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Merlin Media Hires Former WYNY PD Pete Salant

B

Barry

According to several articles, his role with Merlin has not been specified. Pete Salant had been the PD at WYNY 1980-1983, when it was a successful adult contemporary station. Of course there have also been rumors that WRXP's calls may be switched to WYNY.
Salant has been a freelance programming and operations consultant for 25 years following his stint at 'YNY.
The article linked below indicates he also has considerable experience with country radio consulting, including WWYZ in Hartford CT, and WCTK in Providence RI.

InsideRadio Article from a few years ago: http://ftp.media.radcity.net/ZMST/daily/ISFeb022006.htm
 
He could be appointed to run one of the two Chicago stations, we don't know... Remember, he was last on the radio in music at the old "96.7 The Coast". And certainly, both of Merlin's Chicago properties can't be going news/talk.
 
Pete Salant was briefly a DJ at WCTZ, the Coast. But it seems far more likely that Merlin is interested in his PD and consulting experience. His most recent work as a PD was with Hartford's country station WWYZ, up through 2009.
According to AllAccess, Salant has confirmed that he has been hired by Merlin, but declined to say what he will be doing for them.
 
WWYZ programs country by adding certain country sounding a/c oldies in from time to time. If news/talk is planned maybe 101.9 will run country on the weekends like NJ 101.5 does with oldies!!!! But hybrids have not been done in the NY market itself.
 
Don't think that's gonna work, talk/news weekdays, country or whatever music format in weekends. A format is 24/7 the same, keep in mind: this is not New Jersey.
 
Country on HD2 just doesn't seem to fly at all with this group, and I'm wondering if it does with country music fans in NYC generally. I haven't gotten the sense that the mere existence of HD2 signals have gotten country fans to tune in any considerable numbers at all.

I'm in the camp that can imagine sports talk or just talk on 101.9 if they opt for something bordering on out-of-the-box. News-talk operations are expensive, they represent a big investment for which the ultimate payoff may be fairly uncertain. And CBS has two on AM. Something less distinguished like adult hits or classic hits wouldn't entirely surprise me, but I tend to doubt it.

How about dance/Caribbean/country? Maybe throw in some Russian? Something that hits all the underrepresented constituencies....
 
icybluelake said:
Country on HD2 just doesn't seem to fly at all with this group, and I'm wondering if it does with country music fans in NYC generally. I haven't gotten the sense that the mere existence of HD2 signals have gotten country fans to tune in any considerable numbers at all.

I'm in the camp that can imagine sports talk or just talk on 101.9 if they opt for something bordering on out-of-the-box. News-talk operations are expensive, they represent a big investment for which the ultimate payoff may be fairly uncertain. And CBS has two on AM. Something less distinguished like adult hits or classic hits wouldn't entirely surprise me, but I tend to doubt it.

How about dance/Caribbean/country? Maybe throw in some Russian? Something that hits all the underrepresented constituencies....
Click to expand...

Caribbean isn't underrepresented, there are a zillion pirate stations.
 
How about dance/Caribbean/country? Maybe throw in some Russian? Something that hits all the underrepresented constituencies....
Click to expand...

You don't spend the kind of money Merlin is paying for an FM channel in NYC, and then program it toward small minority audiences.

The biggest NYC stations like Lite-FM, Z-100, KTU, and WCBS-FM have a weekly audience, or cume, of four or five million different listeners. This is the league Merlin expects to play in, and is planning on drawing a similar sized audience from.

There aren't five million potential Caribbean music fans, or Russians in the New York area, and there probably are not four or five million potential Country or Dance fans either.

From the hints released so far, it looks like its going to be some kind of news format on 101.9. That is where the most advertising dollars can be found, and while there are already two all news station in NYC, neither is on FM. And FM, potentially offers more of the younger demos, because many rarely listen to AM, but may hit the pre-set and listen to news on FM.
 
