DAYTIME RADIO STATIONS!

[blackgold]

I'd like to discuss another topic: daytime radio stations! These stations are a dying breed, since many of them have reverted to 24/7 broadcasting, or are broadcasting on the internet.

 

[FreddyE1977]

Several daytimers here in the Pittsburgh area as they are on frequencies shared with a
Class A station and cannot get PSA's.

WEDO, 810AM, McKeesport, PA - a mix of religious programs, medical infomercials, ethnic programs, some oldies, and old tyme radio shows.

WKFB, 770AM, Irwin, PA - Brokered, medical infomercials, a union organizing show, and oldies.

WAMO, 660AM, Wilkinsburg, PA - Urban, basically a placeholder for the FM translator that runs 24/7

WKZV, 1110AM, Washington, PA - Classic Country. Lately off the air long before sundown due to a cranky transmitter.

WANB, 1210AM, Waynesburg, PA - Classic Country. Ironically this station moved to 1210 from 1580 a couple of years ago to step up in power.

WPGR at 1510AM and WLFP at 1550AM run night power of 1 and 4 watts respectively....meaning that for all practical purposes they may as well be daytimers. WASP-AM 1130 went dark about a year ago.

 

[ftballfan]

Are there any stations left that choose to be daytimers (i.e. don't share a frequency with a Class A station)?

 

[blackgold]

Several daytimers here in the Pittsburgh area as they are on frequencies shared with a
Class A station and cannot get PSA's.

WEDO, 810AM, McKeesport, PA - a mix of religious programs, medical infomercials, ethnic programs, some oldies, and old tyme radio shows.

WKFB, 770AM, Irwin, PA - Brokered, medical infomercials, a union organizing show, and oldies.

WAMO, 660AM, Wilkinsburg, PA - Urban, basically a placeholder for the FM translator that runs 24/7

WKZV, 1110AM, Washington, PA - Classic Country. Lately off the air long before sundown due to a cranky transmitter.

WANB, 1210AM, Waynesburg, PA - Classic Country. Ironically this station moved to 1210 from 1580 a couple of years ago to step up in power.

WPGR at 1510AM and WLFP at 1550AM run night power of 1 and 4 watts respectively....meaning that for all practical purposes they may as well be daytimers. WASP-AM 1130 went dark about a year ago.

Now, I'd like to know if any of these have 24/7 internet feeds. I know that WGPA 1100 in Bethlehem has a 24/7 internet feed, consisting of polka music and repeats.

 

[w9wi]

Are there any stations left that choose to be daytimers (i.e. don't share a frequency with a Class A station)?

The FCC won't allow you to create a completely new daytimer. They will allow you to convert a full-time station to daytime only. (usually done when the fulltime station needs a directional antenna to operate at night, and decides it doesn't want the expense of maintaining the multitower system)

Not all Class D stations are on clear channels. Some (many) share a frequency with Class *B* stations.

 

[FreddyE1977]

From that list I posted WAMO seems to be the only one that has internet streaming.
Basically they bought that station only to justify running the translator on FM.

 

[firepoint525]

I used to work for a now-defunct daytimer whose feed was also heard over the local time and temperature TV station in that town. I don't know what they broadcast while we were off the air. (We probably had more listeners over the TV station than directly over the air over our AM frequency.)

 

[jfrancispastirchak]

Are there any stations left that choose to be daytimers (i.e. don't share a frequency with a Class A station)?

Not all Class D stations are on clear channels. Some (many) share a frequency with Class *B* stations.

Isn't this the circumstance that spawned the years-old legal wrangling between WABC in NY and KOB (now KKOB) in Albuquerque? Both were (are) 24/7's assigned to 770. NYC's flagship affiliate eventually won that lawsuit, causing KOB to back off it's non-directional night signal, which could be picked up as far east as Western Missouri, according to OTR truckers tuning in the old overnight show, "Jock Radio".

 

[Goat Rodeo Cowboy]

Are there any stations left that choose to be daytimers (i.e. don't share a frequency with a Class A station)?

We could have a lengthy discussion on the question: Does anyone CHOOSE to be a daytimer? Some small town stations did not want the expense of running night time hours during the week.... back when running at night meant paying someone to be there.... and in some cases paying TWO people to be there: the announcer down at the studio in town, and the engineer sitting in the transmitter hut counting the towers every 30 minutes to make sure none of them had wandered off.

But come Friday night when there was a high school football game, they were happy to be on the air.

Rumor has it that there are a number of small market stations that stay on for football games even though their license does not authorize them to.

