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More cuts at Curtis?

S

stafferman

Just on the WPTF website, I noticed Scott Fitzgerald is not on there anymore and Brian Freeman is back doing the whole morning show? They had this bizarre mish/mash two hours on and two hours off thing going for a while with Fitzgerald. Also can anyone explain to me what the difference between 850 & 680 is? Different morning shows, yet same national hosts on both signals, they're both called WPTF? One is news and one is talk? What the hell is going at Curtis Media these days....that couldn't be a more confusing situation to look at online.

Also Ed Skurka has been removed from the On Air hosts section of the WSJS website. Did they get rid of the brilliant "Noon News Hour" idea?

The mismanagement going on at Curtis Media is beyond remarkable. How are they still in business.
 
Scott Fitzgerald left a few years ago for Jacksonville or Birmingham or somewhere. Skurka is on the WSJS stream as I listen now. My guess is that Curtis stays in business because they have made some smart acquisitions and decisions when most other radio companies are drowning in debt. WQDR is as good as any country station out there. You might want to listen to it Stafferman. And I've said here before they have built an almost unbeatable cluster in Raleigh with urban, CHR, rock, comedy, news, talk, Spanish, and country. They have networks, digital companies, you name it. Your entitled to your opinions Stafferman but I think Curtis is a pretty darn well run business. If I were to get back into radio the first three companies I would call would be DBC, Capitol and Curtis.
 
Forgive my ignorance on Scott Fitzgerald, I live in Greensboro and am rarely in Raleigh. But they as of recently still had him on their website....

Gaveitup good points on QDR' but the Winston cluster is a ghost town. I used to be such a big fan of WSJS, nobody's left there anymore and they play music on the weekends. Letting go Smith Patterson? They've totally mailed it in. A trio of sports stations that's 24/7 simulcast. I don't understand where you're coming from there. Raleigh must be sunshine and lolly pops apparently.

Also if they're so digitally savvy why don't update their freaking websites? Unless there's a firing they don't. Their CMG homepage still has a headline of a press release that Brad and Britt are expanding into Raleigh. Who have been gone to WBT in Charlotte for quite some time and they abruptly left like a month after that started. I'm not buying their digital ingenuity. Seems that's not the case from what I see. Say what you want about Clear Channel, but at least the websites look halfway decent.
 
Except for the terrible audio processing, WQDR is a top notch station.

Sadly it is the only top notch station left in Curtis' portfolio.
 
The only thing funnier than the constant and usually groundless vitriol is the backhanded compliments. You guys rock!
 
gaveitup said:
The only thing funnier than the constant and usually groundless vitriol is the backhanded compliments.
Click to expand...

You might want to listen to it Stafferman.
Click to expand...

That wasn't backhanded either.... ::) Like I've never heard QDR'? It's a legendary, awesome station. I listen to it online. However it's not the only station they own. That's 1 of mannnnny stations. Here in the Triad, Curtis Media has their grasp on a whole bunch of AM Signals and a depressing programming situation. The biggest news coming out of their Winston-Salem cluster is how many people are getting fired.
 
Sir, in reading back on your posts I wonder why you're so angry at the world--but it's pretty sad. Life is too short to be that pissed off about anything in the radio business. Having been fired in radio before my philosophy has always been either (a) I deserved it or (b) I didn't. Either way the man making the bank payments has the right to decide who he'll keep on his payroll. It is a pretty simple economic concept for most of us.
 
gaveitup said:
Sir, in reading back on your posts I wonder why you're so angry at the world--but it's pretty sad. Life is too short to be that pissed off about anything in the radio business. Having been fired in radio before my philosophy has always been either (a) I deserved it or (b) I didn't. Either way the man making the bank payments has the right to decide who he'll keep on his payroll. It is a pretty simple economic concept for most of us.
Click to expand...

Oh cry me a river. Go look at everyone's profile to search for something useful to say. This is a forum about radio, not about being nice and life philosophy. Curtis screwed over a number of people in the Winston-Salem cluster and they've completely collapsed. I can't imagine what Glenn Scott must think nowadays. If you cared about the business and what you do, you wouldn't have a passive "that's the way it goes" mentality.
 
Ouch. Since it is clear you were one of those terminated, I'm sorry that happened to you. Is it possible your super positive attitude got you canned? Why not state your name and tell us your sad story? How could that hurt "stafferman?" Then the Radio-Info jury can weigh in on whether or not it was justified. After all "this is a forum about radio."
 
Its so clear I has or have to agree with staffman and gaveup on this one. Its hard to imagine a better operation in any of the markets and if they don't know it and nobody agree then it doesn't matter if they can. Good points all round on this, but I do wonder about if they will play more hip hop or more oldies????@@!! We shall see!!!! :eek: :eek:
 
gaveitup said:
Ouch.  Since it is clear you were one of those terminated, I'm sorry that happened to you.  Is it possible your super positive attitude got you canned?  Why not state your name and tell us your sad story?  How could that hurt "stafferman?"  Then the Radio-Info jury can weigh in on whether or not it was justified.  After all "this is a forum about radio." 
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Hahahahahahahahahah Gaveitup you should GIVE IT UP on your pathetic attacks against me

Since YOU'VE READ ALL MY POSTS as you stated before, you would know that I have posted I have been out of the business for quite a while. I have been openly critical of Curtis Media in the past. I was a major WSJS and WMFR fan for many years, regardless of who owned it, I know those stations have taken a monumental collapse over the past 5 years under Curtis Media. I will always be critical of them until they do something otherwise.

