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Cumulus Hudson Valley Stations Is Launching Traffic Reports Soon

D

disney fanatic

This is according to the article on this link that Cumulus will be launching traffic reports known as "Right Now Traffic" which will be coming in all 75 markets by April. Now that Cumulus in New York City is getting a traffic report, and then Hudson Valley will also be getting a traffic report on all Cumulus Hudson Valley stations including WPDH, WKXP, WZAD ("The Wolf"), WRRV, WRRB and WKNY. "The Wolf" also did that in mornings during Jack Hammer's "Morning Wolf Den". I hope Cumulus would do better to launch a traffic report in the Hudson Valley including morning and afternoon drives on either Jack Hammer or Beth Christy. Here is a link to explain about the launch of Culumus new "Right Now Traffic" reports which will be coming to 75 markets.

http://www.allaccess.com/net-news/a...us-media-and-radiate-media-launching-nationwi
 
A lot of markets are dying for a quality traffic report. Its seems that when someone sounds good, their information is always wrong, or vice versa. Credit the scrofulous characters in Atlanta for trying something new, but IMO they have their work cut out for them.

They are known to be notoriously cheap and nit-picky . This is a recipe for trouble attracting and retaining people. Throw in their barely-higher-than-minimum wage rates plus awful hours and who knows what you will get.

Will quality people really beat down the doors for this gig? They will probably just hire a bunch of minimum wage tools to collect information, then pass it along to local jocks that they have left to read.
 
I hope that when Cumulus starts doing traffic it will be live, accurate, up to date and pertain to the stations main service area, no matter who is reading it. Yesterday afternoon traffic was backed up on route 9 Poughkeepsie was backed up from the old Casperkill Country Club to almost to the Poughkeepsie Galleria. It turned out there was an accident there. I turned to WRNQ, and listened to two traffic reports and nothing was said. My daughter recently had a tour of CC Poughkeepsie and told me the traffic reports are all recorded
 
All the CC traffic reports are now recorded out of NYC (or in the case of Afternoon Drive Long Island). When it was being done locally, it was recorded but right in the CC building because the reports were covering different areas and news. Also different reports were recorded for the Poughkeepsie Stations and the Orange County Stations had different reports so the reports could be more focused. What was once great local radio has been bad regional radio.
 
Only a few more days left until all Cumulus stations in the Hudson Valley are launching "Right Now Traffic". I was listening to Jack Hammer this morning, he did a traffic report every morning, and on a afternoon drive, none of the traffic reports heard on Beth Christy's show, but I hope Cumulus needs more traffic reports on afternoon drive if they will launch "Right Now Traffic" starting in April.
 
For those of you may kmow, it is April, and all Cumulus HV stations hasn't started launching "Right Now Traffic" yet, but I was checking this morning on "The Wolf", one of the Cumulus stations that Jack Hammer did his traffic reports during the Morning Wolf Den and when I was listening in the afternoon drive with Beth Christy, there's no "Right Now Traffic", because it hasn't started yet on all Cumulus Hudson Valley stations. Is WDBY in Danbury, CT started "Right Now Traffic" or any Cumulus station outside of the Hudson Valley including WABC and WPLJ? I hope CC should be stuck with the Total Traffic Network for now. If Cumulus launches its "Right Now Traffic" report, it should compRete with CC's Total Traffic. Let's hope Cumulus and Ranidate should launch its "Right Now Traffic" network, but not anytime soon.
 
Um...what? I think the batteries in my decoder ring just blew out.
 
I have found that traffic reports generally are worthless. Often word of a traffic delay somewhere is cleared up before it even hits the air. Other times at an accident scene, the vehicles involved, and the police car are off on the shoulder of the road, not an impediment to traffic.
 
THE_KNICKMAN said:
I have found that traffic reports generally are worthless. Often word of a traffic delay somewhere is cleared up before it even hits the air. Other times at an accident scene, the vehicles involved, and the police car are off on the shoulder of the road, not an impediment to traffic.
Click to expand...

This is especially true The mid Hudson Valley stations. The majority of the report is for areas well south and west of here. They are aimed at drivers commuting to NYC. I have often thought if you are listening to a Poughkeepsie station chances are good the problem will be gone by time you get there Most mentions of the Mid Hudson Bridge and route 9 are cursory, unless it is really major. Meanwhile I have been stuck in traffic backed up for a couple of miles on route 9 and nothing, no mention at all. The service probably creates the reports for areas like Westchester, and the Poughkeepsie -Newburg stations just plug it in. This makes it seem like they are doing traffic, without spending much money. The last time Poughkeepsie had a true live traffic report was on then stand-alone 1450 WKIP, when they had ‘The Hawk’ flying around in a plane checking on traffic. That was a long time ago; I t probably got to expensive.
 
