More Public Radio Cutbacks

[Gregg.]

They may be changing how they allocate funds, with less insistence in being all over the FM dial all over the country.

I have no insider information... just an analysis of the changes that the newer management has been making.

I have heard that Salem and other traditional religious stations that run national preachers, Focus on The Family, David Jeremiah, Chuck Swindoll, etc. are not getting the income from these shows that they once did. Fans of these shows can listen to them as a podcast. They don't need to tune in the Salem station at 4pm to get their daily dose of John MacArthur.

I've commented before that Family Radio has a big billboard on the Brooklyn-Queens Expressway. It advertises the radio network only using the web address. There's no mention of 92.7 FM. Even though it's licensed to Garden City, Long Island, WFME-FM has its tower on an apartment building in, yes, Queens. Is that an oversight on Family Radio's part? Or they just don't care much about their network of radio stations these days?

 

[Kemosabe]

Because the service sector is eliminating the human part. It's all going AI.

It's getting harder to speak with a human customer service rep. They want to keep you in AI land.

But why did they program the AI with an Indian accent?

 

[Weiserguy]

I've commented before that Family Radio has a big billboard on the Brooklyn-Queens Expressway. It advertises the radio network only using the web address. There's no mention of 92.7 FM. Even though it's licensed to Garden City, Long Island, WFME-FM has its tower on an apartment building in, yes, Queens. Is that an oversight on Family Radio's part? Or they just don't care much about their network of radio stations these days?

No, not Queens. Technically, North Shore Towers is in Nassau County -- Lake Success, New Hyde Park, thereabouts. Before moving there to put a stronger signal into Queens and the Bronx, WLIR (the original 92.7) shared space on the WLIW-TV tower in (iirc) East Meadow.

What goes on in the heads of Family Radio's big machers is above my pay grade, and probably yours too.

 

[Mark Roberts]

That may be part of it, but I get the impression that the move to Nashville has brought a greater awareness of new media and the options they have to exercise to keep up with listener preferred sourcing of audio services.

So they may be changing how they allocate funds, with less insistence in being all over the FM dial all over the country.

I have no insider information... just an analysis of the changes that the newer management has been making.

I wonder why that would be, unless it’s just the natural effect from executing a headquarters move where, inevitably, some employees choose not to move and leave the organization. Otherwise, Rocklin, California seems to be the perfect place to encounter (and thus comprehend) the kind of suburban, somewhat rootless middle-class mega-churchgoing audience that EMF seems to target for its programming, because Rocklin is just that kind of suburb, and growing fast, too. That’s not to say, of course, that the suburbs of Nashville don’t have similar attributes.

A few years ago, I used to have to go to Rocklin regularly for my job (one of my employees was there) and gained some familiarity with the place.

 

[Gregg.]

No, not Queens. Technically, North Shore Towers is in Nassau County -- Lake Success, New Hyde Park, thereabouts.

Google Maps seems to disagree. I clicked the coordinates according to Radio-Locator.com and it says "North Shore Towers Blvd., Queens, NY 11005." It's only a few hundred feet from the border of Lake Success NY, in Nassau County.

Google Maps

Find local businesses, view maps and get driving directions in Google Maps.

www.google.com

 

[TheBigA]

Or they just don't care much about their network of radio stations these days?

The other option is which is the most effective device to get their message across? Given what we know about radio ownership.

iHeart owns 800 radio stations, and they constantly are pushing their iHeart app. Same with Audacy. Why? Don't they care about their stations? Or do they see the data about traditional radio usage? No radio company is going to get the public to throw away their phones and buy transistor radios.

 

[gr8oldies]

I ran into the same thing recently after turning in a rental car. I received several E-mails, once per day, that I haven't filled out their survey yet. Finally, I filled out the survey and pointed out the same thing; By reserving online, going to the car listed on the reader-board at the airport, then returning the car to the lane and walking away, what service was I supposed to rate? Oh, and the survey even asked if I wanted to donate to some charity. It was the trifecta of bullsh*t.

