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HUGE shake-up at WSTW

N

Ned Braden

Dana Mac Donald and Rob Acampora OUT at WSTW...

From FMQB 'In Brief'...

'A shake-up at CHR WSTW/Wilmington, DE: veteran morning host Dana McDonald and afternoon host Rob Acampora both exit. Morning co-hosts Nancy Johnson and Spencer will remain in the AM, while night host Jo Alan takes over afternoon drive.'
 
I pray WSTW continues to tank in the ratings. This is the dumbest move they have ever made firing the only 2 good sounding jox on the station. Now they are left with a bunch of talentless *&^%s

Here's an idea day part some of the crap you call music and fire the program director who btw is really not from here. Let's face it WSTW is NOT an at work station. It's a station that has sucked for the past 2 or 3 years and will continue to suck unless some major changes are made. Firing good talent is not one of them.
 
I do agree that WSTW has lost it. I never understood why several years ago they fired their old PD John Wilson and replaced him with some guy named Mike, and not Mike Rossi. Sorry I like Mike Rossi, but he sounds to old for the station. So why not promote him to PD and take him off air and put on someone new 10a-2p. I know it is all about ratings, but if the music sucks than what are the jocks to do. And instead of letting go Dana and A-Game I first would of tried to flip them to see what they could do. I think A-game would have done better in the AM and Dana always did well in the PM in the past. Anyway WSTW is lost and needs to quickly find themselves. ???
 
When did Mike Reath become GM of WSTW? When did the ratings start to drop? Just asking? He was virus to the building when he was in Salisbury and it no different in Wilmington. The answer lies at the top.
 
However, they forgot to scrub Nancy's profile to remove references to co-hosting with Dana. It's always the little things that slip by. :D
 
SO which one of you are A-Game (nice name)? Cmon man! Word on the street is your attitude sucked and you thought everyone was out to get you. Ever think that it was your own fault that things happened the way they did? ATTITUDE plays a huge part son! I don't know a BUNCH about the ins and outs over there at DBC, but it was obviously time for change there...I think it'll be a good thing in the end. Station needed to get a little younger...they did that with these moves. How they work out remains to be seen.
 
Iluvradio102 said:
SO which one of you are A-Game (nice name)? Cmon man! Word on the street is your attitude sucked and you thought everyone was out to get you. Ever think that it was your own fault that things happened the way they did? ATTITUDE plays a huge part son! I don't know a BUNCH about the ins and outs over there at DBC, but it was obviously time for change there...I think it'll be a good thing in the end. Station needed to get a little younger...they did that with these moves. How they work out remains to be seen.
Click to expand...

Yeah, that's it...they're all A-Game. How do you explain the fact that so many different people have come to the conclusion that WSTW has lost it? Wilmington has spoken, loud and clear. They're not a good station. And 'word on the street'? What street? You say you don't know a bunch about the 'ins and outs' at Delmarva, but you certainly act like you do. Why would you bother to trash someone on a message board if you don't have a stake in it? These changes will not make that station better. Nothing will. It's over for WSTW - nobody's listening.
 
I don't know the ins and outs...and it's not trashing per say. It's sharing things that I've heard from people that are in the know. You bring a negative attitude into the building and it's sure to get out. As far as the changes, I think that Spencer Graves and Joe Alan will do good things in their new spots...getting younger there is a good thing. Now it seems to be a good mix...again, how it works out remains to be seen.

But if you think A-Game being shown the door is a travesty, LOL. He and his "mess" needed to go.
 
Iluvradio102 said:
I don't know the ins and outs...and it's not trashing per say. It's sharing things that I've heard from people that are in the know. You bring a negative attitude into the building and it's sure to get out. As far as the changes, I think that Spencer Graves and Joe Alan will do good things in their new spots...getting younger there is a good thing. Now it seems to be a good mix...again, how it works out remains to be seen.

But if you think A-Game being shown the door is a travesty, LOL. He and his "mess" needed to go.
Click to expand...

Ok, Iluvradio102, since you seem to be the self-appointed mouthpiece for Delmarva, answer this for me. You've mentioned in both your posts "getting younger". Is that the official Delmarva line? Because if it is...let's play this out a little. Say, for the sake of argument, Dana McDonald gets lawyered up. Delaware is a right to work state and Wilmington is a non-union market, so you can get canned for anything. Except that one pesky thing: Age Discrimination. That is something that has been fought and won by other radio and television personalities. And let's go even further: The only people left listening to WSTW is a herd of spandex-clad, post-menopausal cows. Dana pulls the age card, files suit, goes to the News Journal, yadda, yadda, yadda. Well, you know how sensitive those older ladies are about 'ageism'. It's the making of a PR disaster. So now you've ticked off all of your remaining listeners, and young listeners? They've been gone a long time. The only ones who listen to WSTW do so by default while they're strapped into the backseat of aforementioned Grandma's minivan.

Now, what makes you think the current lineup is a "good mix"? Perusing WSTW's Facebook Page, you'll find the expected "Bring Dana & A-Game Back!" posts. But what I find interesting are the posts about Spencer Graves. There's a lot of venom there.

"I can't stand Spencer...his voice just bugs me...I LOVED Dana, he ROCKS! I knew when they brought Spencer in that Dana was gonna be gone at some point...but to replace him w/ that idiot? ugh" - taken from WSTW's FB page.

And...