You can get traffic reports by Twitter, E-mail, Text message to your phone. I am sure radio station's get it from the computer.
 
Roger said:
You can get traffic reports by Twitter, E-mail, Text message to your phone. I am sure radio station's get it from the computer.
Click to expand...

Google Maps. Traffic Layer. Done.
 
MHVRadiofan said:
THE_KNICKMAN said:
I have found that traffic reports generally are worthless. Often word of a traffic delay somewhere is cleared up before it even hits the air. Other times at an accident scene, the vehicles involved, and the police car are off on the shoulder of the road, not an impediment to traffic.
Click to expand...

This is especially true The mid Hudson Valley stations. The majority of the report is for areas well south and west of here. They are aimed at drivers commuting to NYC. I have often thought if you are listening to a Poughkeepsie station chances are good the problem will be gone by time you get there Most mentions of the Mid Hudson Bridge and route 9 are cursory, unless it is really major. Meanwhile I have been stuck in traffic backed up for a couple of miles on route 9 and nothing, no mention at all. The service probably creates the reports for areas like Westchester, and the Poughkeepsie -Newburg stations just plug it in. This makes it seem like they are doing traffic, without spending much money. The last time Poughkeepsie had a true live traffic report was on then stand-alone 1450 WKIP, when they had ‘The Hawk’ flying around in a plane checking on traffic. That was a long time ago; I t probably got to expensive.
Click to expand...

I agree 100% these canned traffic reports piped in to our local stations from lord knows where are beyond worthless. These are just opportunities to sell ads adjacent to traffic reports to sponsors who don't know any better.

I remember when the Hawk was still flying. Later when he spent more days on the ground than in the air Q92 and KIP had people driving around in a mobile traffic patrol called Rescue (or Res-Q) One.

It's not services like the Traffic Hawk that got too expensive. It's the debt service that got too expensive. How much it costs to present a live, local product has taken a back seat to the billions of dollars in debt companies like Clear Channel and Cumulus have to pay the banks for the billions they borrowed to buy all these radio stations. They need to generate revenue to feed the debt beast and massive bonuses for top management instead of reinvesting in local product.
 
Fidel Ipac- Well said. Hit the nail on the head. Local radio the way people remember it is next to impossible to execute in the 21st century. I wonder what happens in 20 years when the generation that grew up with radio taking a backseat to ipods, pandora, and youtube are running things. Do they even care about radio?
 
callahan broadcasting said:
Fidel Ipac- Well said. Hit the nail on the head. Local radio the way people remember it is next to impossible to execute in the 21st century. I wonder what happens in 20 years when the generation that grew up with radio taking a backseat to ipods, pandora, and youtube are running things. Do they even care about radio?
Click to expand...

So you are saying if an independent operator , with the knowledge and resources to either buy an existing or start a new station in say a small or mid sized market, hire quality talent and run a station that actually cares about and serves the market the way it used to be done it would fail? I would hope they could attract an audience and make a profit, and not be squashed by the big guys. So you are saying if an independent operator , with the knowledge and resources to either buy an existing or start a new station in say a small or mid sized market, hire quality talent and run a station that actually cares about and serves the market the way it used to be done would fail? I would hope they could attract an audience and make a profit, and not be squashed by the big guys. The key being it could not be a low budget no frills operation , like say WHVW .Maybe I am just dreaming.
 
It's near the end of April, and all Cumulus HV stations still hasn't launched "Right Now Traffic" yet. I tuned to Jack Hammsr every morning on "The Wolf" where he talks about his morning commute, and many Cumulus outlet like WPDH, WRRV, WCZX and WKNY hasn't starting "Right Now Traffic" especially on afternoon drive. What happened? Did Cumulus and Radiate loses its mind of doing traffic. Look at WPLJ and WABC, they had their "Right Now Traffic" reports, why not bring it to the Hudson Valley? I got no idea.
 
Radio traffic reports:bad voices, poor grammar, poor pronunciation. This is what you get when the reporters make less then those who work at fast-food drive - through windows. The first ever HV drive reports I recall were made by WKIP (AM) Poughkeepsie. The traffic reporter was in a single engine plane looking at the bridge between Highland and Poughkeepsie. He would look at the traffic on the bridge between Newburgh and Beacon (then 2-lanes) with binoculars. This was about 1972. I can recall when the current Tappan Zee bridge was not in existence. The new construction there may stop traffic for a decade.
 
I do not understand any excitement or even any interest in a traffic program produced by / for stations to the south of us focusing on Westchester and Orange counties with some mention of Poughkeepsie as an afterthought with help from the internet.
 
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