Good luck finding a buyer. Last I checked, there are already several NY area AMs on the market, including WLIB. That just drives down the price.
There was a time when WNYC's tower was on the East River, in sight of Gracie Mansion.
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Cuts at WNYC today
- Thread starter atthestars
- Start date
Good luck finding a buyer. Last I checked, there are already several NY area AMs on the market, including WLIB. That just drives down the price.
There was a time when WNYC's tower was on the East River, in sight of Gracie Mansion.
At least WNYC 820 AM is on the lower part of the AM dial, where most of the more popular AM stations can be found.
And there are a number of AM broadcasters in the area that lease out their time; so that could bring in revenue.
He also stuck around and was on RXP, and then FM News. Before all of that he was on WLIR/WDRE
Remember, this has been the WMCA site "forever" and only rather recently did they rent out to WNYC.
This has got to be one of the world's best transmitter sites, in fact. Rather expensive to maintain, though.
Many of the podcasts I listen to (e.g., RadioLab) are WNYC productions. I think public radio has made a herculean effort to ramp-up direct listener support for their podcasts, but to date, I think production costs still rely on the member stations and CPB money more than any of us feel comfortable.
I do think public radio production will continue to shrink until it hits that "tipping point" where direct contributions and underwriting (and ad buys on the MP3 downloads) cover the costs, and then it will grow again. But that transition from old revenue to new revenue is rough.
The podcasts don't use CPB money.
Yes, public radio is going through many of the same problems as commercial radio. As more of us spend time with podcasts and streaming, we listen less to public radio and contribute less. However, WNYC is STILL a big operation and its pledge drives are still quite productive. When we hear WNYC is laying off 7% of its workforce, that's sad and we feel badly for those losing their jobs.
But then the article tells us there are still 80 or 90 people still employed. OK, that's a different story. Perhaps only WINS has a similar sized staff. And WINS is local 24/7. By contrast, WNYC has four hours of exclusively local shows each weekday. Everything else is NPR, PRX, APM or BBC World Service. WNYC produces several weekend shows for syndication to other public radio stations. But they get compensated for that.
The person who posted this on Blue Sky is Micah Lowinger. He's one of two anchors on On The Media. It also has an executive producer, a senior producer, four writer-producers plus tech people. It runs "Best of" for most big holiday weekends, so I would say it produces 48 shows a year. Eight full-time people for a show that runs 52 minutes.
But then the article tells us there are still 80 or 90 people still employed. OK, that's a different story. Perhaps only WINS has a similar sized staff. And WINS is local 24/7. By contrast, WNYC has four hours of exclusively local shows each weekday. Everything else is NPR, PRX, APM or BBC World Service. WNYC produces several weekend shows for syndication to other public radio stations. But they get compensated for that.
The person who posted this on Blue Sky is Micah Lowinger. He's one of two anchors on On The Media. It also has an executive producer, a senior producer, four writer-producers plus tech people. It runs "Best of" for most big holiday weekends, so I would say it produces 48 shows a year. Eight full-time people for a show that runs 52 minutes.
Show me that "record."
It's interesting - we hear so many complaints about how broadcasters on the commercial side of the aisle have pared staffing down to the barest minimum...
... and then when a broadcaster follows what are still best practices for staffing to produce content that's got depth and quality to it, they get pilloried for being overstaffed.
There is, obviously, a lot more to what comes out of WNYC than "four hours of local live programming" on 93.9/820. Anyone who's ever done the dance that is local Morning Edition understands that when done right, it's a complex weave of national and local content, and the local content has to be more than the bare-bones headlines on WINS, because there's no purpose to just duplicating WINS.
The weekly shows are also much more than just an hour or two of radio. They all have very significant digital and social components.
Good radio - which today is good broadcast AND social AND digital AND podcast AND video - still takes a lot of people to be done really well, and when it gets short shrift, it suffers. (My old station here tries to do two hours of talk a day with a full time staff of two and partial staffing from three more, and the result isn't great. Lots of one hour segments that drag on too long to fill time, lots of shows that hit the air with a bare minimum of prior research and production.)
Can you go through an org chart like WNYC's and find *some* areas that could be pared? Of course.
But to just go after it on sheer volume of staff? That's as asinine as what the DOGE bros are doing in Washington, and as unlikely to result in any kind of quality service going forward.
... and then when a broadcaster follows what are still best practices for staffing to produce content that's got depth and quality to it, they get pilloried for being overstaffed.
There is, obviously, a lot more to what comes out of WNYC than "four hours of local live programming" on 93.9/820. Anyone who's ever done the dance that is local Morning Edition understands that when done right, it's a complex weave of national and local content, and the local content has to be more than the bare-bones headlines on WINS, because there's no purpose to just duplicating WINS.
The weekly shows are also much more than just an hour or two of radio. They all have very significant digital and social components.
Good radio - which today is good broadcast AND social AND digital AND podcast AND video - still takes a lot of people to be done really well, and when it gets short shrift, it suffers. (My old station here tries to do two hours of talk a day with a full time staff of two and partial staffing from three more, and the result isn't great. Lots of one hour segments that drag on too long to fill time, lots of shows that hit the air with a bare minimum of prior research and production.)
