• Get involved.
    We want your input!
    Apply for Membership and join the conversations about everything related to broadcasting.

    After we receive your registration, a moderator will review it. After your registration is approved, you will be permitted to post.
    If you use a disposable or false email address, your registration will be rejected.

    After your membership is approved, please take a minute to tell us a little bit about yourself.
    https://www.radiodiscussions.com/forums/introduce-yourself.1088/

    Thanks in advance and have fun!
    RadioDiscussions Administrators

Delaware 101.5? Not Philadelphia. Not Baltimore.

F

fredflintstone

Guest
New Jersey and Delaware have a good deal in common.
- Long and narrow; North and South are quite different places.
- Dominated by out-of-state media; each state flanked by two large Metro markets
- For all practical purposes, no in-state TV.

But New Jersey has NJ 101.5 (not New York; not Philadelphia)
A unique, innovative and very successful station.
- They made a market out of most of New Jersey.
- They are at or close to the top of the ratings in their three core radio markets.
- The station forms the hub of an outstanding statewide radio news network.
- They are all local-live, all day long.
- They don't do partisan, ideological political talk. They do lifestyle or water cooler talk.
- Their format is driven by strong local personalities and local content.
- They counter-program themselves with Oldies on the weekend (when talk radio listening typically
drops off and reach a whole 'nother audience and whole new group of advertisers.
- They moved talk to FM.
- They reach the money demos very well (unlike most talk stations).
- Their state is the basis of their identity as a station.

Could this formula work in Delaware? The Wilmington rim-shots with transmitters South of the canal effectively cover two-thirds of Delaware's area (and maybe 80 per cent of its population).

I think it could work. All that is lacking is the will of current station operators to try. OK maybe the creativity to pull it off in Delaware is lacking, too.
 
It'd be a good idea for the 94.7 frequency. If CC weren't selling off its Salisbury/OC cluster, they could cover southern Sussex county with WOSC 95.9 Bethany, just as NJ101.5 has had south jersey simulcasts.

All the similarities listed were good points and valid, IMHO. But there is one major difference between Delaware and New Jersey: population. NJ101.5 makes its money by doing well in a few different Arbitron markets. Isn't it true if you took New Jersey's population, it would be a top 20 (if not top 10) market? Delaware doesn't have that population. The talk format would be more expensive to produce.

Maybe a compromise? Talk 5 am to 8 pm weekdays, with the classic hits music evenings and weekends.

And not just Delaware - I don't know why more FM also-ran stations aren't trying something like this. This isn't the CC station in Pittsburgh that has Rush and conservative political talkers. This also isn't Free FM or other CBS major market hot talk FMs. As Mr. Flintstone said it's water cooler chat that appeals to wider demographics.
 
The combined Middlesex-Somerset-Union, Monmouth-Ocean, Trenton and Atlantic City markets would be Market 16 (following Phoenix and edging out Minneapolis-St. Paul). Music in the evening might work better than the "passion phones" call in type show NJ101.5 does (with former WILM staff member Michele Pilenza). Actually, their weekend music playlist has slid forward in time (to match their target demo for weekday talk) and is not Classic Rock.

Clear Channel has FM talk in Pittsburgh and Minneapolis (with Rush moved over from CBS 50kw AM stations). The Pittsburgh station produces the Quinn and Rose "War Room" in morning drive, which CC is now pushing into syndication in morning drive (or delayed in some markets).

NJ 101.5 is political at times (not exclusively) but they don't "carry water" for any administration or party. Mostly they take shots at the government, politicians and bureaucrats, in general. It's not conservative talk but I'm-mad-as-hell-and-I'm-not-going-to-take-it-any-more talk, mixed with solid doses of entertainment and lifestyle talk.
 
Considering that WRDX is #16 on the 12+ rankings for Wilmington, hey it couldn't hurt, might help. If WRDX did go to that sort of format that would make a place in Wilmington for Glenn Beck's show as well. Granted, he's a conservative, but not in the way that Rush and Hannity are. He doesn't carry the water for the GOP. My guess is that Beck's show would offer serious competition to both John Watson on WILM and Al Messitti on WDEL.
 
I know you like Beck but he doesn't fit the NJ101.5 concept. He's syndicated. He's political (although he he does try to inject more humor than some of the other "water carriers").

Philer may be right: All of Delaware would rank only at market 58, edging out McAllen, Texas. Delaware could not support a quality local-live water-cooler talk station.

