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Mark Arum Article in AJC

R

RoddyFreeman

Bill Torpy wrote an excellent story about WSB's Mark Arum. I'm going to post the link, but it might be behind a paywall:

www.ajc.com

WSB in Atlanta has a talk radio unicorn Mark Arum, who doesnât yell - Bill Torpy column

Long a voice and face of 95.5 WSB and WSB-TV/Channel 2 Action News, Mark Arum now helms what he calls the radio station’s “legacy time slot,” the morning spot of the city’s oldest and longtime dominant station. The Connecticut native is unusual in talk radio as he does not hector, holler or...
www.ajc.com www.ajc.com

IMHO Mark does a great show, and it's one of the rare non-political shows that are worth listening to. His smarts and creativity come through.
 
inATLradio said:
Why is that the "legacy time slot"? Isn't drive time more coveted?
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I think he's referring to Neal Boortz being in that time slot for many years. Also--this was before I was in Atlanta, and I could be wrong--but I think Ludlow Porch, also a legend, once held that slot.

Sort of off topic but since you brought it up, I was looking at some national numbers from Nielsen Audio, and middays is the most listened-to daypart in terms of average quarter hour. I'm sure what caused middays to exceed the drive times is, unlike the diary, in which 1 person reported their listening, the Portable People Meter picks up listening from other people's radios in the workplace and in retail businesses.
 
At one time, AM Drive was the big time slot for radio. But these days, with TV offering competition with news in morning drive time (Today, Good Morning America, CBS This Morning, local news on most Fox stations), it isn't the same for radio. Where there used to be a radio on a shelf in the kitchen, now there's a TV set. Radio is still important in cars where you can't bring a television.

But as many people do hybrid work, the radio in the car may only be used a few mornings a week. Radio still has a place in offices and stores in middays. So that may be why middays have caught up with AM Drive.
 
RoddyFreeman said:
I think he's referring to Neal Boortz being in that time slot for many years. Also--this was before I was in Atlanta, and I could be wrong--but I think Ludlow Porch, also a legend, once held that slot.
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Correct. I heard in an interview of Ludlow who claimed he "saved" Home Depot with an endorsement after the Newspaper ads fail to generate crowds for Home Depot Grand Opening of their first store. I guess that's why Home Depot still does a lot of radio. I wish I could find a printed version of the story. It would help any radio sales person who gets tired of hearing the "radio doesn't work" excuse.
 
secondchoice said:
Correct. I heard in an interview of Ludlow who claimed he "saved" Home Depot with an endorsement after the Newspaper ads fail to generate crowds for Home Depot Grand Opening of their first store. I guess that's why Home Depot still does a lot of radio. I wish I could find a printed version of the story. It would help any radio sales person who gets tired of hearing the "radio doesn't work" excuse.
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In their book, Bernie Marcus and Arthur Blank give the credit to Penney's pulling the plug on Treasure Island, from whom HD was subleasing their stores. Penney's had sublet about a third of the Treasure Island stores to HD. When Treasure Island started winding down, it increased a lot of traffic.
 
One thing that has affected Atlanta AM and PM drive is longer commute times, resulting in earlier departures from home (sometimes before the "official start" of AM drive) and later arrivals to home (sometimes after the "end" of PM drive. That, and suburban sprawl, really negatively impacted AM stations that had to reduce power when the sun was down.

I don't have any hard data, but Atlanta seemed to be an "early adopter" of FM as a result.
 
jabba17 said:
One thing that has affected Atlanta AM and PM drive is longer commute times, resulting in earlier departures from home (sometimes before the "official start" of AM drive) and later arrivals to home (sometimes after the "end" of PM drive. That, and suburban sprawl, really negatively impacted AM stations that had to reduce power when the sun was down.

I don't have any hard data, but Atlanta seemed to be an "early adopter" of FM as a result.
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The numbers I was referring to are national numbers, all markets added together.
 
jabba17 said:
One thing that has affected Atlanta AM and PM drive is longer commute times, resulting in earlier departures from home (sometimes before the "official start" of AM drive) and later arrivals to home (sometimes after the "end" of PM drive. That, and suburban sprawl, really negatively impacted AM stations that had to reduce power when the sun was down.

I don't have any hard data, but Atlanta seemed to be an "early adopter" of FM as a result.
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Another reason, for a City of it's size Atlanta didn't have a bunch of AM signals that covered the suburbs after sunset or before sunrise except WSB.* Jerry Blume put Garry McKee on 790 and 94.1and make serious ratings inroads on 750 dominance.

*Most of the Atlanta growth happened after the 1960s after the Birmingham Church bombing and the dominance of the Atlanta Air Port with Eastern and Delta having their biggest hubs there. So we didn't get a lot of allocations. Also white flight was a factor with some white folks leaving Atlanta integrated city schools in the early 1970s. If you look at the city limits of Atlanta proper, 920, 790 and the old WPLO worked fine
 
secondchoice said:
Another reason, for a City of it's size Atlanta didn't have a bunch of AM signals that covered the suburbs after sunset or before sunrise except WSB.* Jerry Blume put Garry McKee on 790 and 94.1and make serious ratings inroads on 750 dominance.
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That's true. Atlanta became an early FM market because of the dearth of good AM signals. Same was true of Washington, DC, which also was an early FM market.
 