"BTW - Spencer sucks...BRING BACK DANA!"

And my personal favorite:

"Boo! WSTW is falling apart:("

Somebody should pay that little lady a consultant fee.

So you see, Spencer, (oops, I meant Iluvradio102) things are not looking good for WSTW. I predict a low 4 for the Fall Book. Have fun eating that crow come January.
 
I'm not Spencer...and I didn't say that's the official "line" about younger. But ratings in AM drive weren't great (Dana) and PM drive was WEAK (A-Game)...they've both been there a long time...had more than enough time to do "good" in the book and haven't done so. That's really the long and short of it.
 
Employees at WSTW don't need to go far to find how a successful Adult CHR station in the northeast should be programmed. Several examples:
WPST, Trenton
WAEB-FM, Allentown
WPLJ, NYC (see its performance in the north Jersey books)
WKRZ, Wilkes Barre
WNNK, Harrisburg
WNTQ, Syracuse.

WSTW has officially called itself a CHR for a long time. Recently, its PD referred to the station as an "adult Top 40" in one of the Radio Info e-newsletters by Sean Ross. That's what it really needs to be to compete in Wilmington. Let Q102 and Wired grab the 12-17 audience and even the younger end of 18-24.
My opinion: Dana was a weak morning host. He was fine, more than fine, in afternoon drive. The mistake was putting him in the morning. It's also obvious that WJBR has been pushing to lower its average listener's age. 'STW is getting squeezed.

That is the difference between Wilmington now and some of the above-mentioned markets. There is no strong AC station in Harrisburg, Allentown or Syracuse (although WLEV in Allentown may be making a comeback). In those markets, the adult CHRs are the default stations for women 25-39. 'STW has allowed WJBR to make inroads with that audience when it should have been concentrating on owning it. Now that WJBR has a partial hold on the younger end of the adult female audience, it'll be tougher for 'STW to get it back.

Sometimes you have to blow up a station without changing the format to start fresh. 'STW has done that before, firing morning hosts and PDs and rebounding. I have to wonder whether just letting one person on the morning team and the afternoon jock go is enough. Maybe a further housecleaning is in order.
 
Here's a fresh thought. Why not put Graffiti radio on the main 937 and put WSTW on HD 2? You want younger and hipper, you got it there.
 
I don't have HD radio so I've not heard Graffiti radio, but your suggestion might make sense if that's a format that actually brings in a desired younger demo that would please Delmarva's advertisers in the Wilmington market.

The fact that they've not made that switch causes me to wonder if it's a format that would bring in a large enough audience of the correct demo that their advertisers want. You can be too cool and hip and sure bring in a large very young demo that may not be the target demo the advertisers want either, just as bad as having a too old demo, or a demo that doesn't have money to spend on their products, etc.

Having said that, it does seem that from what has been posted here that WSTW needs to do something different to regain the top spot in the Wilmington market from WJBR, and just maybe Graffiti Radio could be the ticket.
 
ok quick thing WSTW doesn't need to do that much to sound quote younger....they just need to stop cutting out rap parts out of songs and butchering them by only playing squeaky clean versions of songs. A prime example of this is in Katy Perry's chart topping song California Gurls, when Snoop Dog's part comes up...suprise its edited out. There needs to be some major changes starting from the top.
 
That's an interesting comment about WSTW editing out "offensive" parts of some songs. I remember back when their sister station WDEL would fade out the Fifth Dimension record "Aquarius/Let the Sun Shine In". The first half of the record was Aquarius, but when the instrumental bridge in the arrangement changed to Let the Sun Shine In, which had a more "Soulful" sound, they'd fade out during the instrumental part and go on to the next song, commercial, or whatever. I'm no fan of rap music (so I'd probably prefer the rap-less version), but if the song has that in it and you want that audience then you probably should play it. The younger folks, who listen to those songs elsewhere will know that you've short changed them and will tune your station out for one that plays the entire song. So either play that music, or change your format to one where you don't play those songs.

Censoring is what that's called when you edit out the part of a book, song, etc, that you don't like. I remember checking out a Earle Stanley Gardner "Perry Mason" novel about 10 years ago from my local library. The edition they had was printed in 1951 and had whiteout covering some words. Apparently some library patron years ago had been offended by some words in a Perry Mason novel. Believe, those stories are "G" rated. No vulgar language, no sex scenes, etc. If I'm reading a book that has something in it that offends me, like using the Lord's Name in Vain, I just skip over it. I don't have to read it, but I also don't have the right to censor out what that author, whomever it is, choose to put into their novel, that is their right.

Other than editing out the 7 words the FCC won't allow you to broadcast over the air, any other censoring should not be done. If that music is offensive to your advertisers, owners of the station, stock holders, or whomever, then don't play it at all rather than butcher up someone else's musical work (being one who's written about 8 songs I know I'd rather you not play my music on your station than for you to censor a part of it).
 
Oh come on now...WSTW isn't the only station that plays the "rapless edit" of a hit song. Happens everywhere. While I agree that sometimes it'd be better to maybe daypart the one version and maybe play the one with the rap at night or something, this certainly isn't something ONLY WSTW is doing.
 
@ MikefromDelaware you hit the nail right on the head......@iluvradio ummm WSTW is the only station that trys to appeal to a younger audience that does it id you can tell me another one go ahead...not trying to be mean just speaking the truth
 
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