There are a few exceptions, but for all practical purposes I think we can say that ALL daytime-only A.M. stations are that because they share a frequency with with some other station(s) and the other guy was there first and has the "ownership" of the frequency at night.

The stations that are legally allowed to be on at night are NOT all Class A stations. There are bunches of what we used to call "Regionals" who are on at night and they get protected also. And they have the multi-tower directional antennas so that they protect each other if you want to say it that way.

 

[FreddyE1977]

Does anyone CHOOSE to be a daytimer?

If they were not always a daytimer I think WKZV in Washington, PA might well choose that path,
if only to keep costs down. The owner has died, they are running on a shoestring with just a couple
of employees and one sponsor that I can identify. Many days they will sign-off at 2 or 3PM with no
notice, I presume to save on payroll, the power bill or both.

There was also a construction permit issued locally for WMNY 1360, McKeesport, PA,
and WAVL 910, Apollo, PA, to swap frequencies. And if that had actually occurred WMNY
would now be a daytimer on 910, voluntarily giving up it's 1360 night signal (which is pretty
crappy anyhow).

 

[Goat Rodeo Cowboy]

Does anyone CHOOSE to be a daytimer?

The owner has died, they are running on a shoestring with just a couple
of employees and one sponsor that I can identify. Many days they will sign-off at 2 or 3PM with no
notice, I presume to save on payroll, the power bill or both.

There was a period of time... I would have to sit and think for quite a while... trying to remember where I lived at the time and what was going on when I had some conversations with station owners.. but mabye in the 1970s... when small market A.M. owners actually moved from full-time frequencies to daytime only frequencies for two reasons: Cut the expenses as you pointed out, and to get a power increase. The one I can recall was 1450 in Fayetteville AR moved to 1440. (That move would have made it possible for the owner of the little corn-cob grinder in my home town to move from 1460 daytime only over to the 1450... and in his case it might have also meant a power increase... from 500 watts to 1,000 watts.

But that mentality of day-time only being a good things seems to be a mentality that had a short shelf-life in that era when we thought F.M. was only for big cities, and only for Montovanni and Roger Williams. Today, my home town has no radio. The daytimer was turned off because they (and everybody else) got an F.M. if possible. Then the F.M. got moved into the nearest "city" some 40 miles away so there is NO radio station. If someone had that A.M. on 1450 with hours usable in the darkness, it might be able to have survived.

I learned from the gas station business that operating some marginal hours is important. If you close down about 6 or 7 P.M. rather than staying open til 10 P.M. or midnight, people needing cigarettes, a candy bar, or a quick fill-up before an early morning trip go some where else. They get used to somewhere else. Then when they need their normal DAYTIME fill-up or a brake repair or new tires, they end going to the guy who was open at 10:30 at night when you needed cigarettes or maybe a loaf of bread.

If your radio station is not operating when people on traditional hours get ready for bed at somewhere between 9 and 11 P.M. can't find you on their clock-radio dial, they set the clock radio to that other station that is on the air. Guess where they end up listening when they get up the next day.

Oh, my little home town? Now they get almost NO A.M. signals but they get 12 to 15 F.M. signals that will knock your socks off.

The example you gave was about a station where the owner had died, apparently leaving family members who may or may not have some reasonable understanding about how to run a radio station and how to sell a radio station. Thus their revenue sources are running dry, and they are sometimes shutting down mid afternoon? That is not a text book example I would offer to a college level class on business management or broadcasting on the proper way to make radio management decisions.

Everything we thought we knew about running radio stations and selecting frequencies 20, 30 and 40 years ago has lost much of its validity and currency today. But I think I would just let the banker and the stock broker hold my money for me today before I would invest in a daytime-only radio station.

 

[w9wi]

Yeah, I wrote a post about that -- which the site ate

I've been seeing them in the mid-late 1950s -- those applications to convert Class IV (Class C - "graveyard" - "local channel") stations to regional-channel daytimers.

I'm a bit surprised it was happening that early. By the 1970s there were enough FM radios that you could go daytime-only on the AM and have at least *some* nighttime audience on the FM. In the late 1950s FM was just about *dead*.

Or was it possible that interference on these channels was already so bad that these stations felt a Class IV nighttime facility was useless anyway?

 

[Joseph_Gallant]

These Boston-area stations are still daytime-only:

* WVNE-760 (Worcester)

* WILD-1090 (Boston)

* WDIS-1170 (Norfolk)

* WNTN-1550 (Newton)

And these Boston-area stations are former daytimers that now can operate at night, often with reduced power:

* WSRO-650 (Ashland)

* WJIB-740 (Cambridge, just 5 watts at night!)

