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Game on: Riter/WECK declare war on Entercom

Sports fever spreads to Toronto. Taylor On Radio, Friday February 18, reports:

CHUM, Toronto’s cable-news simulcast ends after two years – replaced by all-sports. The co-branding experiment with the CP-24 all-news channel will end April 13. The 1050 frequency that was once the home of contemporary music CHUM radio will next try sports, making it the third place to find sports on the mid and low part of the AM dial. Rogers runs SportsNet Radio Fan 590 CJCL and Corus has talk-and-sports CFMJ 640. The new entrant comes from sports cable channel TSN and they’ll brand it as “TSN Radio 1050” – so the AM goes from one cable partner to another. The lineup includes some U.S. shows such as Dan Patrick from DirecTV/Fox Sports Radio and Jim Rome from Premiere, says the Globe and Mail. The Toronto Board of Radio-Info.com is handicapping the new three-way sports race.

So the legendary 1050 CHUM, which had anemic ratings simulcasting news, now goes up against two established AM talk-sports stations. TSN is an outstanding sports media outlet. Dan Patrick and Rome are provem established commodities. Patrick last week scored points with his Charlie Sheen interview and Rome is known from syndication and years at WGR. (Factoid, I first put Rome on WGR in '98. People thought it was a bad move. He's still there. Rack me.) But even though 1050 CHUM has a 50kw, albeit directional signal that covers the Toronto market and gets into Buffalo during the day, you have to wonder if it has a chance in TO. And if you live in Cheektowaga or Tonawanda, you'll be able to hear five sports stations on AM. Maybe it should be called it Arena Modulation.
 
WECK's best bet is leased time programming.

Outside of the various adult standards formats that have popped up over the years, has there been a case of a bottom of the barrel AM station in a medium-major market that's ratings turned around with a new format?
 
Element9 said:
The evil "syndication" on WGR comes from ESPN, the benchmark of sports and arguably some of the best sports programming in America. Plenty of listeners would prefer listening to ESPN than what passes for local sports talk on WECK, which has access to Fox Sports and is making a name for itself, competing aggressively with ESPN. If Dick Greene is taking his Cheektowaga graveyarder up against WGR, perhaps Fox Sports syndication should play a more prominent role. As to the local programming? Blow up the morning show. It fought the good fight and failed. Put Riter on in morning drive. Assign the gifted and talented Tom Donahue to producing promos and commercials. Assign Ms. O'Donnell to traffic or sales. Bill O'Loughlin doesn't fit a sports format, nor does Dennis Miller, so put them on waivers. As if this will happen. O'Loughlin sells his own show and brings in money. And there's the weekend polka show, which also generates cash flow. A major market sounding sports station doesn't have a money show in middays or a polka show on weekends, but since these programs generate money, they'll long be a part of the WECK line-up. Does anybody seriously believe the people at Entercom are concerned about WECK?
Click to expand...

Why does everybody keep thinking that WECK is trying to be a sports station? Brad's show isn't a sports show, and neither is anybody else's there........I love sports, but espn and fox sports radio bore the crap out of me. I really don't need to hear the 1000th person of the week tell Freddy Coleman or Lincoln Kennedy who they think is going to win the NFC Championship.
 
I think that the idea was that the line-up they have has a better chance of taking on 'GR than 'BEN.
 
This radio station is all over the road and sounds very desperate. It should focus on compelling content and reasons to listen to them, not why listeners should not listen to their competition. Figure out a niche programming strategy, then find a way to position it on the streets. Right now, college radio sounds better than WECK. Ton of opportunity there, but too many damaged egos. When listeners in Buffalo think of WECK as a radio station, and not a roll you put roast beef in, then we can talk.
 
Colon Blow / Brad Riter. You make the call.
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Colon Blow.

WECK had an audience when they were Adult Standards. But that ship has sailed. Now they can duke it out with WJJL for WNY's top "what the heck do we do with this AM license" status
 
They have a really good metro signal, they have a ton of potential. But right now, it sounds like a desperate, bitter radio station. It is just a way for bitter personalites to vent, but listeners are not interested. Adult Standards would be better. Not becuase it was done before, but becuase that demo truly appreciates that genrene, and AM radio. If they got another 10 years out of it, it would be better than what they are doing now, and it would make more money. LocalTalk is not a bad alternative either, but not the talk they have on now. Nobody cares about Brads or Nicks opinions on anything. It is a total tune out. In addition, they have NO market buzz, and an internal promotion picking on Entercom is not going to cut it. Nobody cares about their opinions of corporate radio, which by the way, raises a ton of money for local charities. If WECK tried to raise the kind of money that Entercom raises for local charities, they would lose so bad it would be embarrasing.

So again, stop trying to pick on the winners, and become a winner yourself. Get your on air product cleaned up, start external marketing, and hire a sales team and management that can work together to create the revenue this station needs to make to be a player.
 
I'm amazed that the Buffalo News did a story on WECK's war on Entercom today. Really! This is news? There are so many other stories that could be told about Buffalo radio. Oh well! Believe me, I'm no defender of the B and B boys on WBEN. I rarely listen to them anymore because of their right wing rants. But I just don't see how the current WECK line-up will make a dent in WBEN's numbers. And Brad's argument that WECK has more local hours is specious at best. Any radio professional will tell you it doesn't matter what you do after 7pm (except for strong evening personalities like Slick Tom on 97 Rock). The radio audience plummets after 6pm. Both WECK and WBEN air EXACTLY the same amount of local programming before 7pm. Each station has three hours of syndicated programming -- Rush on WBEN and Miller on WECK. So, the fact Nick Mendola has a three hour show at 7pm while WBEN airs Hannity means little. Plus, it will soon be Yankees season, so there will be no local programming most evenings on WECK because of baseball pre-emptions. The fact Entercom declined comment in today's article says it all. They have to be laughing about this. Dick Greene should have gone with adult standards when he bought WECK three years ago. But even that's not an option now since WHLD has grabbed that franchise.
 