There were a couple of signals that could have been moved at considerable cost. The 1550 COL was covered by 94.1so it could have been moved somewhere north and east of it's location. Most likely you would have to deal with Huntsville's 1550. There was a daytimer North of Chattanooga on 1550 too but with the crappy soil conductivity a really good engineer it could have made it work. Kinda like WOWO got neutered for the New York station. To be competitive the signal would have to be consintrated in no more than a 120 degree ark.

It would have been really a challenge with the Talapossa COL but 1060 had 500 watts omnidirectional PSA. It was upgraded to 50 kw at one time.

IMHO both of these moves would have to happened before 1980 to get any return on some very expensive upgrades. If you have the $$$ you can perform "magic" like 1190 in Dallas.
 
RoddyFreeman said:
That's true. Atlanta became an early FM market because of the dearth of good AM signals. Same was true of Washington, DC, which also was an early FM market.
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Absolutely. In Atlanta, horrible ground conductivity made it impossible for even the best lower-on-the-dial stations like 590 and 920 to cover the growing market. Anything above 1000 on the dial was encumbered by the lesser coverage of high-end stations, no matter what their power.

And 790 was always a horrible night signal and the Post WW II urban sprawl just killed its future potential.

That left WSB. Period
 
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secondchoice said:
There were a couple of signals that could have been moved at considerable cost. The 1550 COL was covered by 94.1so it could have been moved somewhere north and east of it's location. Most likely you would have to deal with Huntsville's 1550. There was a daytimer North of Chattanooga on 1550 too but with the crappy soil conductivity a really good engineer it could have made it work. Kinda like WOWO got neutered for the New York station. To be competitive the signal would have to be consintrated in no more than a 120 degree ark.
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No matter what you put on 1550, it's a terrible frequency. 50 kw on 1550 covers about what 1 kw on 550 does (assuming the same type of transmitter location). There is no way anything on 1550 could ever have been made to fully cover the growing Atlanta market.
secondchoice said:
IMHO both of these moves would have to happened before 1980 to get any return on some very expensive upgrades. If you have the $$$ you can perform "magic" like 1190 in Dallas.
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1190 in Dallas was not "Magic" as it was horrifically directional from two sites after its upgrade. It was killed when Dallas and Fort Worth were combined as a single market which KLIF did not fully serve.
 
I always
DavidEduardo said:
No matter what you put on 1550, it's a terrible frequency. 50 kw on 1550 covers about what 1 kw on 550 does (assuming the same type of transmitter location). There is no way anything on 1550 could ever have been made to fully cover the growing Atlanta market.

1190 in Dallas was not "Magic" as it was horrifically directional from two sites after its upgrade. It was killed when Dallas and Fort Worth were combined as a single market which KLIF did not fully serve.
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As I Said it would have had to happen before 1980 before Atlanta's growth went into overdrive an FM was included on most car radios.

Not quite as bad ground conductivity (still horrible) WLAC worked in car radios daytime at least 50 miles in the 1970's. Of course WSM still comes in at at least two or three times better during the day. It use to be receivable in Blue Ridge GA 24 / 7 for some strange reason. Nashville is (was) a smaller market and how they got both 650 and 1510 has to have some political angle or else Life and Causality of Tennessee had an expensive lobbiest with lot$ of ca$h.

I believe WLAC is struggling now even with a FM translator.

In 1974 1190 came in surprising well at at Caswell AFB. Of course the old KXOL1360 had it's towers within sight from the old east gate, boomed in really well. Both were good stations IMHO music wise. 570 was also good and use to be WFFA. 570 was usable on I 20 at least to Abilene TX daytime in the mid 70s while I was visiting relatives in Midland TX.
 
secondchoice said:
WLAC is struggling now even with a FM translator.
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Re: WLAC. Early 70's, I would lie awake at night in NE Georgia with a portable transistor radio and listen to "15 LAC" with Bear Bradley and Spider Harrison. I don't think I ever heard the morning drive jocks, but those two had late afternoon and 7-midnight wrapped up. It was a monster top 40 station in AM's hay day.
 
DavidEduardo said:
No matter what you put on 1550, it's a terrible frequency. 50 kw on 1550 covers about what 1 kw on 550 does (assuming the same type of transmitter location). There is no way anything on 1550 could ever have been made to fully cover the growing Atlanta market.

1190 in Dallas was not "Magic" as it was horrifically directional from two sites after its upgrade. It was killed when Dallas and Fort Worth were combined as a single market which KLIF did not fully serve.
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It's easy to DX WSM 650 in ATL. WLAC 1510 is hard as hell.

I can get WSM in Gwinnett--weakly, but still listenable--in the daytime on a good day with a car radio or an old stereo console.
 


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