Nebraska KXSP (the former WOW) goes silent

[crainbebo]

Radio stations are not museums...explain that to WSM.

Meanwhile, I had replies on the WEW St. Louis thread that were criticizing the fact that I believe the station should turn in the license and go silent - saving heritage by playing screaming, dead Brother Stair all day long until sunset?

Most of the WOW-590 audience is 65+ now, anyway. And Omaha has a great oldies station in Boomer, before anyone asks about WOW coming back with oldies or something similar.

 

[Mark Roberts]

Radio stations are not museums...explain that to WSM.

Meanwhile, I had replies on the WEW St. Louis thread that were criticizing the fact that I believe the station should turn in the license and go silent - saving heritage by playing screaming, dead Brother Stair all day long until sunset?

WSM(AM) is more of a promotional tool than anything else. Nothing wrong with that.

The only things WOW and WEW had in common were the letter “W” and the AM band. As KXSP, there’s even less in common with WEW. WEW hasn’t gone silent. Its owner didn’t sell its transmitting site, nor did it spin off the license to someone else once the site was sold off. Yes, the programming it has now is awful. I’ve said that in the WEW thread. I started that thread because I thought, and still think, it’s pretty amazing that we’re now seeing stations that have made it to 105. You may not like it. Then again, unless you live in the St. Louis metro area, WEW’s owner has no reason to care what you think about it. As long as the licensee is compliant with regulations, there’s likely not much the FCC is going to do with WEW’s programming. The FCC doesn’t regulate radio programming matters.

WEW is a functioning radio station. At this time, KXSP isn’t. Walnut has paid a sum for the license. Unless it’s in the business of incinerating money, its primary focus should be figuring out how to get KXSP back on the air. Then it can deal with the call letters.

One more thing…if I didn’t have an appreciation for KXSP’s history, I wouldn’t have started this thread, nor would I have put the WOW calls in parentheses in the title! But whether the station has a viable future is a whole other matter.

 

[fybush]

I think it's worth mentioning that the Boomer operation in Omaha, which has done a nice job keeping the much worse 1490 signal going, is the same Walnut group that's trying to revive WOW.

I'm rooting hard for them to succeed. While Birach (or what's left of it) is basically a radio slumlord that has no interest in anything other than collecting lease payments for airtime, Walnut seems both serious about trying to create its own programming and about trying to save a heritage brand so that it can once again mean something.

It won't ever be a 6-share commercial mass-appeal station, but if they can get 590 back on the air fairly economically (likely from the nearby 660 site), Omaha is the kind of older, low-turnover market where a revived WOW can at least find a niche with older listeners and, hopefully, local non-agency advertisers. Buffalo's WECK is a good example of how to pull that off.

 

[Kent]

Waiver Sought to Restore Historic Three-Letter Callsign – NorthPine: Upper Midwest Broadcasting

northpine.com

It’s neat that they want to bring back the WOW call letters but their reasoning is a bunch of bull. Not one person listens to radio station because of call letters. At the the time the WOW calls were dropped it was the right move, the station was below a 2 when great empire sold it in 1999 and was 5-6+ range when it was KOMJ for those first few years.

I agree with your logic. Having said that, I don't have a problem with Walnut trying to get the WOW calls back to 590. You miss 100% of the shots you don't take, and, though the radio dial isn't a museum, heritage is promotional. I'll grant you that I was 25 when the WOW call letters left Omaha, but AM isn't going to get anybody younger. Omaha is a slightly older market, and AM usage is higher than it is most places around the country.

 

[bobjim45]

I think it's worth mentioning that the Boomer operation in Omaha, which has done a nice job keeping the much worse 1490 signal going, is the same Walnut group that's trying to revive WOW.

I'm rooting hard for them to succeed. While Birach (or what's left of it) is basically a radio slumlord that has no interest in anything other than collecting lease payments for airtime, Walnut seems both serious about trying to create its own programming and about trying to save a heritage brand so that it can once again mean something.

It won't ever be a 6-share commercial mass-appeal station, but if they can get 590 back on the air fairly economically (likely from the nearby 660 site), Omaha is the kind of older, low-turnover market where a revived WOW can at least find a niche with older listeners and, hopefully, local non-agency advertisers. Buffalo's WECK is a good example of how to pull that off.

My question is which time period of WOW-AM would walnut try to revive? or are they just trying to bring back the call letters? WOW was never top 40 era WABC, WOW did play top 40 briefly in the 70's but it more AC especially towards the end. When Meredith flipped it to country it did well at first but with more competition (KXKT) ratings fell, most of the 1990's 590's ratings were near or below a 3. I would even say WOW branding/calls was rather toxic, if you look at when 94.1 dropped the WOW calls, KISS and MAX country had higher ratings than anything on that signal for more than 10 years. it would seem like country listeners are more into that kind of history than listener in some other formats. After the network era there were times when WOW had good and even great ratings but that was rather brief, most of the time WOW was struggling especially in the 1990's.

In the end it's a simple request from walnut to the FCC for the calls, but the WOW calls are not going to bring in even one extra listener, this is mostly for us, radio nerds.

 

[davideduardo]

Whether it's wishful thinking or not, I side with @nitroengine on this one. In fact, I'm sure the owners would have loved to get KOIL, the callsign of Omaha's most popular top-40, but that callsign is nicely tucked away on its old 1290kHz frequency as a conservative talker.

KOIL was not the most popular Omaha Top 40 for many years, as Omaha first had KOWH, Todd Storz' birthplace of Top 40 which began in that format in 1951. Don Burden did not buy 1290 in Omaha until four years later. He later beat KOWH because KOWH was a daytimer.

And Burden went on to lose his licenses for bribing a Senator, among other bad things. Based on my one "meet" with him, he was a nasty person: "get that kid out of my radio station". On the other hand, when I met Storz... I had just turned 18 and visited his Miami station... he took hours one afternoon and evening to teach me how to properly run a Top 40 station... he died a few weeks later.

Maybe it won't last long, but it will be a fun listen for us old geezers, too. What I'm interested in seeing is whose tower the station is going to use and at what power. Yet, even there, if it goes to the short stick used by the 1490 kHz station, it will still get out further than the 1490 station because it's lower on the dial.

Even 100 watts on 590 will cover more than 1 kw on 1490.

(Given equal electrical antenna height and the same antenna site conductivity, 1 kw on 550 covers more than 50 kw on 1500)

 

[davideduardo]

In the end it's a simple request from walnut to the FCC for the calls, but the WOW calls are not going to bring in even one extra listener, this is mostly for us, radio nerds.

You are forgetting that Omaha is a diary market and WOW in "the land of the K" is a great set of call letters. It is easy to remember and write down as those letters spell an very positive word.

 

[Lou Schneider]

But no matter. The FCC allowed 930 to return to KHJ. The only legitimate reason the FCC permits a previous three letter call sign to come back is if the station is owned by the same company. The current owners have nothing to do with the owners who gave up the KHJ call sign in 1986. But their reasoning prompted the FCC to grant their request.

I believe the first 3 letter call revival was KRE Berkeley. Wright Broadcasting changed it to KPAT to match their other station, WPAT. Then in 1972, as part of their 50th anniversary celebration they persuaded the FCC to let them return to using KRE.

 

[deepstblu]

I believe the first 3 letter call revival was KRE Berkeley. Wright Broadcasting changed it to KPAT to match their other station, WPAT. Then in 1972, as part of their 50th anniversary celebration they persuaded the FCC to let them return to using KRE.

WHN New York was reverted from WMGM in the early '60s.