radioho said:
here's a thought -- how 'bout if someone does get another local in hendricks county - they actually use if FOR hendricks county instead of just their personal record collection. I think the COMMUNITY might appreciate that. That was the biggest complaint about wklu - it was licensed in brownsburg - and the only local was high priced football games, and that old lady on saturday mornings that sounded/talked like Ronald Reagan.
Indy doesn't need another low power "wannabe" station trying to work it's way into the bottom of the metro ratings.
Oh, I did forget the stellar performances of the lady at the hendricks county fairs --
Being involved with both WGRT and WQFE (WKLU)... all I can say is that Hendricks county was a tough sell back then. Back in the late 70's through mid-80's, Danville's WGRT was very involved in Hendricks County. I did more than my share of remotes at fish frys and county fairs, and the station aired both football and basketball games every weekend when there was a local team playing. I froze my a** off in the dead cold of winter making sure the generator and marti was running in the back of a pickup truck with the antenna held on by a bungi cord in high schoool parking lots because the station didn't like paying for a phone loops. The basketball sectionals were the big money maker for the station every year. Otherwise, local businesses did not want to advertise on the station because they hated the GM after they got screwed on a sale (read trade-out) the music sucked, or they were just too damned cheap to buy a relatively low-priced package. It got to where the "old lady" who sold for them was dictating what we should play because a sponsor would bitch about a particular song they heard, or they didn't like the 6 hours of black gospel that aired on Sundays. The station went through many changes after that....becoming soul/r&B operating from downtown studios, country, big band (with the old WATI call), soft rock....they changed formats more than people changed underwear. It moved back to Indy and became classical, hard rock, smooth jazz, and now hispanic with that whopping 1800 watt signal from a cornfield 5 miles north of beautiful Danville.
WQFE was a *very* lame attempt to resurrect what WGRT once was...Q-102 as it was called until they got a phone call from Chris Wheat one day! People in Brownburg were excited to hear they were getting a new station...until they actually heard it. The station had the same GM and same "old lady" selling for them that were in Danville, and it was the same thing over once again. Sales people went through that place like crazy, except for the "old lady" who was still telling the GM what they should play. After the format changed from a very strange big band sound to oldies and the call changed to WKLU, it was actually sounding pretty decent and perhaps making some headway before Bruce decided to come to town to "fix" the station with his "free-form" format, because he and his brother did not believe the station was doing that well with oldies.
I can also remember back to when 98.3 was WJMK, operating from a guy's garage in the middle of Plainfield with the stick in his back yard. (The "old lady" worked there as well). It was a true Hendricks county station and did well for it's time before it got sold and evolved into what is now Radio Disney.
I honestly believe if done properly, a station in Hendricks County could do well if it did not try to become a rimshotter like the rest of them did. With the phenomenal growth rate the county has experienced over the past decade, an owner could make a decent living if the station was run like a real business, and not ruled by a comittee.
It was a real kick in the groin when our group's LPFM app for Danville was dismissed. Although it would not have been a money maker, it would have brought local radio and a breath of fresh air back to the area. As for Bruce, I honestly feel he did what was best at the time given his health concerns and the toll it was taking. I am sure he is perfectly content running WHUM as it is and can live the life he wants. I wish I were as lucky.
