How Does The WBOS Format Survive?

[Gregg]

Let me start by saying I like WBOS when I'm in the Boston area. It's one of several stations I listen to.

But I'm surprised Greater Media has not changed the format after all these years of WBOS usually being the lowest rated of the full-power FM stations in the Boston market. Sometimes it's in the 1-point-something range. Often it's just a few tenths ahead of suburban stations.

They don't even know what to call the format. It lists itself as Triple-A or Album Adult Alternative, although 92.5 The River really fills this discription much better than WBOS, which stays with mostly familiar, top-selling adult rock. It started as a Soft Rock station, although that format is no longer in fashion and the station doesn't limit itself to only soft music.

I know there was a point where the Red Sox were talking with Greater Media about flipping 92.9 to a sports station built around the Sox. It would be a shame to waste an FM frequency for sports, but that deal fell through.

I'm not sure what format it would switch to. All the major formats seem to covered by existing stations except maybe Urban AC. (Although with the coming of PPM and Urban stations not doing well with that ratings system, that's probably not much of an option.) So I guess if WBOS does OK in the 25-54 demographic, I guess it's here to stay, no matter what 12+ ratings it gets.





Gregg
[email protected]

 

[BoscoGoldBear]

Having read both the Philly and Houston PPMs - measured in cume listeners, not in average shares per 15 minutes - I tend to think that even with WBOS' projected 1.7 and WBCN's projected 1.3, Greater Media and CBS will stay with their respective rock formats for the time being. And yes, most trade mags and online services have triple-A under the rock umbrella, along with active rock (aka heavy metal) and mainstream rock as well. Why alternative rock isn't also under the same umbrella I have no idea. (It belongs there, along with classic rock and classic hits, the latter two virtually undistinguishable, as they play the same damn Seger, Springsteen, Floyd, Fleetwood Mac, Aero, Zep, Who, Skynyrd, Hendrix and AC/DC tunes.)

Anyway, let's wait to see how well 'BOS and 'BCN does in cume vs. Jam'n (they'll still lose, but not by as much as they currently do in shares - Jam'n getting a projected 8.7 should not happen).

 

[rapking]

Good Sale Staff

 

[JustinT]

Anyway, let's wait to see how well 'BOS and 'BCN does in cume vs. Jam'n (they'll still lose, but not by as much as they currently do in shares - Jam'n getting a projected 8.7 should not happen).

I'm also looking forward to seeing how WJMN fares. If I've heard correctly, in Philadelphia and Houston, Arbitron has supposedly had trouble getting inner-city African Americans to hold on to the PPM devices, which has resulted in big drops for stations like WDAS and KBXX. But by contrast, Boston has a relatively small inner-city population, and while you won't hear WKLB as you drive through Dorchester, WJMN is pulling colossal numbers from the suburbs. I don't believe WJMN's situation has been replicated either Philly or Houston, so I sense that really anything could happen ratings-wise.

 

[faderraider]

We don't know what kind of numbers are on the important side. Sales and profitablility, they are the ultimate "ratings".

 

[TSBench]

We don't know what kind of numbers are on the important side. Sales and profitablility, they are the ultimate "ratings".

In 2006, 'BOS had 9 million reasons to keep doing what they doing. Won't know how '07 worked out for another 4 months.

Good Sale Staff

Yep, they get more than their share of the market revenue.

Regards,
TSB

 

[Keith321]

In 2006, 'BOS had 9 million reasons to keep doing what they doing. Won't know how '07 worked out for another 4 months.

Yeah, they are doing soooo well, that they were on the verge of flipping to Talk. Then almost flipping to sports...(they even registered the domain.)

Not so good anymore.....

 

[BRNout]

I think that we'll have to be patient and see what the PPM brings. If WBOS continues to be a cellar-dweller after the survey methodology is changed - then we may hear some interesting changes. It's most likely that nothing will happen with 92.9 before then.

There are so few FM signals in greater Boston (for such a big market) that it will definitely NOT be one of those "top 10 best radio markets" that have been revealed lately. More like "bottom 10" - at least where format variety is concerned. Anyhow, I digress.

My point was that stations with the low ratings that WBOS and WFNX have been getting would have been flipped long ago IF they were anywhere else and/or owned by someone else. Neither could get by in a more competitive marketplace.

 

[Laurence Glavin]

I think that we'll have to be patient and see what the PPM brings. If WBOS continues to be a cellar-dweller after the survey methodology is changed - then we may hear some interesting changes. It's most likely that nothing will happen with 92.9 before then.

