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Can a Local AM Contemporary Christian Station make it?

J

joshzz

Would Pittsburgh support a local Contemporary Christian Music Station if it landed on the AM dial? There is a K-LOVE station on the FM band but they offer no local support, concerts, etc.

If someone bought an AM, ran it locally (local personalities, etc) and put together lots of local Christian concerts and events, would Pittsburgh support it?

Thanks for your help! :)
 
Yes Pittsburgh would support a live/local FM CCM format

what's your targeted age demo? if you want the people that are still listening to re-runs of Paul Harvey, yes the AM band is the place to go. But what your addressing is more of the active 18 to 54 age groups and sorry AM is on its sunset, you need to be on the FM, minimum class A in power, not a translator at 88 watts

And you need to be streaming your audio with an app for Android and iPhone and on-line for the people that are working 9-5 so they can listen on their desktop/laptop computers

If I was to do it, start streaming first, get a easy to navigate URL (web address) get the audio fully compatible with all devices, then go to the church's and sell your product and have them advertise in there church papers, you barter mentions of their services on your stream for ads in their newspapers and you go to every church and get that targeted demo by proxy. Then after you start generating an audience you can go to the masses and start advertising on billboards throughout the suburbs of Pittsburgh

And a lot of these churches have FM translators and all they broadcast is their services on Sunday and the rest of the week all it is, dead air. work with that too. they can repeat your webstream

That's what I would do
 
hypwr said:
Why didn't Larry F. Anderson think of that?
Click to expand...

Because Larry lost his battle with colon cancer in 2000.
 
I know. I was able to spend some time with him shortly before his death. He had auctioned off his great antique radio collection and I was fortunate to have the winning bid on a great old console radio. We went out for lunch later on and it was obvious that his end was near. My only real conflict with him was when he switched a great classic country station to all talk. That's when Paul and I built the 23 hour studio.
 
On AM I think not. With an FM translator, maybe. But 98.3 (local or not) is doing the format on a
full-time basis, 101.5 is doing it on the weekends, and "contemporary" and AM don't mix very well.
Music can be played on AM radio but only for an older audience (WJAS, WKFB) or serving a unique
niche (WDDZ, WKZV).

C.
 
josh said:
Would Pittsburgh support a local Contemporary Christian Music Station if it landed on the AM dial? There is a K-LOVE station on the FM band but they offer no local support, concerts, etc.

If someone bought an AM, ran it locally (local personalities, etc) and put together lots of local Christian concerts and events, would Pittsburgh support it?

Thanks for your help! :)
Click to expand...

I doubt it -- KLove does very well in Pittsburgh with a 24/7 format.. People don't care where the music comes from as long as it's what they want to hear... An AM would not stand up to KLove in Pittsburgh or any other market local or not.

Btw KLove does make appearances at concerts etc.. They do have regional promotional teams that work with events.
 
xmusicmatt said:
Btw KLove does make appearances at concerts etc.. They do have regional promotional teams that work with events.
Click to expand...

I have seen a K-Love station vehicle in the McKnight road area several times in the last couple of weeks.
 
WWNL-1080 did not make it as a contemporary Christian music station.
WAVL-910 did not make it as a local or WAY-FM contemporary Christian music station.
WPLW-1590 certainly gave it a shot -- as a K-Love affiliate. But it faltered, too.

Ergo, I don't think so.
 
josh said:
Would Pittsburgh support a local Contemporary Christian Music Station if it landed on the AM dial? There is a K-LOVE station on the FM band but they offer no local support, concerts, etc.

If someone bought an AM, ran it locally (local personalities, etc) and put together lots of local Christian concerts and events, would Pittsburgh support it?

Thanks for your help! :)
Click to expand...


You're talking about a station with heavy overhead on the AM dial in the form of live local personalities. It was tried at WAVL AM 910 about a decade ago, and the church that owned it was damn near buried because of it.

The only way a CCM station would ever succeed in the Pittsburgh market is if Salem were to acquire another broadcast property and put said station under the umbrella with WORD and WPIT, using the personalities at those stations to voice-track automated shifts. They have the staff to do it. But if Salem thought it was a profitable investment, they would have done it by now. They're the experts in for-profit Christian formatted radio.

So the short answer is this...no.
 
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