Just for Fun

[ericakane]

Alot of great minds and opinions on this board...so...If you won the lottery and bought a radio station or took over one...what changes would you make...what would be your format....and how you as the leader of this station take it to number one in the market...

 

[emo474]

I was once told that 98 % of radio stations in America loose money... so If I won the lottery, I'd stay out of the business. Like the old saying about airlines, If you want to be a millionaire in the airline industry, start out with a billion dollars... the same is true with radio... it's a dying buisness... you save money by automating, cutting corners, and dropping everything that makes your station stand out and you wind up with a cheap cookie cutter approach to a station. And now, you can't own just one station.. you have to have 15.. do a simulcast on half of them and copy every other station with the rest. You want me to say, hire great talent, play the hottst music and run super promotions.. OK, that's what I'll do.. six months later.. I'll be broke, running live morning and satellite or automation the rest of the day and bartering out my lunch just to eat.
RADIO IN THIS MARKET IS DEAD! The stations in this market that have the money and right format get if from their corporate headquarters... there are no successful Mom & Pop stations anymore. The Walmart approach to broadcasting has taken over... crush the small stations, buy out the owners & stock the shelves with junk.

 

[crmc]

-Just a point of clarification: the old urban legend was 50 % of stations lose money, not 98%. However that was pre-deregulation when consolidation and economies of scale helped the business regroup and become more profitable as an overall industry.
There were several points that I agree with you in, however. Are listeners better served now? Probably not.Are journeyman broadcasters like many on this board better off, many would say not. Sadly, like banking, supermarkets,and other consolidated wall street driven industries, this is a wall street, stock price issue.
Radio is a fixed-cost, high profit margin business. While only growth pleases Wall Street, the tremendous amounts of cash the average radio station throws off would amaze most people.
So, while NEPA isn't the sexiest market, or it's for sure not a big growth market( a great thread on it's own,perhaps) for sure, I would buy a few stations here with MY lottery winnings in a heartbeat.

 

[ceaser]

As far as what I would do with a radio station,i'd invest time and money trying to kickstart a dying oldies format.I'd hire the most proven talent around that people grew up with.A station i would buy would need a strong fm signal.I would have a wide open playlist instead of the same old 200 songs.A sattelite feed (westwood one mabye) would cut down on expenses.But with an oldies format you won't get to #1.Not in this day and age.Let's face it,there are lots of white elephant radio stations here in this market.I would try to make that station an oldies institution here in northeastern pa.Then I would wake up from my dream.

 

[Sgt Friday]

So, while NEPA isn't the sexiest market, or it's for sure not a big growth market( a great thread on it's own,perhaps) for sure, I would buy a few stations here with MY lottery winnings in a heartbeat.

.....and it would be my PLEASURE again to work with you. Please consider this as my formal application.

 

[emo474]

You are all correct.. listeners are not better served now and profitibility is the bottom line. Sure, I would hire the best talent around and want the best FM signal in the area. But that's easier said than done. If you were building a new car, you would get the best engineers, great gas mileage and a hot looking automobile.. who wouldn't want that. It's just, how do you pay for that talent and broadcast resources. You go on with the XYZ format and one month later on of the big fish in the area copies the format, automates to same $$$ nad advertises that they're commercial free and with no "chatter" and they do that until you go belly up.. it's quite hard now-a-days.

 

[MACK184]

I was once told that 98 % of radio stations in America loose money... so If I won the lottery, I'd stay out of the business. Like the old saying about airlines, If you want to be a millionaire in the airline industry, start out with a billion dollars... the same is true with radio...

An old farmer was once asked what he would do if he won a million dollars in the lottery. His answer was.. "Probably keep farming until it was all gone." I think I'd just buy a rocking chair to put on the porch of the Old Disc Jockeys Home.

 

[emo474]

I understand there no porch at the Citadel old folks home... It was replaced by a Plank, which all employess will walk sooner or later.. and there are no old folks there, they fire you first!

 

[yonkstur]

Alot of great minds and opinions on this board...so...If you won the lottery and bought a radio station or took over one...what changes would you make...

I'd buy WARM, have a decent morning show complete with a competitive
news prescence, silmulast it on an FM, then run the bird after 3pm.
Format: Oldies, very similar to the True Oldies format.

and how you as the leader of this station take it to number one in the market...

I would have no such expectations. I'd want to break even (after all I did win the lottery) and treat my employees well.