While Merlin flipping WRXP to country doesn't give them a whole pie it does give them an audience all to it's own and can cut into a few different stations share of the pie. It would certainly steal from Lite, Fresh, PLJ, and if done right could even cut into Q-104.3 as well. How about getting Nascar on Sundays, and even one of the NFL teams for football season? You could make a serious run at the male audience as well. Perhaps you could even do this in a NY/NJ style that mixes in some non country tunes that can fit...chr mixes country...who say's you can't mix some AC/Hot AC in with it? They can't have the whole pie and I would think they know this.....but they can certainly make money stealing market share from others and serving a loyal audience. The WYNY call letters mean nothing to news/talk....let's be real....this thing is either Country or AC to take on Lite/Fresh, and WPLJ. News/talk is a smoke screen. And if not, so be it. A Fresh sounding News/Talker wouldn't be so bad. But I say Country or AC/Hot AC. Why else would you want those call letters?
 
UncleBozzle said:
A Fresh sounding News/Talker wouldn't be so bad.
Click to expand...

There's been a format hole for mostly local news/talk in NY for a long time. Nearly every major market outside NY has a news/talk outlet that is mostly local and they usually do well. Some are on FM. IMHO, the time for news/talk on FM and the return of mostly local talk to NY has arrived and is probably overdue.

As for the station having the WYNY calls, that's no issue. WYNY may be best known for country but for nearly a decade before those calls were associated with AC and soft rock. When WYNY replaced WNWS in 1977, it was soft rock Y97, "Movin' Easy". During the disco era in '78 and '79, WYNY mixed talk and MOR before finally becoming a bright or hot AC format and rising to near the top of NYC ratings through the early 80s.

WYNY meant "Your New York", which is a good handle for a new talk station in a market that hasn't had local talk in many years. :)
 
@UncleBozzle: I wouldn't mind a news/talk format during the week and a sports format on weekends. Don't know how NASCAR programming would play in NYC, though... Of course, you'd want to hire folks for live sports talk shifts, like - for argument's sake, even though he's currently hired elsewhere, but that hasn't stopped Merlin from hiring others away - Sid Rosenberg?
 
Sid Rosenberg would be awesome to hear on this station. I will admit to being one of the few guys who actually listened to him when he was one of "The Sports Guy's" on FM Talk 102.7. Now that is thinking outside the box on this. Not one of the same old rehashed names. How about Ed Norris from WJZ-FM in Baltimore? I live within the Baltimore listening area and have always found him to be a good political/lifestyle/sports talker. He was a former NYPD cop too....just throwing it out there. You have alot of names that could make this appealing to the younger crowd.
 
UncleBozzle said:
The WYNY call letters mean nothing to news/talk....let's be real....this thing is either Country or AC to take on Lite/Fresh, and WPLJ. News/talk is a smoke screen. And if not, so be it. A Fresh sounding News/Talker wouldn't be so bad. But I say Country or AC/Hot AC. Why else would you want those call letters?
Click to expand...

Call letters mean nothing to anyone outside the business of radio. Ask anyone what the call letters are to Z100 or Hot 97...I'll bet 9 out of 10 average listeners have no idea.
 
Call letters are insignificant to the listener if the station always uses a nickname, such as Z-100, or Fresh.
But there are plenty of stations that use their call sign as their name, such as WOR, WRXP, and WPLJ.
We do not know yet whether the station will be referred to on air as WYNY. So the call sign may or may not be significant- it is not clear at this point.
 
To many the calls might not mean anything, but to others it means a brand, or franchise. The notion of even chosing those call letters has to mean something. If it didn't then they could just as easily keep WRXP-FM. I mean you could easily say "X marks the spot for NY talk and entertainment". The calls must mean something, if they didn't they'd go with anything. Be it Country, be it Hot Ac/AC, it means something. Several stations are ripe for the picking, and I bet Merlin want's to attack those stations by waving his magic wand. We will see soon enough, but I disagree that the call letters mean nothing, at least in this case.
 
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