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Greater Media NJ For Sale?

Y

Yellowsptcar

From the Star Ledger 1/17/97

"According to Dan Finn ???, vice president and general (genital) manager of Greater Media's New Jersey stations, Sorensen's departure was part of a restructuring to consolidate operations for WJRZ and its sister station, WRAT (95.9 FM).

"We put Spyder back in the morning and we had been paying him a morning guy's salary, so if we're saving any money it will be in the 7 to midnight slot," Finn said yesterday. "It's not a budget cut to save money, it's more of a reallocation. We are ramping up other departments at the same time."

Finn says they consolidated the sales staffs of the stations, which had been spread out over four locations. "That wasn't cost-efficient, it was dysfunctional," Finn says. "In moving those groups together, we eliminated (two positions)."

Ok, so let's figure this out...

In less than a year...
Greater Media NJ (including WRAT/WJRZ/WDHA) has been through 4 morning shows changes, 2 GM's, 1 PD, 1 Promotions Director, 1 Traffic Director, 5 full time air personalities, and a partridge in a pair tree.

2 thoughts here...doesn't sound like a safe place to work... and is there a for sale sign on this place? Boston are you listening... hello boston?

http://www.nj.com/search/index.ssf?...2928286170.xml?starledger?ent&coll=1#continue

[Above URL provided as a courtesy by Radio-Info. In the future, please include a link to your online source.]
 
The writing has been on the wall for almost a year now! I doubt the guy replacing big Jay is making the same money. Just sell it and end the nightmare already. And the Dan Finn=clueless remark.....right on the money! As bad as the pd's and staion mng's are at these stations remember Dan put them in those positions so he ultimatily has to held accountable for their bad judgments.
 
This is the proverbial "hitting the nail on the head" regarding Dan Finn. You need to remember that the reason Dan ended up in the postion he is in is because when Greater Media was buying WDHA/WRAT/WJRZ etc, they were fed up with Andy Santoro's attitude and lack of performance and found Dan to be a better replacement. Is Dan a "nice" guy. Yes, absolutely. Does he have the skill sets, the ability to manage a state wide cluster...absolutely not. His quote in the paper about a "morning guys" salary is a stupid comment to make and referencing the organization you are ultimately responsible for as dysfunctional is flat out embarrassing for him and Greater Media. Dan did well as a one station general manager with the Rat, which for all purposes is a sales managment position. He made calls, smoozed the beer reps and did what any good sales manager does. What's transpired at WDHA, the continual bottom feeding ratings and revenue of the Rat and JRZ's contribution to the dysfunctionality that Dan reference's is a statement about Dan and nothing else. Greater Media has serious problems in NJ, but I hardly doubt they are selling.
 
Perhaps a sale isn't in the works... maybe some format changes. I have often wondered why nobody takes on NJ101.5 in Central Jersey. A talk format might work. Any ideas?
 
RGIguy said:
Perhaps a sale isn't in the works... maybe some format changes. I have often wondered why nobody takes on NJ101.5 in Central Jersey. A talk format might work. Any ideas?
Click to expand...

You would need a big 50kw FM signal in the middle of the state for starters. One that hits Cherry Hill to Trenton to Monmouth County to New Brunswick to Newark. That pretty much leaves you only with WAWZ.

Think of the start-up costs. Love it or hate it, NJ 101.5 is the polar opposite of what radio is today: local morning show, a pair of people in mid-days, a pair of people in PM drive, a 7-10p host, someone on live until 2 or 3AM weeknights; live and local 24 hrs. a day on the weekends, a full news staff with reporters all over the state, a full staff of producers and call screeners. The only way to take on 101.5 is to go with everything you have right out of the gate and that probably scares everyone away from doing it. If you do it half-assed, it won't work. It's not going to work on a class-A in Monmouth-Ocean, it won't be a success on a WMGQ-type signal in Middlesex-Union.
 
Yellowsptcar said:
"We put Spyder back in the morning and we had been paying him a morning guy's salary, so if we're saving any money it will be in the 7 to midnight slot," Finn said yesterday. "It's not a budget cut to save money, it's more of a reallocation. We are ramping up other departments at the same time."
urce.]
Click to expand...

Alright, let's play puzzle-solver here.

Spyder was doing mornings before Big Jay, right? And WJRZ brought Jay in after he was let-go from WCTC. WJRZ put Big Jay on in the morning and screwed-over Spyder by moving him to 7-midnight, right?

So, Spyder has been doing nights while making a morning show salary while the morning show dropped to 17th place in the last book. So, Greater Media ax'd Big Jay and brought Spyder back to mornings (since he's making a morning show salary, according to what you posted).

Sounds like:

(a) Greater Media made a move to prevent morning drive from falling any further. Regardless of whatever they've done in the past, what they had clearly wasn't working.

(b) Spyder has one hell of a contract. Kudos to him.

(c) Sounds like Greater Media will automate 7-midnight.

Do I have it right? The big deal over all of this is what??
 
Does RGI live in M-S-U?

RGIguy said:
I have often wondered why nobody takes on NJ101.5 in Central Jersey. A talk format might work.
Click to expand...

WCTC-1450 is owned by Greater Media and is N/T. More often than not WCTC struggles to crack a 1 share in the Middlesex-Somerset-Union Arbitron. Look at their competition: New Jersey 101.5, WFAN, WOR, WABC.
 
Maybe they want to lose money for a tax write off! i've herd of companys who own newspapers buy radio stations to fail for the tax cuts........nah they just dont know what there doing.
 
i wish someone would buy wctc and wmgq and change them get better talk shows for wctc and a new signal and fortmat for wmgq. atleast a new format on magic plz, and ctc is all old people if ctc wanted to they could do better
 
In reference to the taking on 101.5fm in talk..there is a station that does talk... wctc anyone? ;D
 
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