Although, I would not be surprised to see Clear Channel get rid of the rest of the current WILM staff, flip the station to one of the bottom-feeder formats (foreign language, brokered, paid-religion) and drop music on the River for syndicated talk (Quinn and Rose, Beck, Rush, Hannity, Levin).
 
If you think about it, Delaware, well at least Wilmington, does have that sort of thing now with WDEL's all live and local programming during the weekday. The topics they discuss tend to be probably more political than what this format you describe contains. I believe their format can work even on AM, especially in this market as people have been trained for years that local news is on AM radio and the News Journal. Even the Gen X'ers, Y'ers, etc tuned into either WDEL or WILM to hear if school was closed. Sure they may not choose to listen to AM for music (frankly anyone who has a choice of music they like being on FM would choose it over AM), but if they are at work and want to hear a ball game, like the Phillies, they'll tune in to AM, if they want good lively local talk, and can't get it on FM they'd tune in to AM assuming they know about such a show. I could invision Delmarva plugging their live and local talk and Allan Loudell's newscasts on WSTW and WXCY, just as Clear Channel does the same promoting their sports casts on 1290 or WRDX on WILM. WDEL does extensive advertising with billboards. I guess we'll see how well WDEL's plan is working and how WILM's format change is working in July with the 12+ numbers.
 
I think you'd be surprised how little Gen X'ers listen to AM (and how little Gen Y'ers listen to radio).

People in most markets know news is on AM. Certainly that's the case in Philly. But the post-Boomer demos don't go to radio for news. And people young enough to still have school age children aren't likely to sit listening to interminable lists of closings in order to hear the one they want. The one exception is sports talk but otherwise, AM is a geriatric medium. People who listen to AM are people who remember when AM was what everybody listened to. (This is a generalization. Exceptions noted.)

NJ101.5 gets younger demos because of their selection of topics, their edgy style and because they are on FM. They don't do hot talk or shock talk like Free FM. But they are not your father's political talk station either. Unfortunately, while WDEL is local, they are political and they sound old. Even if they moved the format to FM (without changes) they would not get a younger audience.

As I think about it and read people's comments, I think Radiophiler is right. Delaware is not a big enough "market" to support doing NJ 101.5's format the way it should be done. And as younger listeners leave radio and older ones age out of the money demos, maybe it's too late to start something like that from scratch.

Here's what will happen:

Delmarva thinks it ain't broke. Only minor fixes. Although once the spring book comes out they may feel the need to go back to talk in PM drive.
Clear Channel knows it's broke. Look for the Mass Extinction - part II at WILM. The station becomes a computer in the closet and flips to one of the bottom feeder formats: Brokered, religion or foreign language. Look for CC to drop music on one of their FM's (most likely The River) and do standard syndicated right-wing talk: Quinn and Rose, Beck, Rush, Hannity, Levin. (Savage has become a question mark on a lot of stations.)
 
I'm not trying to be dense, but where do those young families in Wilmington go for the school closings if not on WDEL, WILM, or even WJBR?

I think you'd be surprised how little Gen X'ers listen to AM (and how little Gen Y'ers listen to radio).

I would think if what you and a number of others are saying is true then the radio station owners must be very worried about the future of their businesses. It's sort of a paradox, the people who like to listen to the radio (Baby Boomers and the Greatest Generation) the advertisers don't want, and the demos the advertisers want (Gen X"ers and Gen Y"ers) don't like or won't listen to the radio no matter what the programming is. Man if that truly is the case then Clear Channel better start unloading their other stations in the top 100 markets too, while they can still get a good price for the stations. Basically from what you guys are saying is that there truly is no future for radio, AM or FM.

It also shows how well "Madison Ave" has "sold" those younger demos where they'd rather buy or rent a radio service or computer downloads, etc, to listen to what they could have gotten for free on the radio if their demos had been solid radio listeners.

Another thought on this, I find it interesting that radio claims there is no market for the older audiences that advertisers don't want the older demos yet, Cable TV would go belly up without all those drug, posterpedic, term life insurance for geezers spots. Why can't those advertisers advertise on radio on an Oldies and Nostalgia type stations. Seems like lazy sales people in radio, if you ask me.
 
