before the Rush Limbaugh show. I figured he was older than me by at least 10 years and now driving through upstate NY listening to him on WHAM and WYSR he talks about having kids that seem to be teens. If I were 65 with a bunch of kids still at home I suppose I would need to work 4 jobs as well haha to have any hope of ever retiring.
 
Status
This thread has been closed due to inactivity. You can create a new thread to discuss this topic.


Back
Top Bottom