You've been been very, very defensive about me attacking Curtis Media. Is gaveitup posting from 5th Street in Winston Salem???? or wherever the heck the Raleigh cluster is located? Maybe I should look it up, since they do such a great job with their "Digital companies"
 
attacks/whatever.
tempest in a teapot.
Duck Dynasty's cume
beats most radio market
totals in the demographics
that count with spot buyers.
 
Ok, I have to actually log in and comment on this one. This is hilarious. I live in Raleigh. Read the ratings on Radio Online for Raleigh and Greensboro. Curtis Media is nothing but a business. They have a product. They look at market trends. They see what will keep them relevant. The 0wn Country here. Radio 96.1 is a RockAC format to best describe that. People like crossover rock / 80s / rockAC around here. It tests well. They beat out Mix at times. New 96.9 is slowly growing. They are taking a bite out of the gospel station which is weird. Pulse is a fringe station. Their only purpose is to pull down Kiss & G105. Sometimes pulse pulls a 4.x, sometimes they pull a high 2.X. The rest of what is there is whatever. They have 101.1 in Burlington which will eventually get moved to Greensboro at some point or closer to Raleigh to be a profitable entity. When you run syndicated programming, it is pure profit. It was explained to me awhile back. The only thing Curtis really needs to do is spin off a couple of the smaller AMs, then a minority broadcaster will buy them or some local guy and they won't be a threat to anyone. On the other side of the coin, outside of G105, nothing else Clear Channel has is pulling over a 4.0. WRDU will probably take a hit with them bringing back the same mix that killed WRDU in its slow death. Dick checked out a long time ago. Rock92 has not been good ever since Doug McKnight left / or was let go.
 
sbakal said:
Ok, I have to actually log in and comment on this one. This is hilarious. I live in Raleigh. Read the ratings on Radio Online for Raleigh and Greensboro. Curtis Media is nothing but a business. They have a product. They look at market trends. They see what will keep them relevant. The 0wn Country here. Radio 96.1 is a RockAC format to best describe that. People like crossover rock / 80s / rockAC around here. It tests well. They beat out Mix at times. New 96.9 is slowly growing. They are taking a bite out of the gospel station which is weird. Pulse is a fringe station. Their only purpose is to pull down Kiss & G105. Sometimes pulse pulls a 4.x, sometimes they pull a high 2.X. The rest of what is there is whatever. They have 101.1 in Burlington which will eventually get moved to Greensboro at some point or closer to Raleigh to be a profitable entity. When you run syndicated programming, it is pure profit. It was explained to me awhile back. The only thing Curtis really needs to do is spin off a couple of the smaller AMs, then a minority broadcaster will buy them or some local guy and they won't be a threat to anyone. On the other side of the coin, outside of G105, nothing else Clear Channel has is pulling over a 4.0. WRDU will probably take a hit with them bringing back the same mix that killed WRDU in its slow death. Dick checked out a long time ago. Rock92 has not been good ever since Doug McKnight left / or was let go.
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You make some very good points in there and you are definitely right about the syndication. I wonder how much Dave Ramsey pays to be on the WPTF/WSJS airwaves. While "pure syndication" does mean profit. It's a limited pool to be making money from and you're setting your bar as low as possible. There's no room for growth. You also are completely alienating a local audience by just piping in canned stuff 24/7. Curtis may just figure they've already lost, so why not just get as much as we can before we spin off the AMers. Which is probably what he's doing

You provided an exceptional detail of what's going in Raleigh, I appreciate that very much, I am not in tune as I thought I was in what's going down I-40.

One of my original points (which I was partly wrong) and still have some questions about....was there another round of cuts at Curtis? Chef Ed Skurka has disappeared from WSJS in Winston-Salem, he was their last news pro. They are still doing the Noon News on WSJS, but it sounds like some kid doing it, I listened to an interview about NC BBQ on Friday.
 
I listened to the race on WPTF tonight for about an hour and did not hear a single ad for a business. Every set was packed with PSAs or they just ran the filler from MRN.

So how again are they making money?
 
So how again are they making money?
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I think sbakal made a good point with the whole syndication shows. Some shows like Ramsey actually pay to be on for part of their syndication deal if I'm not mistaken....so I think they make money off that. But yeah you're right....PSA's are PSA's, no matter how you slice it, it's filling up Avails with Dead Air. It's the same thing at WSJS here in the Triad. I also think they even it off with staff reductions unfortunately :-[
 
I should add that I was listening to the stream. I did not think about it before since I also listened to another station for a long time today that does not have an alternate spot feed for the stream, it's a simulcast of the air signal. I'm not sure if WPTF does that or not. They may have had some ads OTA.
 
broadcast radio is Kodachrome film
in an iPhone world. pick your poison:
1. buggy whip.
2. reel2reel.
3. radio.

why, oh why, would anyone buy airtime?
well, it's cheaper than anything except print.
and it's something to which the spot-buyer listens.
finally, it's part of a campaign buy across formats.

radio is an after-thought. "oh yeah, we should do radio."
 
turkeydance that's where your wrong.

Tell that to the top 10 stations across the country that grossed over $40 Million. You need to have compelling, local, programming that connects with people and makes advertisers excited to be apart of.

Pitching someone to advertise on "The Dave Ramsey Show" is a joke. But a hot, local, entertaining show that people are tuned into still can sell and can still make people a lot of money.

NOBODY is buying newspapers, MILLIONS still listen to the radio.

The W/S & GSO market has nobody to blame but ownership and management. They had poor sales people across the board, they fired good people, and evaporated any sense of a local, good programming. I know plenty of people that are good and talented, their opportunities vanished with dumb decisions and crack sales staffs.
 
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