January '24 Buffalo and Rochester trends

[TheBigA]

Radio is a frequency medium for clients, TV is a reach medium.

Local radio is frequency, national radio is reach. Because they own Premiere, they can provide national coverage that no other radio company has. I was talking about national shows such as Bobby Bones. They don't own a country station in Seattle or San Francisco. But they can deliver those markets to a national advertiser because of Bobby Bones.

I Heart get terrible results for clients. It’s a commodity buy. No strategies or ideas presented by them.

It depends on the client. They can create packages with local, national (Premiere), and digital that are hard to duplicate. They also do events better than anyone. My view is that radio needs to think beyond spots on local radio stations. That's not a growth business anymore.

 

[Rusty Bridges]

There is no evidence Audacy in Buffalo will keep Bills or Sabres. They lose money for those stations. They gain ratings, but not revenue. You may seems these teams looking for another home, or creating their own home

WGR without the Bills and the Sabres falls back to just another sports talk soap box. Who knows what Audacy plans, but it's even money they realize the value of both franchises and will try to keep them. Townsquare? Nah. Cumulus? 97 Rock had the Bills and walked away during the Citadel bankruptcy. Maybe. Pegula Sports Entertainment, owner of the Bills and Sabres could step in and buy one of the Audacy stations, e.g. 107.7, as when the Rigas clan owned Adelphia and the Sabres? You have to wonder if PSE as a sports-entertainment entity is built for owning a radio station and dealing with a regulatory agency like the FCC... and of course, the NFL would have something to say about that as well. Nix.

 

[Mark1981]

That's a huge exaggeration. I lived up till I was 14 or 15 in Cleveland and was an avid DXer. WGR could be heard on "good days" on a good receiver (Mine was an HQ-180 with a loop antenna and RF preamp) but in the summer and on noise days the rest of the year, it was definitely a DX catch and not listenable on an average kitchen or car radio.

And that was in the early 60's when there was vastly less noise.

You‘re wrong David! You were 14 or 15 in Cleveland a long time ago. My son lived in Cleveland from 2008 to 2016. I listened to WGR all the way from Buffalo to Cleveland on my car radio SEVERAL TIMES. On one occasion, I was listening to the Bills pre-game show nearly all the way as we headed to Cleveland from Buffalo where we watched that infamous 9-6 Bills-Browns game from Orchard Park in 2009. On another, we learned Rick Martin had died just before leaving his apartment, and I listened to that afternoon’s Sabres game on the way home ”over the air” on WGR. And I have a memory of listening to Schopp and the Bulldog on 550AM on a Bills Football Monday as my wife and I left his apartment for an overnight in the nearby resort town of Geneva-on-the-Lake. I will admit that I lost WGR’s signal in Cleveland itself. But on the I-90 from Buffalo to the 271 on the outskirts of the city, clear as a bell! My kid now lives in the Metro Detroit market. After watching the huge Miami win with him in Ann Arbor last October, I travelled home to Buffalo the next day listening to WGR on the Audacy app. But the next time I visit, I’m going to check out if my friend Rusty is engaging in “a huge exaggeration” by tuning in WGR to hear if its signal does extend to Detroit. I’ll report back!

 

[Theater of My Mind]

WGR, with 5kW non-DA day, has the best daytime AM signal in Buffalo, but its night time signal protects Cincinnati and Providence, RI; as well as a station on 550 in on one of Canada's maritime provinces.

The Canadian station was 50kw CFNB which migrated to FM and permanently signed off its AM signal in 1996. Yes I know it still needs to be protected but the chances of anyone constructing a new AM station in that region must be virtually nil.

Today it's CIBX-FM, still owned by Bell after it survived that company's recent mass sell-off of its radio stations. Here's an interesting article on CFNB's history.

https://www.cbc.ca/news/canada/new-brunswick/cfnb-100-years-ago-1.6705958

 

[davideduardo]

I do not want to get into a pizzing match over this, but I have a friend who lives in Euclid (OK, so it's technically not Cleveland) who listens to WGR OTA in his car, daytime of course. Lake Erie is a marvelous conductor.

Euclid is in the Cleveland market, but it is right on the lake. I lived in Shaker Heights, which is quite inland and WGR was not an easy catch.

Fresh water of the Great Lakes is not a a particularly good conductor as it does not have enough dissolved conductive minerals in it. But the great lakes have no obstructions such as hills and mountains with low conductivity, so it is passable. Google "fresh water conductivity" and compare with the ground conductivity of much of the Great Plains.

