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Difference in a news champion and a wannabe

  • Thread starter Freebird Fantasia
  • Start date

All-news stations generally have short news cycles. Most of you know the old Westinghouse (WINS, KFWB) slogan, "You give us 22 minutes; we'll give you the world."

The primary reason is not that commutes are short. It's that all-news stations and programs have the ability to draw listeners for short time spans from lots of formats. The stations know that many people switch from their favorite music stations to quickly learn what's going on...and then switch back to music. If you look at all-news ratings around the U.S., you'll see that all-news stations typically get huge cumes, and that's because people can tune in and get back to their music station quickly.

WSB is one of the few stations that have not only a huge cume but a very large average quarter-hour audience also. I'm guessing the purpose of telling what's coming up in the next segment, however, is pulling listeners across quarter hours. The present "Atlanta's Morning News" clock, at least for the most part, was installed by Greg Moceri, who was a master at pulling people through quarter hours. The clock also tremendously improved the flow of the show, making it much more listenable.
 
evnlee said:
I have to go with Tom on this one. I dont care what the census says, you cant get through the connector at anytime during drive time in 30 minutes or less. From my personal experience, I would assume the actual 'mean average' at 40-45 minutes, minimum.
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http://explorer.dol.state.ga.us/mis/profiles.htm
What's throwing you off, I believe, is the number of people employed who never get near the connector.

Just hitting a few of the larger counties (which would help skew the average considerably),
69% of Fulton County residents work in Fulton
55% of Cobb residents work in Cobb
54% of Gwinnett residents work in Gwinnett
44% of DeKalb residents work in DeKalb

Point being, while there's waytoomany people stuck on the interstate (or any of the other gridlocked roads around the metro), not everybody who goes to work has one of the nightmarish drives. They're still a PITA, but they don't all take an hour either. For the purposes of stats like commute time, the guy who lives around the corner from his office in Monticello (walking distance = 3 minutes) has a "commute" just like the guy who drives from Barnesville to Lawrenceville (traveling time = Lordonlyknows)
 
RandomGuy6 said:
One assumes that WGST is even trying to compete wth WSB. They're really not, and the changes of the last few years should make that painfully obvious.
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Although it's obvious that WGST's PD is asleep at the wheel, you've reminded me of Denis O'Hare's "Sixty at 6" presentation years ago, during which we could get into our cars after work, drive home and listen to his in-depth treatment of news that was the supreme delivery of everything I wanted to know. I've missed it every day since it was eliminated in the frequently mentioned fiasco...and, get over it, some of us are still bitter! We cope, but it's not the same...and the loss of Tom Hughes is the greatest loss of all, and those of you who didn't listen really don't know what you missed...no 15 minute segment was EVER the same!
 
Dennis O'Hare was truly a great radio news reporter/anchor/host/communicator. i had almost forgot about him.....WGST was a GREAT organization back then. Tons of talent.....they were much better at 5000 watts/920 Khz. Remember....back then WGST was Sooooo much better than WSB!
 
taylorengineer said:
Dennis O'Hare was truly a great radio news reporter/anchor/host/communicator.
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Hooray ! We finally get to agree on something again ;)
 
Dennis O'Hare was a great news journalist and had a very imformative show each day at 6 p.m. No wonder WGST big-whigs showed him the door.
 
Dennis O'Hayer - Sixty at Six - Glory Days at WGST

Dennis O'Hayer was truly a great radio news reporter/anchor/host/communicator. i had almost forgot about him.....WGST was a GREAT organization back then. Tons of talent.....they were much better at 5000 watts/920 Khz. Remember....back then WGST was Sooooo much better than WSB!
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Concur in all respects regarding the glory days at the G, circa 1980-85. I recall their excellent coverage of the missing and murdered children story, strong reporting from the state capitol, and the literate witty grace of talent like Dennis O'Hayer, Forrest Sawyer, Bob Coxe and Jane Simons.

By the way, Dennis had amazingly nice handwriting which always looked spiffy on the discrepancy log. When the heavies ignored squawks for too long, he'd resort to logging them in Spanish.
 
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