I would also buy a 3,000 watt FM and run beautiful music on it, 24/7, automated, i believe this format would have a niche.

yonkstur

 

[warm590]

Yonk-

Where do I send my T&R?? I'd sweep the floor and clean the toilets to be part of the resurrected "MIGHTY 590". Might even be able to move it out of your kitchen. Hmm- boss jocks, heavy reverb, killer news dept, community oriented, tight knowledgeable jocks and a 13,000 tune library like I use over here in NY state. Oldies, bottom 40's stuff and stuff that wasn't even charted in addition to the normal stuff. Polka shows on sunday morning. Pam's jingles ( I can here it now from back in '63-( WONDERFUL W-A-R-M......).

I'll buy an extra $2 on the way home tonite..... 8)

longing for the good old days
warm590 ;D

 

[masterg]

Hmm- boss jocks, heavy reverb, killer news dept, community oriented, tight knowledgeable jocks and a 13,000 tune library like I use over here in NY state. Oldies, bottom 40's stuff and stuff that wasn't even charted in addition to the normal stuff.

I honest to God think it could grab a decent chunk of this market - but I wouldn't waste three seconds of it on an AM signal. Really, guys, how long before an AM tuner in a car becomes an option? AM on a car radio will be like a cigarette lighter in a car; it'll cost you extra, IF you can get it. Rick Dees pronounced AM dead in the late '70s, and it irritated me no end, but I knew he was right - time has proven he was.

 

[crmc]

A couple of thoughts on this thread:
1. AM has changed, not died. Perhaps here in NEPA , due to the oversaturation of low-power FM's ( docket 80-90, move-in's etc) and the fact that no AM serves the whole market( I guess 630 comes the closest to a regional signal, since the sad degradation of 590). How about America's most listened to Radio Station 1010-WINS? Or WCBS Newsradio 88 ? Or WFAN 660? Each of these three bills more than the ENTIRE MARKET of NEPA themselves.
What about KYW-1060, some believe the best all newser in the country? Or 610 WIP Philly's sportsradio Talk station?
Or WBZ 1030? WBAL1090? WGY 810? They all have big signals except WIP which has an inferior signal but programming superiority. This was WARM's destiny, albeit unfulfilled. Or WGBI's if the lack of vision from the beginning didn't prevent if from being a 50kw blowtorch like WGY.
Spoken word formats are alive and well on AM. Just not here.

2. Since the lottery winnings allow the Oldies Station that is being profiled here to survive, we don't need to keep Wall Street happy or feed some greedy emperor type who will eventually kill the goose that lays the golden egg...but it seems to be a station that will have a bit of ego behind it, unless I've misread us radio types. So you will seek ratings success won't you? Find me an Oldies station anywhere in the USA( radio and records .com lists all Arb markets and yes.com has the playlist of everystation in Arbitron America) that plays 13,000 records and has any ratings to brag about.A playlist from the late 40's up that includes low charted songs from the 60s and 70s is an express lane to a 1 share. Please, open my eyes to one that wins that doesn't run a tight playlist? I'm all for spice and flavor records, if they test. We have lottery winnings, so of course we will have a research budget. We need to test the library twice a year. That will provide enough rest to burnt titles and rotate others. Give your audience what THEY want, not us geeks who are tired of the same old songs.The peeps aren't.Research me thru the sources I listed.I'm telling you the truth.

 

[warm590]

CRMC-
great insight and very true. Since the station I work at here in NY is the only oldies station in the market, we do well with our expanded play list. The research is a good idea, but as a listener no one ever asked me what I want to hear. ImHO, there's no excuse for repitition on an oldies station, tho; I was listening to an oldies station in Seattle last week, and the repitition was so bad I heard the same worn out songs in the afternoon as I heard that morning. To me, thats bad programming and someone who doesn't know the music. One of the items on my wish list was personnel with a knowledge of the music!! Think you need to do the research and then throw a few "oh, wow" records in.

More discussion??
Great thread!!!

longing for the good old days
warm590

 

[masterg]

OK, I'll make this concession; maybe, just maybe, there are 15-20 still viable and successful AMs across the country. That among how many FMs? Thinking that anyone could resurrect an AM in this market is at best fanciful. WARM's problems went(and continue to be)far deeper than technical.

