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Goodbye WMEX
- Thread starter JustinT
- Start date
A real shame! WMEX was always a nice little local station with a unique sound.
You'd be better off if they just turn off the transmitter and call it a day. EMF's operations are a total waste of electricity and their nationwide system of bird-fed drones are an affront to anyone who values the concept of local radio. They should be stopped.
You'd be better off if they just turn off the transmitter and call it a day. EMF's operations are a total waste of electricity and their nationwide system of bird-fed drones are an affront to anyone who values the concept of local radio. They should be stopped.
Good news for WMYF. That Madbury station will take a bump. Interesting that NH is the second least church-going state in the union- maybe the Evangelicals are looking for a good way to get some money from NH'ers. They should be warned, giving to Charity is not (property) tax deductible in NH. [Always thought the churches kept income tax (and its deduction for charitible giving) going down south.]
HHH said:
And no one one under 50 remembers the "real" WMEX. Those calls have been gone from 1510 for over 30 years (and for the last few the station was a shadow of what it once was). Let 'em go...let someone who wants to do a regional Mexican format pick 'em up. The calls had their day and it was good, but it's been over for a long time.
D
DudeWheresMyRadio
Guest
Oldbones said:
Oldbones, I'm under 50, (barely), and I remember the real WMEX. In fact it was the first station that made me want to get into the biz. For my money, they blew WRKO out of the water back in '70 and '71. Better jocks, better jingles, more risky with the music. It was a truly fun station to listen to!
It's too bad the call letters can't be retired like the number of an incredible athlete. Thanks for stirring the memories - I loved that station!
I have to agree...I considered WMEX to be a great station right through 1973. They seemed to be floundering in 1974, but Top 40 music sucked in '74 anyway with the disco take over of the airwaves. WMEX officially dropped Top 40 in March of 1975. EMF tends to change call letters fairly promtly after a sale is completed.
Those calls really should be restored to 1510 in Boston....
Those calls really should be restored to 1510 in Boston....
BRNout said:
Agreed on the first part, disagree on the second. I started listening to K-Love while in Texas, and I was always frustrated they were on such a dismally-powered frequency. Now, I have a Sirius radio, and it suits me just fine.
(Post edited because God would probably not want me to offend anyone with harsh language.)
NH Radiochild said:Agreed on the first part, disagree on the second. I started listening to K-Love while in Texas, and I was always frustrated they were on such a dismally-powered frequency. Now, I have a Sirius radio, and it suits me just fine.
(Post edited because God would probably not want me to offend anyone with harsh language.)
And they will serve the people of New Hampshire how? With the same material that a few people in Texas list to? A completely different culture. It's just EMF flexing their muscle by invading yet another area where they are neither wanted nor needed. If you enjoy them on Sirius, great - more power to you. Personally, I enjoy a lot of the soul stations on satellite. And, a totally bird fed soul station based in New York or Atlanta (with zero local content) would not be an appropriate format to serve the listening public in that part of New Hampshire either.
All in all, the losers are the listening public in Rochester, Somersworth, etc. In the same way that the public in central New York lost about 25% of their listening options when the EMF gorilla stormed into Utica to buy a couple of commerical stations. What good is a radio station licensed to your market when it provides NO information about your market? No weather, no news, nothing. Even voice tracking is better. That's my reason for decrying this mess.
Don't know Dennis personally, but I did some imaging for WMEX for a friend, and I can tell you he's a good guy. here's a man who put the station together probably for a whale of a lot less than 1 million bucks..made some good money with it, had some savvy people..but now gets to jam a fat wad of money in his pocket and sell before the economy and station values begin to drop due to certain large comanies' bad desicions. He gets to make money with a station sale. No loser in Dennis Jackson.
It's a pity that someone local couldn't come up with the money, but the next few years are going to be challenging for station owners, and EMF just basically runs translators. So this one runs at a shoestring, and EMF sells it at a loss and takes a whopping tax swab in the ear. Next step is call letter change and a massive lowering of the modulation. Give it about 4 years and buy it at a discount..by them most people will have abandoned radio alltogether.
God I hope I'm wrong.
It's a pity that someone local couldn't come up with the money, but the next few years are going to be challenging for station owners, and EMF just basically runs translators. So this one runs at a shoestring, and EMF sells it at a loss and takes a whopping tax swab in the ear. Next step is call letter change and a massive lowering of the modulation. Give it about 4 years and buy it at a discount..by them most people will have abandoned radio alltogether.
God I hope I'm wrong.
Well I guess this will be the nail in the coffen for oldies in the Lakes Region. First 104.9, and now 106.5, which did seem to cover many parts of the area well. Good luck to Dennis, who is a heck of a nice guy. It's too bad there wasn't a local owner that could've kept the station going.
BRNout said:
It is always sad to see a well-run local station go satellite, but my point was that's the first signal off the bird I came to enjoy for the most part. By the way, I loathe sit-by-themself stations on the whole, and I was upset when I'd hear issues with local avails getting crammed over the satellite programming for weeks on end, but when it works well, it's the best "original programming" on rebroadcast satellite, in my opinion. How seacoast NH receives it is entirely on their part. Likely, the monies it takes to operate will be raised by those overages in other more "profitable" markets. I just despise when they say they HAVE to make a certain amount and some stations "could go off the air" if they don't meet their goal, but meanwhile they're buying more stations. Just seems kind of odd. :-\
C
Channel Surf
Guest
EMF took over "The Bone" a Classic rock station in Albany, NY about a year ago. With absolutely no announcement of any kind, the plug was suddenly pulled in the middle of an Eric Clapton song on a Friday afternoon, followed by about five minutes of silence and than the jesus music started...
HHH said:
WMEX on FM in New Hampshire didn't prevent 1510 in Boston from using the call letters on AM if they had wanted to, because it's on a different band, and in a different market. I believe all they would have had to have done was to ask Dennis Jackson permission (before applying to the FCC).
But, it really wouldn't matter if some older listeners remembered the call letters. Heritage call letters do virtually nothing to improve a stations ratings or revenue, which is based on listener response to current programming, not call letters. Someone who remembers the call letters may tune in to check it out, but if they don't care for what they hear, they won't stay tuned in just for call letters.
Time Traveler said:
For what reason? Those calls were indentified with a Top 40 format from the late '50s to the mid-'70s, which can't work for 1510 AM anymore, and as much as I would enjoy hearing it (myself being a 51 year old Bostonian, on the younger end of the original WMEX audience), an oldies format on 1510 emulating the old WMEX would unfortunately not attract a viable demographic, either age-wise or numbers-wise, for the station to make a profit with sponsors and support a staff as well as maintain it's very large overhead (high tower rental site fees, and high electric bills to run a 50 kW AM).
It's a bottom-rated syndicated AM sports station that's doing the only thing it can do to stay afloat these days... selling off increasing amounts of airtime to brokered programming. It might as well keep WWZN "The Zone" for it's current format.
I suspect the evangelicals have their sights on NH is because of the state's role in the presidential process. I'm sure the all fancy themselves having an impact. NH also got many more NCE-FM apps than ME or VT, mostly from out-of-state religious networks.robbbc said:
PTR
promotherobot said:
Not quite sure I get your point. N.H. isn't exactly the Bible belt. WMEX's coverage area is increasingly home to refugees from eastern Mass., and the more conservative northern & western part of the state is not exactly heavy on evangelicals either. I'm not sure that idealogues of the right (or left for that matter) have any effect on the outcome of elections.
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