* WROL-950 (Boston)

* WCAP-980 (Lowell)

* WQOM-1060 (Natick)

* WXKS-1200 (Newton, originally a daytimer at 1190 Kilohertz and originally licensed to Framingham)

* WJDA-1300 (Quincy)

* WLYN-1360 (Lynn)

* WMSX-1410 (Brockton)

* WAZN-1470 (Watertown, originally licensed to Marlborfo, MA)

* WMVX-1570 (Beverly)

 

[Bongwater]

Seattle area AM Daytimers: 1975

KGDN 630 (Went 24 hours, 1984 now KCIS)
KXA 770 (Went 24 hours, 1980 now KTTH)
KQIN 800 (Went 24 hours, moved to 820 kHz, 1985 now KGNW)
KBLE 1050 (Went 24 hours, 2000)
KTW 1250 (Went 24 hours 1977 shortly after KYAC relocated to 1250, now KKDZ)
KYAC 1460 (Went 24 hours 1984, now KARR)

Seattle area AM Daytimers: 2013

NONE!

 

[Kent T]

In Athens, Tennessee, WYXI AM 1390 is a daytime only station and has been since they signed on in 1962.

 

[Corky Marlowe]

WLIB 1190, New York...Daytimer until 1995, then went 24 hours, forcing WOWO in Fort Wayne to back their nighttime power to 10,000 watts. Still a travesty after all these years.

 

[KeithE4]

WLIB 1190, New York...Daytimer until 1995, then went 24 hours, forcing WOWO in Fort Wayne to back their nighttime power to 10,000 watts. Still a travesty after all these years.

IIRC, they bought WOWO for the purpose of downgrading it to 9.8 kW nights, to allow WLIB to operate after sunset.

 

[ChrisInMI]

The Detroit area also, if memory serves, no longer has any daytime-only radio stations that don't continue their programming in some way after sundown. WUFL 1030 (a Family Life Radio Christian station) was the last one, and it now has a translator at 94.3 which allows it to continue 24-hour operations.

I'm not sure offhand how many Detroit area stations were daytimers in the past, but I believe 560 (now WRDT), 1090 (now WCAR), and 1440 (now WDRJ) were (there may have been others). So was 1290 (now WLBY) in Saline/Ann Arbor. They no longer are.

In the Thumb area, WMIC 660 Sandusky (a mix of news/talk and country music) and WLCO 1530 Lapeer (Cumulus' Real Country via satellite) are daytimers. In Lansing, WKAR 870 (NPR news/talk) and WXLA 1180 (Dial Global standards) are, but WKAR programming continues after signoff on an HD3 of WKAR-FM. In Kalamazoo, WNWN 1560 (Cumulus' Touch Urban AC) is daytime only but has 24/7 programming thanks to an FM translator.

 

[ChrisInMI]

Fenton, Michigan is home to an anomaly - a station that is licensed for 24-hour operations but still signs off at night anyway. That station is WCXI 1160 Fenton. With them out of the way, Chicago's WYLL booms in across much of the state at night.

I believe all five of Washtenaw County/Ann Arbor/Ypsilanti's AM stations were daytimers in the past. Today, none of them are.

And of course, the last one remaining in Canada (CKOT 1510 Tillsonburg, Ontario) was silenced forever last month (it was a simulcast of its country FM sister).

On the FM side, 90.9 FM was Detroit's last major FM station to convert to 24-hour operations. As recently as 10 years ago when they were still WDTR and featuring Detroit Public Schools programming, they still signed off every evening. Still owned by the school district but now programmed by the local PBS TV station, they are now WRCJ, operating with a full schedule of classical days and sat-fed traditional jazz nights.

 

[davideduardo]

WLIB 1190, New York...Daytimer until 1995, then went 24 hours, forcing WOWO in Fort Wayne to back their nighttime power to 10,000 watts. Still a travesty after all these years.

IIRC, they bought WOWO for the purpose of downgrading it to 9.8 kW nights, to allow WLIB to operate after sunset.

Yes, the owners of WLIB, believing an upgraded facility in New York was worth much more than any facility in Ft Wayne purchased WOWO and castrated it.

With WOWO no longer requiring nighttime protection to the previous high degree, WILIB could file for a fairly reasonable night facility. Once that was done, the downgraded WOWO was sold to another company... in about the space of a year back in 1994.