CCEng is absolutely correct about the problem on PFM being the "modulation" or programming.
Just got back from a week in PCB to attend a relative's wedding just outside Youngstown.
Like Tibbs, I have a big soft spot for WPFM from visits in the 80's. However Panama City may be the most over radio-ed small market in the nation.
While Kidd Kraddick is okay for a syndicated morning show, they really need a live and local morning show that plays lots of hit music in the morning and talks about Bay County. Way too much generic non descript entertainment talk in AM drive on 107.9 FM. Panama City Florida is not Dallas Texas.
Speaking of music, PFM is running several different radio stations through different dayparts. At noon they do a "Back in the Day Cafe", it's not a bad a idea, but no CHR anywhere should be digging as far back as the Knack's My Sharona (1979-thirty freaking years ago!!!) or any of the other 80's pop rock titles they play on the show. It should be going back no further than to the mid to late 90's, at the very minimum, and it should be completely rhythmic pop oriented, if they are to do it at all. Let their clustermates like Bob-FM look after that 80's pop rock stuff. Thy'd be better off doing a daily top 12 at 12 or something featuring new contemporary music.
From the start of morning drive at 6am to 1 pm, they are playing CHR music for roughly only 2 hours per day. The CHR music that did air was primarily 2000's gold and recurrent stiffs with somewhat of an adult slant that no-one really cares about. As an example, I heard Wyclef & Akon's Dollar Bill this past wednesday morning, when they should have been playing Black Eyed Peas' I Gotta Feeling or Boom Boom Pow. There are plenty of adult women 18-44 who like the current hits, why aren't they giving it to them in the middays (and mornings)?
So they finally get on track musically and in the CHR format at 1 in the afternoon on weekdays. The afternoon jock 6 Pack (goofy name, in PCB it recalls beer more than abs) and Melissa in midday were good jocks as the CHR format finally gained some traction. But they shift gears again in the evening with the Live To Air broadcasts fron Club Lavela on Wednesday, Friday and Saturday nights. The sales department should throw in Thursday nights as well, because the station's overall spot load makes PFM sound like they are owned by Club La Vela.
Live to airs can be good fun programming and give some vitality and sense of place to a radio station, where syndication and voice tracks certainly do not. However they need to exert a some control on the actual DJ at the club spinning the music as I heard music sped up by "plus 10" on the CD player or laptop with no pitch correction, which has been common on night club gear for more than a decade and a part of the Serato software now in use in the club DJ booth (I DJ in a club on the weekend). I heard it on every song for a good half hour one night, until I couldn't stand it and tuned away, very bush league. I did a hear a few interesting songs from La Vela, but damned if I will find out what they were since the jock never told us what they were.
Since it rained buckets every day I was there, tropo interference wasn't a big factor, but they should really be looking at moving the transmitter closer into town. My relatives have a farm on hwy 20, about 2 miles east of the WPFM/Ch 7 TV tower, it is a nearly 45 mile trip back to the beach and about 30 miles down 231 back into town. Way too far away, even with 100kw, for today's crummy boom box tuners and portable radios. How much ad time are they really going to be selling in Dothan or Enterprise or the piney forest's of the former St Joe's pulp and paper company?
Aside form my observations on WPFM, I thought the must fun I heard on the radio in PCB was Tom Kent's syndicated evening show on Beach 95.1. The biggest disappointment was that Fort Walton/Destin's supposed CHR Z96 which is now now functioning as a lame Hot AC station, rather than the very good CHR they used to be in the late 90's and early 90's. Even my cousin's grade school kids loved Bob FM, it is their favorite station, they didn't seem to care about Island 106.