Adult Standards is absolutly an alternative right now. The fact the HLD is doing it means nothing. WECK should just do it better. Saw the Buf News article today and was pretty impressive that they got some pub. I give them credit for that, however, it will not be a game changer...not even a little...becuase if any new listener sampled WECK right now, they would not be interested in what they are saying....as much as Brad, Nick, Tom, etc are good people and good broadcasters, the station still does not sound major market, nobody cares about their opinions. It sounds like college radio at best. If your goning to do a talk format, you better know what to talk about.
 
On second thought, after reading numerous responses here...

Considering Riter's Rant, you'd think that some of us who've posted legitimate grievances about Entercom and it's half-baked-what-passes-for-sports-and-news-talk-programming might think his was a shrewd bit of self-promotion. Isn't this what it's come down to these days considering what Stern, Mancow, Beck, even Bauerle and Beach, to say nothing of what Wease, Norton, Shredd & Ragan and Bob Lonsberry have pulled over the years.

And BTW, (from the "cold case file") Lonsberry did a more than creditable job on the air the day after Congressman Chris Lee resigned. He actually sounded objective. Meanwhile, Tiny Tom on WBEN was dancing and telling his listeners that "powerful men have powerful desires," justifying Lee's entanglement. What a steaming plate of dog spit that was. So give Lonsberry some credit for his (surprisingly) reasoned approach on that one.

Back to WECK. Yes, tossing Tom Schuh under the bus was an indefensible move, but that was Dick Greene. Who knows if Riter aided and abetted. Greene, like so many GMs and owners, thinks he knows how to program. Reid is the same, only he wears more expensive suits, Bruno Magli shoes, has a Dutch Boy haircut and what he likes to think is a tough guy swagger. Each can sell, but they don't know programming.

WECK came to a gun fight armed not with a gun, not even a knife, but a baseball bat. Yes, there's a lot to be said of walking the walk after talking the talk, but when it's all said and done, Riter got some pub for the station. Remember WECK's full page newspaper ads a few months ago? They didn't move the needle. Maybe this is the kind of grass roots maneuver that's needed. Look at the number of posts and reads on this thread. (Hell, Superset Weekend has posted twice and we haven't heard from him in months.)

No, WBEN and WGR aren't likely to suffer and I'm not projecting WECK will even break a 1 share Persons 12+, but maybe Riter and WECK deserve some credit for shaking things up. Then again, maybe twelve months from now, WECK and WLVL will be airing EMF or FLN.

WTFDIK,

-9-
 
I gave some credit for getting some outside pub, but that's about it. The programming is bad, and very low budget, college radio sounding. Buffalo is a top 45 market, and the programming should reflect that, atleast a little. It does not. Rants like that on air are always from the loser, not the winner
 
Hey Super Man! While I can't disagree with your opinion of WECK's programming, Arbitron lists Buffalo/Niagara Falls as Market #53 these days.
 
I'm a big fan of Brad's. So, obviously I don't agree with WECK having bad programming, at least not from 4-7.

I'd like to know what happened with Dick/Tom/Brad. Everybody keeps saying Brad threw Tom under the bus. Is that because he said that the noon news at noon or whatever that was called was stupid, since it started at 12:36 and was basically a repeat of what WGRZ just did for half an hour. He kind of said that Cory sucked, but I didn't hear him say Tom did.

I really don't listen to the radio at noontime, but if I did, I would definitely not want to hear that. Maybe Tom was wedded to that newscast? But what I do know is that Tom sounded great on the bottom of the hour news during the afternoon, and that he is really missed when I listen to Brad. He was great for Brad to bounce things off because like I said on the other thread, he knows a lot about a lot of stuff - sports, politics, music, etc. (Just not old movies, which I don't like either!)
 
The bottom line is that you need to have your programming in place before you call out the big guns in town. If this is what they have to go up against Entercom with, it ain't enough. If they're going to make changes, why make a big noise before those changes are in place?

WECK got a little pub. The first test of that is today. WGR is running up to the noon Sabres press conference with live and local (although tedious) discussion of the Sabres, speculation on moves, rumors, etc. WECK had Bill O'Loughlin on until 11, and now has a talk program about Native American righths. Guess who wins this one?

Both stations are running local content. Which is more compelling TODAY?
 
You have a good point. It might have been ill-timed.

I just heard a guy call into Brad and say that he's really glad he's back in town. Brad said this is just it. He's really been here pretty much the whole time, but not enough people knew it.....So, it seems to me his move worked in getting somebody like this guy to listen. It's certainly got a lot of buzz.

IMO, Brad's show is worthy of the new attention. Of course, your mileage may vary. But, for me - I want to hear all about Pegula today and that's what he's talking about. I really don't care to hear about how the Sabres power play is in mid November, and he won't be talking about the Sabres then. Works for me.

But, you may be right about the other programming. He won't be able to do this again.
 
Element9 said:
If this doesn't force Entercom to simulcast WGR or WBEN on 107.7, nothing will.
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I heard a comment by new Sabres President Ted Black asking WGR (probably metaphorically) to "turn up their amps" to spread the gospel of the Sabres. Maybe the Sabres are also thinking they might find a better home for the Sabres on an FM? Say what you will about WGR's programming, but their sound quality is poor even for an AM, and the signal is spotty at night. I'd watch this situation closely next time the contract is up.
 
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