There are so few FM signals in greater Boston (for such a big market) that it will definitely NOT be one of those "top 10 best radio markets" that have been revealed lately. More like "bottom 10" - at least where format variety is concerned. Anyhow, I digress.

My point was that stations with the low ratings that WBOS and WFNX have been getting would have been flipped long ago IF they were anywhere else and/or owned by someone else. Neither could get by in a more competitive marketplace.

Although greater Boston is quite a bit smaller than NYC, LA and Chicago, there was a lot of early acceptance of FM here, and stations came on-the-air one right after another; maybe the last was WKOX-FM 105.7? Anyway, if like its bigger co-markets, the Boston area started at the first full-power frequency, 92.3 like NYC, LA and Chicago, with 8-tenths of a megahertz spacing, twenty channels would have been available. Several of the 4-tenths megahertz separations would have been the old class-A's, so Worcester, Providence, the Merrimack Valley or the South Coast might have snared a few of them, but Boston would thus perhaps a couple more full power allocations. Might have made a difference...or maybe not; clear Channel might have gobbled them up!

 

[DanStrassberg]

Although greater Boston is quite a bit smaller than NYC, LA and Chicago, there was a lot of early acceptance of FM here, and stations came on-the-air one right after another; maybe the last was WKOX-FM 105.7? Anyway, if like its bigger co-markets, the Boston area started at the first full-power frequency, 92.3 like NYC, LA and Chicago, with 8-tenths of a megahertz spacing, twenty channels would have been available.

With all due respect, Laurence, that is patent nonsense. Until fairly recently (last four years, maybe) US FMs were assigned to channels according to a table of allocations. If you wanted to add a channel in a market to which it was not assigned in the table, you had to petition the FCC to amend the table. Only after the table was amended would the FCC accept an application for the channel. The table assigned 92.3 to Providence and 92.5 to Haverhill. 92.9 was the lowest-frequency Class B channel available in Boston (actually, Brookline). If you go up from there in 0.8-MHz steps, you soon reach several channels that were originally designated only for Class A FMs 95.3 and 97.7 are two of them. Also, the table of allocations assigned 96.1 to Worcester--to WTAG-FM, which was a legacy signal that is, IIRC, somehow historically linked to one of Maj Armstrong's original stations.

 

[greg11]

If BOS wasn't making enough money to satisfy the higher-ups it probably wouldnt be here now.

 

[Laurence Glavin]

Although greater Boston is quite a bit smaller than NYC, LA and Chicago, there was a lot of early acceptance of FM here, and stations came on-the-air one right after another; maybe the last was WKOX-FM 105.7? Anyway, if like its bigger co-markets, the Boston area started at the first full-power frequency, 92.3 like NYC, LA and Chicago, with 8-tenths of a megahertz spacing, twenty channels would have been available.

With all due respect, Laurence, that is patent nonsense. Until fairly recently (last four years, maybe) US FMs were assigned to channels according to a table of allocations. If you wanted to add a channel in a market to which it was not assigned in the table, you had to petition the FCC to amend the table. Only after the table was amended would the FCC accept an application for the channel. The table assigned 92.3 to Providence and 92.5 to Haverhill. 92.9 was the lowest-frequency Class B channel available in Boston (actually, Brookline). If you go up from there in 0.8-MHz steps, you soon reach several channels that were originally designated only for Class A FMs 95.3 and 97.7 are two of them. Also, the table of allocations assigned 96.1 to Worcester--to WTAG-FM, which was a legacy signal that is, IIRC, somehow historically linked to one of Maj Armstrong's original stations.

Whoops...your readiing skills need more work. I wrote: "IF...the Boston area started with 92.3"; it was a hypothetical construct based on the previous post that Boston seems a little under-represented with full-power outlets for a market its size. This supposition was not based on the way the channel of allocations presented itself after WWII, but the way the FCC COULD have done it and in fact did do it in NYC, LA and Chicago. At that time, Boston was the fifth or sixth-largest metropolitan area in the US, and far enough away from NYC that the channels there and in Boston could have been duplicated, especially when the ERP limitation was 20,000 watts. The FM's in Baltimore and Washington, DC move up from 92.3, some in the Maryland metropolis, some in the Nation's Capital with a few Maryland and Virginia allocations thrown in.
I was recently at the Wayside Inn in Sudbury, and noticed that out there, a short distance from The Hub, every single Boston-based station but one (WBZ of course) was gonzo after sunset. It's interesting that a few stations operating decades and decades ago didn't configure themselves to reach people out there; the populatioin numbers may not have been great, but they had a lot of disposable income, and some of them may have been business owners who PLACED ads on radio stations during those great, old network radio shows but couldn't hear them in their homes well west of Rt. 128, before Rt 128 was even built. Same deal with FM...it's interesting to imagine how different things could have been if the FCC and radio station owners had acted differently after VJ and VE days.