School closings:
- Websites including schools, school districts, radio stations and TV stations. Some schools have been setting up automatic email or RSS alerts for closings and other urgent communications. Text and voice messages to cell phones are also being introduced.
- Automated phone. KYW and others have a special phone number. Call an 800 number. Punch in the school code. A computer voice gives you the information. Delaware is included in KYW's closing lists.
- Morning TV shows using a crawl at the bottom of the screen. DVR users can set up their units to record a morning show and then they can fast forward through the show to get their school information quickly. Or they can watch the regular morning and get the school info. Unlike radio, TV morning shows do not have to break format to do school closings. And TV morning shows have replaced radio as the main source of news and other information first thing in the morning - especially among younger audiences.

I don't know if I'd use the word "lazy," but sales people - in any field - do try to get the most return for their efforts. They pick the lower-hanging fruit. They go after customers most likely to buy. They go after customers most likely to place the biggest orders. And they prefer customers who don't require a lot of time being sold and having their hands held. And it's a lot easier - and more lucrative - to sell a customer what he wants than to try to convince him he really should want something else.

You point to another interesting and often over-looked point. There are a lot of marketers and advertisers who DO target older consumers - but they don't make much use of radio to do it. News-talk stations do still have a good portion of their audience in the money demos and they are able to set their rates based on their ability to deliver the money demos. Other formats, like Adult Contemporary, deliver money demos but also allow advertisers to penetrate mature markets (as sort of a bonus). Part of the issue is the senior audience is not concentrated in any format. Some formats like Oldies and Standards are mostly older listeners but even those formats only reach small proportions of older listeners. Actually, you can do a better job selling senior consumers with JBR-FM (even though they are not the lion's share of an AC station's audience) than you could have with JBR-AM.

Terrestrial radio, as we know it, won't last forever. Audio broadcasting using new, emerging or undiscovered technologies will be around for a long time. The problem with radio people is they think they are in the AM and FM business. Just like the railroads thought they were in the train business - not the transportation business. Western Union thought it was in the telegram business - not the communication business. The movie studios were a little slow but they did wake up and realize they were in the entertainment business and they could make movies for TV just like they were making movies for theaters, so the studios took over TV. Consumer/audience needs don't go away. But technology keeps finding new ways to meet those needs. Adapt or perish. 7-11 started out selling ice (for ice boxes) and coal (for home heating). Wawa started out as a home delivery dairy. If they hadn't changed, they wouldn't be around. So far, established broadcasters haven't shown much inclination to change their basic ways of doing things.
 
A couple thoughts on the original thread of NJ 101.5... I agree that it is a solid operation and unique format. While they do simulcast on 97.3, all the ratings are on WKXW. Fall cume for 101.5 WKXW is pushing 700,000 while WXKW out of Millville delivers just 34,300. Despite being a full class B, they could turn off that transmitter and it wouldn't make much difference to the bottom line.

As for Delaware, CC came the closest with WILM simulcasting some news on WDOV. Granted it was on AM, but still, you had good city grade coverage over Wilmington and Dover. It was a halfhearted effort at best anyway as is the case with most of CC's projects that require and investment of cash or manpower.

Finally, from my experience, while Delaware is ONE state, it still has a diverse population. Most people in Millsboro couldn't care less about what Chris Coons has to say about New Castle County taxes and vice versa. So a statewide radio station probably wouldn't work here. (Maybe Rhode Island??)

WRDX does have perhaps the best signal to cover the state, but it loses building penetration north of I 95 and in southern Sussex.
 
>>School closings:
- Websites including schools, school districts, radio stations and TV stations. Some schools have been setting up automatic email or RSS alerts for closings and other urgent communications. Text and voice messages to cell phones are also being introduced.
- Automated phone. KYW and others have a special phone number. Call an 800 number. Punch in the school code. A computer voice gives you the information. Delaware is included in KYW's closing lists.
- Morning TV shows using a crawl at the bottom of the screen. DVR users can set up their units to record a morning show and then they can fast forward through the show to get their school information quickly. Or they can watch the regular morning and get the school info. Unlike radio, TV morning shows do not have to break format to do school closings. And TV morning shows have replaced radio as the main source of news and other information first thing in the morning - especially among younger audiences.>>

Fred, you make me feel old and out of touch. I knew of the school info scrolling past on the TV, but didn't realize they included Delaware schools ( I've only ever watched a TV morning show if I was home, not getting ready to go to work and didn't watch closely what schools were included in the scrolling messages). You must have to wait a long time for them to get through all the Philly/Suburbs/Jersey listings before they get to the Delaware listings. The thing with TV, as always is the case, you have to watch it which requires far more of your attention than radio as you can listen while doing something else, but apparently the younger parents today would take the time to watch TV in the morning. If I had to choose between trying to watch TV while trying to get little kids ready for school or having the radio playing so I could hear while getting the kids ready, I'd pick the radio. Oh what a difference a generation makes.