For example, distilled water is a terrible conductor.

 

[davideduardo]

You‘re wrong David! You were 14 or 15 in Cleveland a long time ago. My son lived in Cleveland from 2008 to 2016. I listened to WGR all the way from Buffalo to Cleveland on my car radio SEVERAL TIMES. On one occasion, I was listening to the Bills pre-game show nearly all the way as we headed to Cleveland from Buffalo where we watched that infamous 9-6 Bills-Browns game from Orchard Park in 2009.

Interstate 90 practically hugs the shoreline, and makes for a clean, unobstructed path. Go inland a bit, such as to where I lived, and WGR was a very marginal signal 60 years ago and is certainly less listenable with all the noise today.

 

[CTListener]

Interstate 90 practically hugs the shoreline, and makes for a clean, unobstructed path. Go inland a bit, such as to where I lived, and WGR was a very marginal signal 60 years ago and is certainly less listenable with all the noise today.

This explains my non-reception of WGR in Syracuse as well, since the city is well inland from Lake Ontario. I could barely get a couple of FM stations from across the lake in that 8th-floor dorm room, and only a snowy signal from CKWS-TV (Channel 11) in Kingston.

 

[Rusty Bridges]

Interstate 90 practically hugs the shoreline, and makes for a clean, unobstructed path. Go inland a bit, such as to where I lived, and WGR was a very marginal signal 60 years ago and is certainly less listenable with all the noise today.

OK, this is getting a bit deep, but from a friend of mine who lives near the Motor City, "WGR is not an easy catch 'in Detroit.' It gets beat up, but in my many road trips between Buffalo and Detroit, it can be heard on the 401 just north of Harrow, Ontario where the Big 8 towers are located and it comes in faintly driving on I-75 around Monroe driving south to I-90." So yeah, "Detroit" was a stretch, but again, the point was and remains, WGR has a helluva 5kW daytime signal coming off that all-too-short tower on Big Tree Road in Hamburg. And yes, David, for the record, I'm aware saltwater has higher conductivity than fresh water. Eighth grade science with Sister Henrietta, using tap water, a plastic dish pail, DC current from batteries and a light bulb. Pour in the Morton's salt and voila ... Let there be light!

And Mark1981 testifies to the reception of WGR 'in Cleveland' ... albeit on the road driving I-90, which is why my friend in Euclid can hear WGR OTA. I await Mark's reception report from his next road trip to Michigan.

 

[Mike Sheridan]

I have heard WGR at night in Washington, DC in the clear with no hint of WKRC Cincinnati which surprised me.

Moving on to the topic I wanted to bring up. I have been told there is quite a bit of property behind the towers which they own. It's a bit swampy I believe with a large wooded area. Maybe that's the land for sale and not the transmitter site?

 

[Rusty Bridges]

I have heard WGR at night in Washington, DC in the clear with no hint of WKRC Cincinnati which surprised me.

Moving on to the topic I wanted to bring up. I have been told there is quite a bit of property behind the towers which they own. It's a bit swampy I believe with a large wooded area. Maybe that's the land for sale and not the transmitter site?

Could be. The land to which you're referring is bordered on the north by Foster Brook (really.) There's no indication that it's yet been sold. Google Maps shows there are residential developments to the west, east and south of the open tract (just west of Frontier high school.) The land may support a residential development if it's not in the Lake Erie Watershed or protected wetlands. It's a good bet that WGR and WWKB can be heard on the plumbing and HVAC elements in the homes bordering the transmitter site which was there long before most of those subdivisions were even an idea in some developer's mind.

As to WGR in DC, word is it's a fairly good catch in Rockville and Frederick, MD which are a bit northwest of DC.

 

[Mike Sheridan]

Could be. The land to which you're referring is bordered on the north by Foster Brook (really.) There's no indication that it's yet been sold. Google Maps shows there are residential developments to the west, east and south of the open tract (just west of Frontier high school.) The land may support a residential development if it's not in the Lake Erie Watershed or protected wetlands. It's a good bet that WGR and WWKB can be heard on the plumbing and HVAC elements in the homes bordering the transmitter site which was there long before most of those subdivisions were even an idea in some developer's mind.

As to WGR in DC, word is it's a fairly good catch in Rockville and Frederick, MD which are a bit northwest of DC.

The excessive signal radiation in the immediate are may have subsided a little bit when the site was updated and the above ground open feeder lines to the towers were replaced with buried shielded lines. In the old days you could see what looked like short telephone poles that carried the feeder lines.