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Is anyone listening to 550?

N

N1WVQ

I don't know of anyone listening to 550. I've seen a few bumper stickers for the Boston-area Catholic station, 1060, but haven't heard ANYTHING about 550. Is anyone listening to this station? ???
 
I know they have that billboard off I-95 in Pawtucket, right on the RI-MA border, IIRC.

I would think they're a real "niche format" station. They have their relatively small, core group of listeners who really dig the station, and there's not a whole lot of other people listening. That's a guess, but a logical one.
 
I tune in once in awhile when I'm jumping from XM to FM to AM. Whether or not I stay for more than 10 seconds depends on what's on & I don't have a handle on their program line-up. I like Father Rocky. I can get by-the-numbers disinterested sounding speeches weekly at mass but he sounds kinda hip & is pretty interesting without being preachy. If he's on & is talking about something interesting, I'll stay, but I'm still good for only about 5 minutes. When they first launched in this area, there were leaflets in my church in the lobby about the station.
 
News radio 550. It seems to make so much sense on the surface. It even has a nice ring to it. Only if this town had a corporation willing to invest some money into it, I think such an idea would work. WPRO does a great job with News/Talk. But it would be so nice to have our own version of WINS here. So many radio dreams running through my head and I known damn well that 99.9 percent of them will never happen.
 
Around 2005, I thought the same thing about 990. I worked for Metro so I asked one of the newscasters who used to be N.D. for a news/talk station in town. Sadly, he said it wouldn't work. I thought "traffic & weather on the 9s" would be good. C'est la vie.
 
With America's Radio News Network and local news cut-ins during the day, I am surprised that markets like Providence couldn't support an all-news radio station.

Then again, I am repeatedly told on the Boston board that there is not enough news to warrant WBZ becoming a true all-news radio station. ???
 
Yeah, "All News" just doesn't seem to be able to work for some reason. I remember even years ago it wouldn't go. 790 WEAN tried it for a while in the 70's and more recently in the 90's the 1110 CNN project did not last and they put a lot into that effort and the station actually was pretty good, it just didn't float.
 
ARNN has been aired by WSAR so maybe they count as the Providence affiliate? As for CNNHN, that, like all TV audio on radio, sounded awful. 1180/WCNX aired it in later years. I missed the WEAN Newsradio 79 era. Considering its current format, it might not be bad as a format on 790 now.
 
Skynet74 said:
News radio 550. It seems to make so much sense on the surface. It even has a nice ring to it. Only if this town had a corporation willing to invest some money into it, I think such an idea would work.
Click to expand...

The problem with the all-news format is that it's terribly expensive to get off the groung......and expensive to keep going.

Besides.....I really don't think enough goes on in Southeastern Massachusetts and Rhode Island to keep the program clock from becoming too repetitive.
If CBS thought it would work in a bigger market like Boston....they would already have done it with WBZ-1030.

On the other hand....if one of the AM's in this market were owned by Belo/The Providence Journal......who knows? There could be some nice synergy between the paper and the station.
 
I, too remember WEAN's affiliation with NBC's News and Information Service(NIS). It sounded good, but eventually gave way to talk. Same with 1110 under the WWRX calls; it got plenty of awards, but also had to drift to talk. A station owned by the Journal and using ARNN could work with enough features and such from the Journal's writers to make sure things weren't mind-numbingly repetitive. A good template would be the formats of WCBS, WINS, and KYW. 550 would be a good fit for this. 990 tried it, but without any wire service, and having to rewrite newspaper stories, along with crapola on-air audio, it was a bust.....
 
DG02816 said:
I, too remember WEAN's affiliation with NBC's News and Information Service(NIS). It sounded good, but eventually gave way to talk. Same with 1110 under the WWRX calls; it got plenty of awards, but also had to drift to talk. A station owned by the Journal and using ARNN could work with enough features and such from the Journal's writers to make sure things weren't mind-numbingly repetitive. A good template would be the formats of WCBS, WINS, and KYW. 550 would be a good fit for this. 990 tried it, but without any wire service, and having to rewrite newspaper stories, along with crapola on-air audio, it was a bust.....
Click to expand...
I worked at WHIM after the 1110 CNN....My understanding was they were paying for thier air time
 
I remember WHIM's intellectual property (P.C. way of saying format, jocks, etc.) went to 550 for a couple of years before it went back to 1110. I also remember oldies as being 550's format, which I still associate it with.
 
I was Regional Sales Manager then General Sales Manager when 550 was converted from WXTR to WGNG. The Hysko brothers hired a guy named Ted Randall to consult we had some initial success then changed consultants to John Rook with Tom Bigby being the in house PD and we went straight ahead Top 40. We gave WPRO a run for their money, took out WICE had great talent --- G Michael McKay mornings, Brad Pierce mid day, John Driscoll PM drive, Charlie Foxx nights, I forgot who overnights. Mike Cabral and Mike Scott did news. We had a helicopter for traffic reports, I think Fram, Narry and Blue Cross sponsored. It was when the speed limit was reduced to 55 mph during the gas shortage and we put billboards all over the state simple message looked like a speed limit sign said Maximum Music 55 -- WGNG. Also had a good budget for TV. Had they invested in FM it would still be a viable frequency in association with an FM sister station. It was great fun! We turned it around very quickly!

Gary Burns
 
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