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Local radio news blocks in AM drive WDEL vs WILM

M

MikefromDelaware

I listen to both WDEL's and WILM's morning news shows during AM drive. Before offering my observations I do wish to congratulate WDEL's news team for winning the Edward R. Murrow award. They must be very proud of winning that award. Chris didn't mention whether WILM had submitted an entry, but having worked with many of those folks at WILM in past years and knowing the quality of their work, they too could have won that award as WILM's walls were literally covered with all sorts of broadcast excellence awards. Wilmington is very fortunate in that we have two great news/talk stations in WDEL and WILM. Both deliver Delaware's news everyday (this is even more important now that channel 12 is dropping their Delaware newscast and the News Journal has had lay offs to their staff. Their styles or approach may be different from the other, but both do a quality job.

WDEL's approach is more of a slick presentation as Peter McArthur's style of presentation reminds me of the old "top 40 DJ voice of the 60's" as he "hypes" the news. He says continuously, coming up will be Digging Deep, or traffic on the 9's coming up, etc. Frankly, he could add a couple extra news stories by cutting out the promoing of what's coming up in 10 minutes. What makes WDEL's news block less listenable for me as a listener is they have spot breaks way too often. It comes across to my ear as a listener that between each 60-120 featurette or newsblock there's a spot break. It would be far easier to listen to for my ear, at least, to do a couple features and then have a larger spot break. They get my interest and then lose it with another spot break. It just breaks up the continuity for me. The chemistry between Peter and Mellany Armstrong is good and makes the newscast more enjoyable as they will do a "colorful" story prior to going to traffic so you get a chuckle before finding out you're going to be late for work as you sit in a traffic jam.

WILM's approach is the more traditional news block. Mark Fowser and Valary Mack do an excellent job co-hosting the news. They take a more serious approach and don't do all the joking around that Peter and Mellany do. However, if you can't pull it off naturally better to not do it than to sound stiff and stilted. I find WILM's approach very professional and well done. Neither Mark or Valary hype what's coming up either. WILM doesn't have near as many spot breaks as WDEL so you actually get more news, commentary, and features with less interruptions than you get with WDEL. That would be the one major thing WDEL could do to improve their newsblock is have less spot breaks, granted the spot breaks would be longer, but the newscast would be less interrupted, in my opinion.

So again, both WDEL and WILM do a great job bringing Delaware news to Wilmington. Your newscasts have become even more important to Wilmington with the demise of Channel 12's local news.
 
It is true that the Wilmington market is a rare bird in American radio. A market far below the top twenty in size in which BOTH major remaining AM stations are doing locally-originated news blocks in A.M. drive, not to mention 6--7 p.m. (unless 'DEL is broadcasting a Phillies game, although the news broadcast in that case continues on the internet and at 94.7 F.M., H.D. 3)

It's understandable that, as a news hawk, you'd like 'DEL's morning team to air a few additional stories, but guess what? Peter and Mellany are executing what ANY radio consultant would recommend -- "teasing" the upcoming program elements. Gotta' do it.

And, granted the commercials can overwhelm, but hey - one station's sales department is still kicking butt, and the other one's isn't. If you were a betting person, where would you put your money, especially with Clear Channel becoming virtually a junk stock?

At least based on recent morning Arbitron numbers, the commercial saturation isn't hurting WDEL. Of course, we'll never know if 'DEL's morning numbers would be even higher with fewer spots per hour!

But something's gotta pay for the "LIVE & LOCAL" all day long, and it can't be trade.

Having said all that, Fowser's fine - been in the market for years now - and is a Claymont High School graduate, so he knows the area. Valorie Mack? Despite many years in radio, she seems rather robotically programmed. Virtually no chemistry between the two.

You can have chemistry without necessarily being too light or goofy.

But you fail to mention the absolutely most jarring thing about WILM in A.M. drive: With the attempt to simulcast in Wilmington and Dover, the broadcast is disjointed; it just lacks continuity. (It sounds even worse on 1410 WDOV)
 
True, they've not found a way to make that work better. If I'd been WILM I'd have tried doing the program more like a network feed with break aways for WDOV to take care of local Dover issues, and WDOV spots, etc, with Phil in Dover (sort of al la NPR's Morning Edition). That way it would have a more professional tighter sound. Sort of how CC does the Big D and Bubba show on WDSD via Premiere. Very smooth transitions between network and local. That is where Peter and Mellonie shine. Their format is tight, like the ole top 40 stations of our youth (maybe that's why they do that as a large part of WDEL's audience probably is from the Baby Boom group who'd have fond memories of the top 40 jock style (think WAMS, WFIL, WIBG).

