Merlin Media Hires Former WYNY PD Pete Salant

[TimeIsTight]

I disagree that the call letters mean nothing, at least in this case.

There is something to the call letters, and if nothing else they include "NY" for New York, and are still familiar, and therefore memorable to millions of potential listeners.

Even if the new format doesn't follow one of the legacy formats associated with those call letters, NBC probably did some research and had very good reasons for picking those call letters in the first place like: Your New York, as mentioned above.
Those reasons are probably still good reasons today, and two of the big programming guns on the new Merlin team, Walt Sabo and Pete Salant were in positions where they would have known those reasons for for decades, and Randy Michaels, the biggest Merlin gun, probably knew those reasons too just from talking to other programmers in the industry over the years.

It's going to be interesting to see exactly what the new stations sounds like and whether or not Merlin has managed to create a magic fog that threw us all off on what they were really planning.

 

[UncleBozzle]

It certainly will be interesting to see what happens. Perhaps it's all being done to pull a "Jack FM" type maneuver and get one of the other stations to flip to News/Talk. Let's say CBS switched Fresh FM to 1010 WINS, that somewhat eliminates an AC station from the field. Then Merlin can zoom in on Lite and PLJ. A 97.1 WYNY modern AC would fit nicely in between the two. I'm thinking something like [email protected] in San Francisco. Some modern rock, maybe with a smoother edge to it. A friendly station to everyone. It has to have some DJ banter...not just line readers like Fresh has. People still like some personality.

 

[DougBroda]

Perhaps it's all being done to pull a "Jack FM" type maneuver and get one of the other stations to flip to News/Talk. Let's say CBS switched Fresh FM to 1010 WINS, that somewhat eliminates an AC station from the field.

I don't think that one is happening anytime soon. CBS has had awhile now to address WINS' signal deficiencies to the north and (more critically, IMO) to the west, into NJ, by going with an FM option if they wanted to. Not to mention Fresh's numbers aren't bad, and are up while Lite's are down.

Local talk is at a rather low ebb in NYC and I think there is room for it on FM if done well. (I'd think Merlin spending any real money on news reporting, in contrast, would be crazy. No way it makes any financial sense to try to compete with CBS' news depth.)

 

[icybluelake]

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

This was a completely facetious suggestion, I wasn't serious about it at all. And yeah, with all the pirates on the airwaves, Caribbean programming doesn't seem so underrepresented.

Radioguy and DougBroda both make great points about the absence of local talk in New York. About the only such shows are Brian Lehrer and Leonard Lopate on WNYC, which isn't always NY-focused, and John Gambling and Joan Hamburg on WOR, all of which have a fairly specific format. To my mind, it's a gaping hole that could be filled, maybe profitably.

 

[Rusty Muck]

It certainly will be interesting to see what happens. Perhaps it's all being done to pull a "Jack FM" type maneuver and get one of the other stations to flip to News/Talk. Let's say CBS switched Fresh FM to 1010 WINS, that somewhat eliminates an AC station from the field. Then Merlin can zoom in on Lite and PLJ. A 97.1 WYNY modern AC would fit nicely in between the two. I'm thinking something like [email protected] in San Francisco. Some modern rock, maybe with a smoother edge to it. A friendly station to everyone. It has to have some DJ banter...not just line readers like Fresh has. People still like some personality.

I dunno if CBS will blink on simulcasting their all-newsers on FM. To me, it's a non-starter.

Think about it: WINS has a faster-paced image that appeals to the inner-city. WCBS is more in-depth and appeals to the suburbs. If one goes to the FM dial, even in a simulcast, it then has an automatic advantage over the other. (And like heck CBS would give its' flagship station, WCBS-AM, the shaft.) Plus putting both all-newsers to the FM dial eliminates a fair chunk of revenue and adversely impacts the AM signals, as well as WFAN.

If CBS ever moves/simulcasts a spoken word format to the FM dial, it will be WFAN.

 

[radioguy39nj]

If CBS ever moves/simulcasts a spoken word format to the FM dial, it will be WFAN.

If WEPN had moved to FM, a WFAN simulcast would've happened faster than you could say 92.3 FM! With no chance for WEPN to move to FM in the near future, the only place you'll find 'FAN on FM is 92.3 HD-3.

 

[LIDJ12]

A Fresh sounding News/Talker wouldn't be so bad.

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.

What you might be missing is that WYNY is currently licensed to 1400 AM in Middletown NY. The owner has not even been contacted yet about releasing the calls to Merlin Media.

 

[DToTheJ]

I disagree that the call letters mean nothing, at least in this case.

There is something to the call letters, and if nothing else they include "NY" for New York, and are still familiar, and therefore memorable to millions of potential listeners...

Ask Salem about how those WNYM calls are working out for them. :

 

[jvn]

If the owner of the Middletown Station wants to still keep the WYNY Calls WYNY FM is still available.
Right now the Middletown Station is Just a CP according to radio locator which lists them as off air. That CP was granted Aug. 2008. At this point the owner might want to give up those calls for a price.

 

[jvn]

Talk during the Week and Country Music on the weekends would be something different especially if the country was Mixed with some AC songs. We are all trying to guess the format I guess we will have to wait till Friday for either a new format or some stunting to still keep us guessing.

 

[Barry]

I'm wondering whether the smooth jazz will remain on HD2. It has been a pleasant place to listen to occasionally for soft background music. Emmis seemed committed to keeping smooth jazz on HD2 after it was displaced from the main frequency by WRXP.
If 101.9 goes talk, it would not be a surprise if Merlin shuts off the HD signal. HD benefits music audio more than that of talk programming.

 

[erwin33]

Talk during the Week and Country Music on the weekends would be something different especially if the country was Mixed with some AC songs. We are all trying to guess the format I guess we will have to wait till Friday for either a new format or some stunting to still keep us guessing.

I don't believe in a station with talk during weeks and music in weekends. This is NYC, not NJ.
I also don't believe that the new station going in stunting modus on friday. Maybe for a couple of days and on monday the launch of the new station. It's useless to do a stunt with bits of music formats for 2 weeks or so because everybody expect a news/talk station.

 

[Barry]

FWIW, Radio Business Report states, " Yes, we’ve heard they are currently building out newsrooms at the two stations (WRXP and WKQX), so stunting is what you’ll probably find come Friday. That stunting may be out of this world stuff too, because Randy (Michaels) doesn’t typically do things half-assed!"

 

[DToTheJ]

Someone in another thread mentioned how Randy Michaels once stunted with a "Hell" format in Chicago... I suppose we'll find out of The Crazy World Of Arthur Brown's greatest hit gets a workout come midnight tonight... :

 

[uncamark]

Someone in another thread mentioned how Randy Michaels once stunted with a "Hell" format in Chicago... I suppose we'll find out of The Crazy World Of Arthur Brown's greatest hit gets a workout come midnight tonight... :

Not that kind of "Hell." Actually, it was the same dance playlist (with the Bette Midler and Celine Dion hits of the time added) that Michaels had been playing in Z95's failed attempt to "power pig" B96, with the Spanish sweepers gone and liners attacking other radio stations and personalities besides B96. The other liners included "Oh, Hell" and "Go to Hell" and the jocks started the weather with "Weather from Hell" (the first time Z95 did weather checks for two months--except for the ABC Gulf war updates, all news and info was dropped from Z95 during the "power pig" attempt).

 

[DanceDiva3]

YeeEEEEEEhaaaaw !! ;D