I could definitely see how the websites and automated phones and KYW's 800 phone could be very useful tools that could easily replace radio for that information as in a few minutes you could log onto the website and assuming it wasn't overloaded with all the parents trying to log on, you should be able to get that info possibly quicker than waiting for the radio station to announce the list. I noticed during our few "ice/snow" storms this past winter both WDEL and WILM did not lead off their newscasts with the school closings as in years past. They inserted them in the newscast "forcing" you to stay tuned to hear your school. I don't remember if either WDEL or WILM referred listeners to check out their respective websites for that info, but that would make sense for them to do that. However with both those stations not making the school/daycare closings the priority as they were in years past might suggest a "sea change in approach" where maybe they don't see that as such an important feature or realize that the majority of their listeners don't have school aged kids and don't really care about what school or day care is closed, but provide the service, because that's what a news type station used to do.

Thanks for the view of how the Gen X'ers and Gen Y'ers think and what techology they are using that we didn't have. You're right, radio as we know it is in big trouble if the families don't depend on radio for even that bit of information, they'd never develop the listening habit as our generations did.

I tuned in for about a 1/2 hour to the "Lionel Show" on WILM Saturday afternoon. He mentioned what you said the other day about how the radio industry is in big trouble, because the Gen X'ers/Y'ers don't listen to radio, AM at all and fewer and fewer on FM. The five minutes he talked about it was interesting. The other 15-20 minutes of that half hour segment wasn't as good and I finally tuned out. The only reason I put up with him for a full half hour is I wanted to get his name and he never said it until he started the second half hour ( I missed the first few minutes of the segment right after the news).

I also noticed that Kim Kommado wasn't on WILM at noon as she used to be. They had been airing her from 11am-1pm, but there was some talker blathering on. I didn't stay tuned in for more than a couple of minutes as I was scanning the dial at that point and wasn't interested in what he was saying. Maybe WILM's computer messed up and brought up the wrong program. Of course with no one in the Clear Channel building other than the WRDX on air person (or do they computerized that too on the weekends) there wasn't anyone there to notice the error. Sometimes only the human can do the job in the best manner. I know that's such a 20th century attitude, but I think it's still correct today.
 
WRDX is automated/voicetracked after 8am, up until 3pm and after 6pm.
 
Would a 101.5-type talk station work in Southern Delaware going up against WGMD?
 
WGMD could be that station if their corporate owners in Washington, DC would look at purchasing some of the Delmarva stations and made the WGMD Network work through the region.
 
WGMD could be that station if their corporate owners in Washington, DC would look at purchasing some of the Delmarva stations and made the WGMD Network work through the region.
Click to expand...

Never happen...to be competitive regionwide, 'GMD would have to cut its often outrageous spotload and dump the infomercials in prime time. I doubt that they are willing to do either.
 
fredflintstone said:
School closings:

Terrestrial radio, as we know it, won't last forever. Audio broadcasting using new, emerging or undiscovered technologies will be around for a long time. The problem with radio people is they think they are in the AM and FM business. Just like the railroads thought they were in the train business - not the transportation business. Western Union thought it was in the telegram business - not the communication business. The movie studios were a little slow but they did wake up and realize they were in the entertainment business and they could make movies for TV just like they were making movies for theaters, so the studios took over TV. Consumer/audience needs don't go away. But technology keeps finding new ways to meet those needs. Adapt or perish. 7-11 started out selling ice (for ice boxes) and coal (for home heating). Wawa started out as a home delivery dairy. If they hadn't changed, they wouldn't be around. So far, established broadcasters haven't shown much inclination to change their basic ways of doing things.
Click to expand...

Great point Fred, and let me add to this by asking a question..."What can local broadcast radio give to consumers that other media and/or technology can't?" The stations and broadcast companies that figure out the answer to that question will be the ones who survive.
 
Status
This thread has been closed due to inactivity. You can create a new thread to discuss this topic.


Back
Top Bottom