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Larger/midsized markets where a big owner has more AM’s than FM’s?

sdwulfdawg said:
These days you can't even get a time check.
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That is such an outmoded way of thinking, @sdwulfdawg. Outside of morning drive, its old school and pointless to give a time check in 90+ percent of radio markets..

i'm on a bunch of stations overnight... some of my listeners have kinda figured it out, some of them havent.. that im not live nor am i local... and you know what? to most, it doesnt matter. why? I entertain.. im on in places like larned, ks...lima, oh, grundy Va... so no big cities, but i fit in there because i sound like i could be their nextdoor neighbor.

live is great, so is local... but its not the end all be all savior some think it is.

i'm also doing afternoons on an AC station in wyoming

I talk about the same things a local dj would talk about... and i regularlly, especially on the wyoming station.. update voicetracks with news and weather info.
 
sdwulfdawg said:
These days you can't even get a time check.
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I haven't heard a time check outside of mornings in years...And the programs who do give the time often say something generic like "It's 20 after..." or "10 minutes 'till the top of the hour" in case they need to replay those segments later and it's outside the exact hour they were originally done.

Regardless, I have a clock in/on every single device I use to listen, so hearing the time, or even temperature, is completely redundant..My vehicle has a clock, temperature and forecast visible at a glance on the dash..As does my laptop if streaming, or my smartphone if listening via an app. I also wear a watch.
 
sdwulfdawg said:
The thing is, whether it is AM or FM, radio is surely becoming irrelevant with the rise of podcasts and streaming because of these big corporate mammoths template approaches to programming. Localism is what gets people to actively listen to radio. These days you can't even get a time check.
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I quit doing time checks back around 1975 when some informal research told us that, outside of AM Drive, timechecks told people when they had to go do something else. And many listeners did not want to be reminded of how early it was (before "quittin' time) or how late it was (and you still had things to do). In any case, it could make people turn off the radio.

Some things we do are actually for a reason!
 
TheBigA said:
I guess nobody owns a watch anymore.
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Not to go off topic, but that's increasingly true. At least for many men, especially the under 50 population, the watch has become a fashion statement. You wear your Rolex for enjoyment and/or personal satisfaction. If you just need to know what time it is, you check your phone.
 
RadioGuy1864 said:
Not to go off topic, but that's increasingly true. At least for many men, especially the under 50 population, the watch has become a fashion statement. You wear your Rolex for enjoyment and/or personal satisfaction. If you just need to know what time it is, you check your phone.
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A Rolex around your wrist in Los Angeles or Beverly Hills will get you murdered these days...
 
I'd say Hubbard is close to that in Washington DC, since they own AM's WBQH, WFED, and WWFD and FM's WTOP-FM, WTLP, and WWWT-FM. But if the latter two stations (which are simulcasts) are counted as one station together with WTOP-FM, then we could say DC.
 
All interesting contributions! I do think Cincinnati is still the most unique market for AM. They have four good signals owned by iHeart that are going to be pretty much stuck on AM as it continues to decline, and WLW and WKRC are quite successful - WCKY doesn’t look to do that great but probably bills well. iHeart will eventually have to make some tough decisions in that market - very odd how they ended up with four good AM’s and just two FM’s.
 
101tm said:
All interesting contributions! I do think Cincinnati is still the most unique market for AM. They have four good signals owned by iHeart that are going to be pretty much stuck on AM as it continues to decline...
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Based on at least a 10 mV/m signal to be useful, they have two good signals, one mediocre one (1530) and one poor one (1360).
 
101tm said:
I haven’t tried in ages, but I used to be able to get 1530 at night in SC, and of course the big one blasts in.
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I'm talking about 24/7 sustainable groundwave strong enough to overcome local noise. In many ways, 550 is a better daytime signal than 1530.

The immense share of radio ad dollars are spent between 6 AM and 7 PM, and not on night programming.
 
In Buffalo, there are more AM stations (WBEN, WGR, WWKB, WWWS) in the Audacy cluster than [full-powered] FM stations (WKSE, WLKK, WTSS).

Cumulus has one AM in Los Angeles (WABC) but no FM.
 
Mikey Radio said:
I haven't heard a time check outside of mornings in years...And the programs who do give the time often say something generic like "It's 20 after..." or "10 minutes 'till the top of the hour" in case they need to replay those segments later and it's outside the exact hour they were originally done.

Regardless, I have a clock in/on every single device I use to listen, so hearing the time, or even temperature, is completely redundant..My vehicle has a clock, temperature and forecast visible at a glance on the dash..As does my laptop if streaming, or my smartphone if listening via an app. I also wear a watch.
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WGLD Myrtle Beach SC says "Turn so you won't burn" every few minutes.
 
RadioGuy1864 said:
Not to go off topic, but that's increasingly true. At least for many men, especially the under 50 population, the watch has become a fashion statement. You wear your Rolex for enjoyment and/or personal satisfaction. If you just need to know what time it is, you check your phone.
Click to expand...
I wear a Timex. Well, I did. The last two I bought sold for $5 at a KMart-type store which still has a few locations left. And I don't even need the second one because I got it to keep on standard time, but the new one is easy to change. The old one that quit working would stop if I tried to turn it back.
 
101tm said:
iHeart will eventually have to make some tough decisions in that market - very odd how they ended up with four good AM’s and just two FM’s.
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It happened because one of the private equity companies that bought into iHeart when Clear Channel went private was also an owner of the old Cumulus Media Partners, which was the private arm of Cumulus that owned most of its large market stations until about 10 years ago. That put that company over the limit. So, it worked out a deal between iHeart and Cumulus that saw the public Cumulus getting 92.5 and 94.1 in Cincinnati from iHeart.
 
vchimpanzee said:
I wear a Timex. Well, I did. The last two I bought sold for $5 at a KMart-type store which still has a few locations left. And I don't even need the second one because I got it to keep on standard time, but the new one is easy to change.
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Good Lord
vchimpanzee said:
The old one that quit working would stop if I tried to turn it back.
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That's because when you pull the stem out to turn it back in time, it stops until the stem is pushed back in.
Can't believe I'm providing tech support to someone who owns a $5 watch purchased at KMart.
 
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