Hartford/New London Area Stations Add Progressive Talk Show

[MarcB]

Holy Cow. WMRD 1150 AM in Middletown and its simulcast partner WLIS 1420 AM in Old Saybrook have picked up The Stephanie Miller Show. It's airing right now in the time slot formerly occupied by Dr. Joy. For the past couple weeks LIS and MRD had been airing Dr. Joy 10-12 and 3-5 because they lost the rights to Ramsey a few weeks ago.

 

[GlennO]

It's hard to call WMRD and WLIS Hartford and New London stations when they really don't show in the ratings in any way. They primarily serve two different halves of Middlesex county. The 1150 signal does pack a punch through Hartford, Meriden and New Britain during the day, but it's pretty much Middletown after sunset. A traffic format failed to do anything in Hartford. Middletown is so in the shadow of the Hartford market that it's not very protected as its own local market. WLIS actually has more of a shot in the lower valley and shore as a local. In this era of less local AM, does it make sense to do some niche format (real oldies, lib talk, business, ethnic, etc.) to get some little slice of a larger market or is "anything for a buck" the way to go with any format consistency out the window?

A lot of people got their start on these AMs outside the biggest CT cities. They don't seem to serve as the farm team the way they used to.