 

[Laurence Glavin]

By "Boston station" I meant Boston AM station

 

[Eli Polonsky]

I was recently at the Wayside Inn in Sudbury, and noticed that out there, a short distance from The Hub, every single Boston-based station but one (WBZ of course) was gonzo after sunset. It's interesting that a few stations operating decades and decades ago didn't configure themselves to reach people out there; the populatioin numbers may not have been great, but they had a lot of disposable income, and some of them may have been business owners who PLACED ads on radio stations during those great, old network radio shows but couldn't hear them in their homes well west of Rt. 128, before Rt 128 was even built.

For the most part, the directional Boston AM stations had to protect mostly the same distant stations at night many decades ago that they still have to protect now, and if they placed their transmitters farther west to serve the outlying west suburbs, their signals wouldn't be quite strong enough in Boston.

 

[DanStrassberg]

For the most part, the directional Boston AM stations had to protect mostly the same distant stations at night many decades ago that they still have to protect now, and if they placed their transmitters farther west to serve the outlying west suburbs, their signals wouldn't be quite strong enough in Boston.

That's absolutely correct, but more than that, it's an understatement! Back in the '40s, when what are now WRKO and WEEI moved to Burlington and Needham respectively and even in the early '80s, when what is now WWZN moved to Waltham, an AM had to deliver a 25 mV/m signal (or an NIF signal at night, whichever was greater; in all cases pertinent to this thread, 25 mV/m was greater) to the "principal business district" of the CoL. "Principal business district" was too vague and was later redefined as the main post office. Then still later (late '80s, maybe), the requirement was changed to 5 mV/m over the entire CoL by day and the greater of 5 mV/m or NIF over 80% of the CoL population by night.

Now take a look at WAMG. It didn't go on the air until the '90s, so based solely on daytime signal strength, it technically could have been licensed to Boston, because, thanks to its very narrow directional pattern--required by day to protect WCBS and WGAM--and its super-efficient nearly half-wave towers--required to protect WCBS at night--it does deliver 5 mV/m to Boston by day--even though its daytime power is limited to 25 kW to protect WCBS and WGAM. However, by night, even with its recently increased night power of 6 kW, it doesn't deliver a 12.5 mV/m NIF signal to 100% of it's CoL of Dedham, (Coverage DOES exceed the required 80% of Dedham, however.) I'm not sure whether WAMG delivers 25 mV/m by day to the South Postal Annex, which I believe is considered to be Boston's main post office. I think that if WAMG could run 50 kW by day instead of 25 kW (it cannot because of WCBS and WGAM), it almost certainly could deliver 25 mV/m to the South Postal Annex.

Anyhow, what we learn from WAMG is that although (then) WHDH could have moved as far west as Ashland (from which it could have greatly improved its nighttime coverage of Framingham), it would have had to build such a highly directional facility that it would have lost a lot of the 5 kW coverage it got from its old site in Saugus (the site now used by WROL). WHDH could not have adquately covered Laurence's home town of Methuen or a lot of the South Shore. WLAW had to cover both Lawrence (its CoL at the time) AND Boston (the city to which it wanted to move and--under different ownership--eventually did). With New England's miserable soil conductivity, delivering 25 mV/m to two cities almost 30 miles apart--even with 50 kW on 680--would have been completely impossible from a site much further West than Burlington. More than 30 years later, WITS--because of its high position on the AM dial--could not have located much further west than Waverly Sq and met the CoL requirements that then existed for stations licensed to Boston.

 

[ajf9]

As Mr. Bench said, BOS reportedly billed 9 million dollars last year which is about what TTK reportedly billed.
BOS is a pretty cheep station to run. Do they have any big salaries?

I am sure GM would like to have a more profitable format on 92.9 but what would it be? Without the Red Sox would you do sports?

I would like to have a Urban AC or a good R & B station but would would flip a format that grossed 9 million.

A lot of the buys that BOS are package buys with Majic and ROR. I don't think BOS would do as well if it were a stand alone.