After a long trip from Tennessee to Texas, we turned in our rental car exactly as instructed at Enterprise. My wife gets an automated phone call later that morning asking us if we wanted to add another day to the rental. She of course calls back and says "no, we turned the car in. Have you looked?".

 

[Kelly A]

After a long trip from Tennessee to Texas, we turned in our rental car exactly as instructed at Enterprise. My wife gets an automated phone call later that morning asking us if we wanted to add another day to the rental. She of course calls back and says "no, we turned the car in. Have you looked?".

You know that exact thing has been a problem since the pandemic. There have been rental car companies (Hertz in particular who come with radios in the cars), that have lost track of the returned rentals, reporting them as stolen. In other cases, renters have gone online or through the mobile app to extend their rental, only to be pulled over and arrested by the cops because their rental was reported as stolen:
https://www.npr.org/2022/12/06/1140998674/hertz-false-accusation-stealing-cars-settlement

 

[Weiserguy]

Google Maps seems to disagree. I clicked the coordinates according to Radio-Locator.com and it says "North Shore Towers Blvd., Queens, NY 11005." It's only a few hundred feet from the border of Lake Success NY, in Nassau County.

Google Maps

Find local businesses, view maps and get driving directions in Google Maps.

www.google.com

Craig, you might be right. I looked closely and it's right up against the city line. It may possibly even straddle the border. (I've texted a friend whose mother lived there until her death, and since he had to sell the apartment should know that nuance. I'll post a followup when I hear back.)

 

[fybush]

It's not at all in question. The red dotted line is the NYC/Nassau line, and North Shore Towers is very clearly to the west of that line within Queens.

 

[Mark Roberts]

The other option is which is the most effective device to get their message across? Given what we know about radio ownership.

iHeart owns 800 radio stations, and they constantly are pushing their iHeart app. Same with Audacy. Why? Don't they care about their stations? Or do they see the data about traditional radio usage? No radio company is going to get the public to throw away their phones and buy transistor radios.

It’s not just that, but the apps can also gather detailed information on listener usage that over-the-air usage can only sample at best, and approximate a good part of the time. Moreover, Audacy, iHeart, etc. capture the data on their own and don’t have to rely upon (a/k/a “pay”) a third party for it.

 

[TheBigA]

It’s not just that, but the apps can also gather detailed information on listener usage that over-the-air usage can only sample at best, and approximate a good part of the time. Moreover, Audacy, iHeart, etc. capture the data on their own and don’t have to rely upon (a/k/a “pay”) a third party for it.

It's all about getting subscribers. Even religious broadcasters know that.

 

[Weiserguy]

It's not at all in question. The red dotted line is the NYC/Nassau line, and North Shore Towers is very clearly to the west of that line within Queens.

Yes, you're sort-of correct, Craig was sort-of correct, and I, who grew up just a handful of miles south of that very spot and drove by it hundreds (thousands?) of times, was unclear on where the line was. NST is technically in Floral Park, which straddles the city line. The friend I mentioned in #49 had just arrived in Honolulu yesterday after a delayed pair of flights from Baltimore, so I wasn't about to risk waking him up at a quarter to freakin' 6 AM. But when he replied to my text, he too confirmed that the city line went through the campus of North Shore Towers, just east of the towers themselves. (For some reason known only to my neighbors hereabouts at Google, on my version of G-Maps, the red dotted "city line" won't display; somewhere, I have some setting which needs to be changed.)

 

[fybush]

Postal addresses don't respect political boundaries (my mail goes to "Rochester" but I am in the town of Brighton, a mile or so outside Rochester city limits.)

NST has its own zip code, 11005, which is addressed as "Floral Park" even though the towers aren't in either the Queens neighborhood of that name or the Nassau County village of the same name.

Be that as it may, the 92.7 transmitter is indubitably in Queens and not Nassau.