Part of my problem too DX, is I listen quite a lot to NPR via WHYY-FM and WRTI at 107.7 the Wilmington translator and have gotten used to 20 minute blocks of solid programming without interruptions so what WDEL is doing probably is normal, especially if they are selling well, but it seems so excessive when you've gotten used to non-commerical FM.

I guess the "teasing" happens so often, it seems, to my ear, like after each thing they do that they tease the next thing then go to a spot, so the hype gets old, especially in the morning when you're rushed getting ready for work and all you want is the info without a lot of verbal "filler". However, if that works and actually keeps people tuned in longer then I guess it's the right thing to do as that certainly is what any station strives for, listeners who stay tuned in. Can't knock success.

Your point about chemistry is right on. It can make or break a show. I remember when I sat in with Wendy Levine for a few weeks, before I took over that talk show on WILM as a solo when she moved out of state. The two of us had a great chemistry there on the air (we got along well off air so we didn't have to act), even though our points of view were very different. We respected the other person and could accept their different view of the world without getting angry and up tight about it. Frankly, I think Wendy and I could have had a great talk show together if she'd stayed in the area. I liked my solo talk show and had recieved many positive comments from listeners who enjoyed my musical trivia's, my topics of discussion, how I treated callers to my show, etc (in one book that I was shown, my show beat whatever satellite show was on WDEL during my time slot - not bad for a part timer). Even though I really had a great time doing it solo, the show probably would have been even better with Wendy there as we'd played off each other quite well, which makes for a more entertaining show.

I've notice that Al Messetti has some side kicks (males in this case) on his show quite often which makes his show even more entertaining than it was before (he had a good show solo, in my opinion). Rick Jensen, in my opinion, should go back to having a "side kick" on his show as for my ear his show isn't as good as it was when he had the various side kicks with him to help balance his extreme one sidedness which makes him sound like the WDEL version of Sean Hannity (that's not a compliment). But as they say, I say tom-at-o and you say to-ma -toe. My guess is Rick has good ratings and he has plenty of spots, so my opinion is just that, my opinion. Different strokes for different folks.
 
Here's something to ponder:
As a result of this discussion... went ahead and monitored WDEL and WILM in A.M. drive -- the 8:30--9:00 A.M. segment. Did one station Monday; the other Tuesday.

WILM aired four spots between 8:30--9:00 A.M. Two of them were network spots. One was a bona fide local commercial. The fourth: Delmarva.com (a trade for hosting WILM's website?). WILM also ran six PSA's. (7 minutes total time: Spots plus PSA's)

WDEL ran seven 60-second spots between 8:30--9:00 A.M. All local. No network commercials. No PSA's.

So avails were the SAME. The difference: WDEL aired commercials, all local. WILM, mostly PSA's. What does that tell you about the relative positions of the two radio stations?

Now, two things may contribute to the PERCEPTION of differing spot-avails. (1). PSA's don't sound the same as spots, often lacking urgency or a high-octane delivery, and (2). "Traffic Watch on the Nines" every ten minutes compresses the format.
 
Certainly from a financial point of view, it would appear that WDEL is in better shape than WILM. Your point about PSA's not having that high octane delivery sure could make a difference in sounding like there are more spot minutes on WDEL vs WILM. WILM, I believe also does have traffic and weather together every ten minutes so that would be a wash for both stations.

Interestingly, I tuned in to both WDSD and WXCY for about a half hour each while at work this afternoon. I noted a simliar situation spot wise. WXCY had actual local spots vs WDSD had some local, but more network spots and PSA's. So with only listening for a very short time period on one day, it appears that CC's Wilmington market country station may not be doing as well spot wise as Delmarva's Wilmington market country station. I would have thought that the strong 94.7 signal that covers all of Delaware would sell better than the lesser signal of 103.7 that doesn't cover all of New Castle County well, much less all of Delaware. Of course 103.7 is a Baltimore rim shot station so they may pull in listeners from there against WPOC, but I've not noticed any Baltimore spots on WXCY. Of course, it may also mean that Delmarva's sales force is better than CC Delaware's as you pointed out the difference between WDEL and WILM spot wise.

Actually, it's one of the negatives to listening to Rush or Hannity (besides their extreme views that Republicans are always right and Democrats are always wrong) on WILM vs WPHT is you get tired of hearing the same ole PSA's over and over again all afternoon. One would think that WILM would get more PSA's and mix them up more so it's not so obvious. At least WPHT has spots so it's not the same thing each spot break.
 
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