To every rule, there is an exception... Movin may be failing elsewhere, but it seems to be doing well here.
Now that my job has me on normal 9-5 hours, I've had a chance to listen to morning radio every day (as opposed to before, when I worked late, and thus, slept late). Usually I've got it on WSYR, but if Galuski has a lame guest (or if Fishman is filling in) then I flip over to the FM dial. I most often find myself listening to either Ted & Amy on Q or Skip & Heather on Movin.
Considering they've been a team for only a few months, Skip & Heather sound pretty good. Better than when it was Nick & Heather... I can't compare to the Skip & Jess days, as I wasn't listening then. S&H sound like they have chemistry, they get alog, and all that jazz. Don't get to listen middays often (at work) but the afternoon guy needs to simply talk less. The guy may have NYC experience, and it's great that he has the permission to break out of the cookie-cutter "read the liner, play the song" format... but his ramblings often go much longer than necessary. Maybe put an egg timer in the studio or something.
The music list isn't quite what I'd call "perfect" (is a "perfect" playlist really possible?) but it's a lot better than it was when the station started. I wasn't a fan of big decade-jumps between songs, or hearing what sounded like the start of a 90s song, only to realize it's the 70s song that 90s song sampled. Those were always letdowns.
If the station has good numbers F25-44 (thanks Radioflow), you do have to wonder why they don't have more national business on the air. And yes, good point about sales -- the reps only have Movin and Radio Disney to offer to clients. Tough to offer those tempting "package deals" when you only have 2 stations... even tougher when neither station is at the top of the P12+ ratings.
Being a smaller, local group is good because you don't have to worry about "corporate" demanding a chunk of your revenue... so as long as the station is profitable, it should survive. There's no pressure to increase profit by 10% year-to-year because "corporate" said so, or else. On the down side, being a smaller owner leaves you lacking in certain areas: seems like it took them forever to begin streaming online, and the morning show blog is on a free wordpress.com account with a generic template (as opposed to being integrated into the station's actual website). That's like when stations post yahoo.com e-mail addresses for their jocks; it just looks silly.
Haven't been to any events, but it sounds (from radioflow and from on-air chatter and online photos) that the events are well-attended. But you don't want to have too many, or you may tire the listeners out. And soliciting new venues -- who may be direct competitors of existing clients -- may annoy those existing clients. Being a smaller, newer station, Movin's not really in the position to burn bridges with solid clients, so I can understand if the sales team might be underachieving in certain areas. Still, I'm sure there must be ways to increase business if they tried (and if they have the manpower... I don't know how many sales reps they have).
