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It's Official, "Radio Disney" Is Ending on WQEW This Fall

Pacifica will most likely fight for 99.5 till the bitter end, then they'll have nothing. Moving it to 4 Times Square is just a stopgap measure.
 
IDK, as those options are all fine. I just don't want WQEW to be the first ever clear-channel "flea-powered" station to sign off the air permanently, and it will hurt the FCC as it is a Class A Stations and they are not meant to go away.
 
Here's my idea of how 1560 will be brought back: We can see the rebirth of American Popular Standards WNEW at 1560 with their pop music on weekdays and leased time ethnic programs on weekends. Anybody wanna respond?
 
blackgold said:
Here's my idea of how 1560 will be brought back: We can see the rebirth of American Popular Standards WNEW at 1560 with their pop music on weekdays and leased time ethnic programs on weekends. Anybody wanna respond?
Click to expand...

Is that realistically speaking or something you hope to see?
 
Anything other than brokered ethnic would be great! Brokered stations get 0.0s and only 11 people know about the station. I thought WQXR's classical coming back would be a great choice - after all it was 1560's format for decades.

-crainbebo
 
Since WNYC has acquired WQXR-FM, maybe they could acquire the former WQXR-AM, too. Even with WNYC as news and information stations on AM and FM, WQXR as a classical station (plus WBGO doing jazz and WFUV doing alternative) there's still a good deal of good public radio programming not heard in New York (including shows blacked out by WNYC's local shows).

When classical music was on 1560 AM, it was a different world. Receivers were better. Interference was less. And people were more tolerant of AM's limitations. Classical music lovers were among the first to buy FM receivers (when few people had them) because they wanted to hear the music in high-fidelity and stereo. Sound quality is just too important to the classical music experience.

If anybody could sell time, standards would be much more feasible. It would get listeners. Problem is nobody wants to pay to reach those listeners.
 
Reality check.....The cost of buying and maintaining a 50,000 watt AM plant is very expensive. The 1560 signal is inefficient due to position its position on the upper end of the AM band, its not going to be purchased for its sky-wave ability. An oldies or any other music format could never support it. Oldies and other music formats not represented on FM are available via numerous internet sources which are available on Smart Phones as well as Satellite.

Other possibilities.... If Disney LLC NY wanted to sell cheap or donate as a write off maybe WNYC or some other public broadcaster might be interested but would have to deal with high operational and maintenance costs, prob not. Purchase or lease to clear a sports network not currently cleared in NYC, maybe. Any kind of English language talk programing, not going to happen because conservative or liberal talk radio other then sports is in a decline.

And that leaves us with Ethnic or Religious. And perhaps the property value may be worth more then what its worth as a broadcast facility, in that case go dark.

IMHO the AM band will only have a few specialty broadcasters left in the next few years. Speaking for myself, if WCBS 880 found a home on the FM band I would probably never listen to AM again.
 
I would love to see 50's 60's oldies or standards on 1560. A lot of older listeners who find CBS FM too 70's and 80's would love it. Too bad this scenario is not going to happen. Brokered ethnic programming that will make money for the new owner is the logical move. Of course they will have very few listeners. Look at WMCA. A handful of people may listen,but it is a cash cow for Salem. Unfortunately, that is the way oe world for AM in 2014.

I was in Manhattan last week listening to the AM band. 21 stations are audible, 10 are foreign language. The only AM's doing well are 50,000 watt CBS stations..WFAN,WCBS and WINS.

I haven't listened to 1560 since they switched to Disney. They never had any ratings. Disney didn't care. As long as they had a presence in New York,they were happy. If a tree falls.... I would love to see 1560 switch to a format that appeals to people over 55,but don't look for that to happen.
 
blackgold said:
Here's my idea of how 1560 will be brought back: We can see the rebirth of American Popular Standards WNEW at 1560 with their pop music on weekdays and leased time ethnic programs on weekends. Anybody wanna respond?
Click to expand...

As many others have noted, standards in 2014 is a format for 65+ or even, for the most part, 70+. There is no advertiser support, agency or local, for people that old. A format with 45-64 appeal can do well in direct sales in some markets, but not 65+.

Combined with the fact that 1560 is AM at the wrong side of the dial and limited coverage that is all the more restricted by today's noise levels, there is no chance that standards could be viable in transactional markets.
 
njtom said:
And perhaps the property value may be worth more then what its worth as a broadcast facility, in that case go dark.
Click to expand...

The lot is just a hair under 5 acres and its estimated value is $3.2 million. I think the station is worth more than $3.2 million, so the land under the sticks isn't more valuable... yet.
 
But like I said at the top, 1560 needs an oldies station to play a lot of 50's and 60's music such as Chuck Berry, Bill Haley & the Comets, Elvis Presley, Roy Orbison, Lesily Gore, Dion, the Skyliners, the Flamingos, Frankie Lymon & the Teenagers and many others along with 60's music in which CBS-FM doesn't care about it anymore since the 60's music is slowly drifting away. I hope maybe they should the Beatles, British Invasion, Motown, the Beach Boys, the Four Seasons and others in the mix. I hope 1560 will do better with oldies. "Fox Oldies" in the Hudson Valley and "Magic 590" in Albany does well with oldies, but 1560 will be a better choice for oldies in NYC.
 
There's a reason WCBS-FM no longer plays the hits from the '50s and '60s. There is no ad money for the demo that music attracts.
 
IDK about this. I just don't want this station to end up as the first ever clear-channel AM station in the USA to go silent forever and get their license cancelled and deleted. I think an WQXR simulcast will work. This has happened twice in Canada, but we don't want any flea-powered USA AM's stations to go off the air for good.
 
Unregistered said:
IDK about this. I just don't want this station to end up as the first ever clear-channel AM station in the USA to go silent forever and get their license cancelled and deleted. I think an WQXR simulcast will work. This has happened twice in Canada, but we don't want any flea-powered USA AM's stations to go off the air for good.
Click to expand...

Like I said, WQEW will not bring classical back to its roots. The last time WQXR ran the classical format was back in 1992 when the station flipped to MOR/standards as WQEW. If you want a 50's and 60's based oldies station to fill in a hole in the NYC market, it would be a good place to find. Look at WGNY-FM's "Fox Oldies" in Rosendale, they did a reasonable job at the oldies format in the Hudson Valley and it's on FM still. And also, there's WROW's "Magic 590" in Albany, they did an excellent job with the oldies format playing lots of oldies that you don't hear it on CBS-FM anymore. I would to see WQEW flipping to oldies after "Radio Disney" goes bye-bye. I hope maybe oldies on a 50 KW station will sound better.
 
I cant imagine any AM radio station being purchased today (that needs to dump a format) doing anything other than a "spoken word" format. It could be religious, talk or brokered. But still spoken word. And it could be "spoken word" in a language other than English. And NO ONE is buying an AM station to simulcast an FM. It's always the other way around -- an AM station looking for an FM outlet, like a translator.
 
Should be Italian programming for the huge Italian population in the bouroughs, ever other ethnic has their pie....
 
Radio Disney was the last blast of pop music on AM.

It's a sad day for AM radio when pop music leaves the AM airwaves for good.
 
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