At one time I worked for Citadel. I know a lot of people who work for... er, uhhh... DID work for Cumulus. Both companies viewed AM as the buck toothed, inbred stepchild!! The combination of Citadel and Cumulus surely views AM with even more contempt. They are loath to invest in their major market AMs such as WABC in New York or KABC in Los Angeles. In small to medium markets, they have developed a pattern of not only ignoring any potential any particular AM has, but actually systematically destroying many heritage AM's beyond repair, by both starving the stations for programming and by outright technical neglect. Given this pattern, look for Cumulus to gut WTMA simply because it's AM. Many of their AMs in markets at least as large as Charleston are running (if they haven't simply taken them dark) unattended on a PC in a closet somewhere in the plant where at least some of the remaining employees don't even know about them! It's also obvious that there is no focus on The Wolf whatsoever. However, the fact that 96.9 has a great signal surely isn't lost on the Cumulus suits. My educated guess, based on some conversations with some people I know who still have some connections with those suits, is that Cumulus will indeed kill of WTMA AND The Wolf, then put talk on 96.9. If they follow their so far established pattern, it will initially be all syndicated in order to cut all ties with any current WTMA employees. We all know the story... "the position has been eliminated and no longer exists." After a period of time, look for them to POSSIBLY bring back a live and local morning show, but more than likely if they do anything, it will be a "local" version of one of their own morning shows from another Cumulus station in another market. The days of music on FM are going away at a faster rate than the demise of music on AM did back in the day. That leaves little for AM to compete with. Just ask your friends if they listen to AM. Most can't even figure out how to switch to AM in their car!