 

[crmc]

On spice and flavor records, I agree. But to some an " Oh Wow" record is " Oh Crap". My answer is have a flavor /spice category, but you gotta test them. The top 4 stations in this market all test their music.Some test their libraries twice a year some once, but " the big four" here all test.Plus call out for currents, if they play them.
I've personally watched songs test in the top 100 with good scores in a 600 song study and six months later, the same song in the bottom 100, and six months later a high score again.
As to the Seattle Oldies station that played the same song two dayparts later, I agree that either was a poorly programmed station, a jock breaking format or a special request. Often tightly formatted stations like Oldies, AC or Classic Rock repeat the midday Music log from 12 mid to 5a to give the rotations a rest. But most have a 5 daypart separation: middays today,PM drive tomorrow.And always tested music...even the spice records.Otherwise it's radio geeks like us deciding what the masses want.And in this competitive intolerant era, that does not work.
Yes...there was no tested music in the Glory days of WARM, but it was s simpler time.WARM had it's best test of all...record sales. Yeah they broke a record or two, but I understand it was a very " safe station". The WSCR's and WBAX's of the world were the rebel stations,weren't they?.No cable TV, internet,Ipods, CD's,DVD's,gameboys,X Box's, get my point?
It seemed a simpler time because it WAS a simpler time.This is one that " time has NOT rewritten every line".The days of 30,40,50 shares are gone. Even the biggest of big stations " only" has a 10 share nowadays. That means 90 % of the town doesn't listen to them.

 

[masterg]

there was no tested music in the Glory days of WARM,

Correct, the record promoters from NY and Philly had serious influence on what WARM "played." Dirty little secret time, so gather 'round and - go back and find a WARM Top 40 list from the 60s/70s, the ones with a jock's pic at the top, the ones that all record stores posted weekly. Now, take a good look at all those songs and then guess how many of them WARM actually "played." WARM charted them, while never once playing them. No illegality, mind you, just keeping their music services happy.

 

[crmc]

Those were called " paper adds" , reported to the trades and spun only in the evening, or overnights.There may have been no " illegalities" at WARM, but elsewhere, where there were paper adds, there were envelopes of cash, trips, electronics, women and bags of whatever was the deep dark fancy of these PD's and MD's.Sounds alot like PAYOLA?You betcha. In the 80's it meant thousands a week in a medium market, more in the big ones.
The age of electronic monitering ended all this. Long before Elliott Spitzer.With BDS came the demise of the add game,Indies hung around for a while, at least the swag was for the station and sort of on the books. But even that's all over now, in this Sorbanes-Oxley world Radio lives in now.
Speaking of electronic monitoring...have you checked out yes.com?? It's amazing.I know some small market operators that program their whole station off this website by closely watching a successful station in a big market that shares their format and philosophy.

 

[masterg]

I "heard" many stories of women(heavy on the women) and wine, but never personally witnessed the intense schmoozing by record reps. By the mid and late 70s, most of that had come to an end.

 

[ThomasCarten]

I came aboard after the first big payola scandal of the late '50s and we couldn't do anything without getting management's permission. There was no record rep schmoozing (and I was at the biggest station in the market), no cash, no booze, no dental work, no floozies. Much later, it started up again, but never like the glory days I missed by about two years when everybody was on the take and it was just the way radio was done.

Ah, them was the days.

 

[crmc]

Yes, in those earlier days, the actual talent was the benefactor. They picked their own music, so it made some sense to exploit theirselection process.Then with the move to more tightly formatted music logs controlled by PD's and MD's, the focus shifted to those positions.I knew of GM types that lost their positions by either looking away and others that participated, but this was at a few stations per market.Then it shifted again, to the station level, with contracted indie relationships. These radio stations were current based( CHR,ALT,Active, Urban,Country)and had about a 15 year window where they had big contracts with indies that would monetize the stations playlist, supposedly without influencing programming decisions. Stations would release the weekly playlist to the indie prior to it's release to the trades. The indie would monetize the adds, the spins,etc.The station would get money from the indie and put it on the books as a promotional relationship, funding on-air giveaways, skybox /boomboxes, billboards, etc.It simplified the station's label relationships, one contact with the independent,etc.I believe it's all over the past few years.The last few of them have been in the news.
Some versions of this still exist in Country and urban, mostly at the station /label level, with the middle guy( the indie) more or less out of the loop. Now it funds Artist/station co-op advertising( billboards,etc)
all above board now with the newer tighter laws and SOX compliancies.