Can you go through an org chart like WNYC's and find *some* areas that could be pared? Of course.
But to just go after it on sheer volume of staff? That's as asinine as what the DOGE bros are doing in Washington, and as unlikely to result in any kind of quality service going forward.
The show will be moving to WBGO.
He's presently also on WQXR and WFUV, soon to be WBGO as well.
WINS isn't doing bare-bones headlines in the morning, they spend way too much time playing annoying music clips and engaging in pointless sidebar commentary that someone over there thinks is entertaining before throwing it to a break.
Unfortunately, WNYC is running BBC instead of local news during much of that time. Between the two stations it's amazing how little good local news reporting there is to be found on NYC radio in the morning.
They did for a short while, but then New Sounds returned to WQXR-HD2. It too is set to be discontinued. Host John Schaefer is presently looking for a new home. Hopefully the show will land safely elswhere as did New Standards.
There is no BBC on WNYC between 5 and 9 AM. What are you talking about?
BBC....Big Beautiful Cows? Maybe some modern day version of a farm report? Or somebody with a bovine fetish?
This brilliant post should added to every comment about staffing and production.
I'll give an example of why this message is so important by giving a taste of my experience with Emmis' d"Radio 10" in Buenos Aires, a market a bit bigger than New York City. The market had, when I was involved, about a dozen AM "news talk" stations, all with 50 kw or above.
Radio 10 is 100 kw on 710, slightly directional from northwest of the market to be the equivalent of about 200 kw over the metro area and its 20 million people. We did a news based morning and afternoon show modeled after a newspaper: there were news stories, editorials, listener comments (recorded and edited into snippets), sports, weather, business and other features. We even had a staff comedian who would do a bit about a current event "Saturday Night Live" style once an hour.
On a blood pressure monitor, the show usually would read 180 / 90. It was amazingly dynamic and never paused.
The "on air" studio, facing a street corner with big windows, had 7 chairs and mikes, always filled. And there was a director, who never sat down and who made sure that each content piece fit and kept moving. There were over 20 writers and reporters and several mobile units doing street interview or reports. Total staff was about 30 for both the morning show and the afternoon one. The rest of the day was talk with full hourly news and headlines on the half. The total staff was over 100 people.
While I was there, the station was immensely profitable; it generally had double digit shares and was a complement for our "pure Argentine rock" FM station. We beat all the others in ratings, with our share being about a third of all AM news/talk listening. The reach just in the home "county" was over 4 million. Much of the content was networked in large and medium markets all over Argentina.
We could have done it with less, but every cut in staff would have meant the elimination of a portion of the "ingredients". Like a recipe, you can skip that spice you are out of, but it is not the same.
As you say, doing "20 minutes and we give you the world" is essentially a well polished rip and read. It can be done without reporters and rewriting, just using news services. And even then, it serves a useful purpose of keeping people updated.
But a "20-minute-world" does not keep people informed and aware. A democracy requires more.
What was so bad about the original setup of talk and news on 820 and music on 94FM? I still think that's what they need to return to. WNYC-FM classical/cultural, and keep 105.9 FM as a repeater for WNYC 820.
The music programs on the more powerful FM might result in increased donations from music lovers.
Unfortunately, that's not been the case. It wasn't when classical was on 94 either. That's why they expanded the news there, and why they did the deal to get 105.9, and put it on its own station. They don't need to experiment. They know what the results will be. News & Talk are the driving force for public radio. That's what the membership wants, that's where corporate donations are, and that's why the stations are the way they are. You see the same thing in Boston with WGBH and WCRB. They used to do classical on WGBH, but they discovered more membership wanted news & talk.
WBGO’s signal appears to be nulled towards Long Island. I live in Massapequa Park and have that old Radio Shack directional FM Antenna in my attic and can barely get WBGO above my stereo/muting threshold, whereas the other NYC stations come in full strength. I use the signal meter on my Pioneer SX-6 receiver for checking (and I also have a 3 way splitter in the line).
Does this also mean that WNYC AM will be curtailing their postponed AM HD test?
I wish more people would give AM HD a chance, though we no longer have any stations in our area (my radio gets a teaser indication that 1080 from Hartford has HD and 1210 from Philly has HD, but the signal is too weak to trigger HD).
Perhaps if a station (one with 50kw day and night) like WABC would try HD when they play music, people would see that AM can have audio quality that is close to FM. I used to listen to WINS when they had AM HD. Sound was great except for the times that HD switched on and off.
Does this also mean that WNYC AM will be curtailing their postponed AM HD test?
I wish more people would give AM HD a chance, though we no longer have any stations in our area (my radio gets a teaser indication that 1080 from Hartford has HD and 1210 from Philly has HD, but the signal is too weak to trigger HD).
Perhaps if a station (one with 50kw day and night) like WABC would try HD when they play music, people would see that AM can have audio quality that is close to FM. I used to listen to WINS when they had AM HD. Sound was great except for the times that HD switched on and off.