got a couple of thoughts on changes coming to Maine radio, hope others weight in on this. Over all, I'm of the opinion that this is a bad thing for live, local (even local VT), and locally programmed radio. That being said here's my outlook.
WBLM - Gone will any kind of live nights / overnight - maybe some type of voice tracking at night, straight music overnight, actually be surprised if there is even a voice after 10pm, most likely a VT midday and not a local one. Look for a lot if not all of the BLM A to Z deep cuts to vanish, hopefully they roll one more of those before the deal takes effect. BLM will a shell of it self in 3 years. Very Sad.
WCYY - I think because of selling combo of CYY / BLM, CYY will stay around, cumulus will need it to counter the bone / frank combo that nassau offers to cover males 18-54. CYY 2 jocks, lots of VT, a lot more then now, there may be some other voices from inside or outside the cluster. Musically, they will be much more conservative, say good bye to CYY's unequaled support of local music, and most if not all of those local cuts that still come up as part of the core library. Also gone will be the commercial free weekends. CYY will no longer be a station that breaks new bands for the format. The sick puppies comes to mind as an example of a band CYY played first not only in portland but they were one of the first stations to add the band nationally. Again as a CYY listener, I'm very disapointed
WJBQ - Morning show will be cut to 2 people, I don't think cumulus has a 3 person morning show on any station, let alone one in a market that isn't even in the top 100. Also VT mid days, VT nights, and like blm no voices past 10pm. For a CHR the q is already pretty conservative so musically I don't know what the changes will be I don't think much. Maybe a little less rock
WHOM - Live morning ?, everything else VT, I'm sure we can expect to hear Rick Deez on America's superstation
Augusta
WMME - One person live morning, one person afternoon, everything else VT or syndicated, and i'm sure the vt will come from it will out of market, think z 107 in bangor
WEBB - Same thing
I don't believe any of the bangor cumulus stations have a local morning team (i'm sure someone will correct me if i'm wrong), no reason to believe they will keep that in augusta, a small market.
Portsmouth -
WOKQ/WPKQ not sure, that station is strong in both manchester and portsmouth, i'm sure they will add syndicated shows and more VT.
The Shark - All VT, live morning ? if that isn't the case already
Presque isle - I have no opinion, only been there once.
All of this is just an opinion from an outside observer. None of this is good for radio and many excellent people will be caught up in this merger, I'm getting ready to add more music to my ipod. I beleive that Clear Channel and Cumulus are two of the reasons why radio is slowly becoming irrelevant and uninteresting, not that there aren't talented people that work for those companies, but all the talent in the world is of no use if they aren't allowed to use it.
