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New ALL News station in Atlantic City Market

J

joshzz

I enjoy listening to KYW-1060. Indeed, I listen 2, 3 maybe 4 times a day.

I strongly believe that if one of the AMs in the Atlantic City market went all news the station would have a tremendous immediate ratings impact.

We've been conditioned to listening to an all news station. A forward thinking station owner in this market could dominate. If it leaned a little more parent/youth oriented (during summer months) with some news especially geared towards vacationers such a station would reap big earnings.

josh - your thoughts are appreciated. :)
 
josh said:
I enjoy listening to KYW-1060. Indeed, I listen 2, 3 maybe 4 times a day.

I strongly believe that if one of the AMs in the Atlantic City market went all news the station would have a tremendous immediate ratings impact.

We've been conditioned to listening to an all news station. A forward thinking station owner in this market could dominate. If it leaned a little more parent/youth oriented (during summer months) with some news especially geared towards vacationers such a station would reap big earnings.

josh - your thoughts are appreciated. :)
Click to expand...

24 hour news? In South Jersey? Is there that much breaking news?
Breaking news! Dateline, the traffic light on Rt 9 malfunctioned in Marmora......
 
I think we should have a progressive talk station. I live in South Jersey and the only progressive talk station I can get in my car is 1520 WWKB in Buffalo, NY. At night time!! The rest of the AM dial is cluttered with endless Conservative talk stations that all play the same Glenn Beck, Limbaugh and Hannity shows. NPR gets old quick too.
 
josh said:
I strongly believe that if one of the AMs in the Atlantic City market went all news the station would have a tremendous immediate ratings impact.
Click to expand...

Have you ever watched a newscast on NBC 40? Local, South Jersey news covers the first 9 or 10 minutes of the newscast then it's a bunch of national filler (not to mention at least six minutes for the weather guy to fill more time). There simply is not enough stuff going on in this area for an all news station.

And what exactly is news for tourists?
 
....you have a good idea Josh, but that would be a format when broadband makes it into
a car fulltime. It would make a great internet only or broadband radio station. Sam is right we do live in a bubble here, especially in the winter...when the visitor's are gone. And now there is casino gambling in Philly....the population coming to AC will lessen.
 
When there is broadband in the automobile just imagine, you could broadcast literally
from a crime in progress in Pleasantville, Camden, or Trenton.....then an all news format on broadband radio would be come very popular and highly listened too!!
 
ccuphl said:
There simply is not enough stuff going on in this area for an all news station.
Click to expand...

Maybe "What I Heard" can help out an all-news station is South Jersey by telling his annoying rants about JVC. ;D
 
It was tried in Atlantic/Cape May back in the 1990's as 106.7 WJNN ("Jersey News Now") as a CNN Headline affiliate. I don't think it lasted a year.
 
I think a station that has great reach inland like WIBG-AM would be the perfect play for this format.

Make it sound like KYW-AM and become the earnings king. Just a thought. :)
 
Josh, you have no clue about the format, no clue about the market, and probably no clue about the business in general.

All-News is one of the most expensive formats to pull off. You not only need anchors but you need field reporters, feature writers, producers, etc. And the one time all-news was tried in South Jersey, it flopped miserably. There just isn't that much news nine months out of the year, and not even really during the summer tourist season.

Also, all-news is one of the worst formats for the kinds of ratings advertisers want in South Jersey. All-news is designed for people to tune in for short bursts throughout the day. It's repetitive; listen to KYW and except for updated headline stories everything repeats after about 60 minutes. The sports reports repeat when a game isn't on. The lifestyle reports repeat constantly throughout the day. South Jersey advertisers want people who listen for longer stretches, because it means they hear their spots more often and are more likely to respond to them, and that does not happen with all-news.

No one is going to invest the huge amount of money needed to build an all-news station in South Jersey because it will end up failing.
 
In smaller markets, talk stations go all-news in morning and/or afternoon drive. WCHS Charleston, WV does it well in the morning. KDKA Pittsburgh has morning and afternoon news blocks. Even KYW wasn't an instant hit. It took years of committment and investment from Westinghouse before KYW became the dominant station in Philly. My dad is one of the people who put KYW NewsRadio on the air in 1965.
 
On a somewhat related note ... I would imagine that talker WOND-AM, with its mix of local and syndicated programming, is one of the more expensive stations that is being run in the AC/Cape May market. For that reason, I don't understand why it's confined to such a small set of signals (two relatively weak AM stations). It could pull a much wider audience if it were moved to FM - I for one would listen in Ocean County if they moved it to 103.7. I mean, they broadcast Rush Limbaugh, Mark Levin, Michael Savage, Dennis Miller, and local legend Pinky Kravitz. Atlantic's other three stations are Wild 102.7 (which the jury's still out on), 103.7 The Shark & Kool 98.3 (the latter two being mostly automated, last time I checked). None of them are pulling ratings that would be consider stellar by any measure. Each are competing in a crowded field, especially Wild & Kool with plenty of in-market alternatives to what they're doing. I think Atlantic would be smart to try and get a better return on their investment by bringing WOND to FM.
 
Sam Lit said:
SoulCrusher said:
I don't understand why it's confined to such a small set of signals (two relatively weak AM stations).
Click to expand...

What two signals. Lat time I checked 1400 was one signal day/night
Click to expand...

WOND, 1400, Pleasantville
WONZ, 1580, Hammonton
 
1580 WGYM has always been the red headed stepchild of that cluster. When Howard Green owned it, he used it as a tax write-off to balance out some of the profits he made on paper from the rest of the cluster. (WMGM was a million-dollar-a-year billing station back then, and I was the top paid producer at $10.00/hr. Only the marquee personalities on-air got paid more than that; Howard was notoriously stingy with pay but offered great benefits and a wonderful work environment which led to most of us being loyal.)

During its best times, 1580 was 1000 watts daytime, 10 watts night. Everything was done by hand over the phone by the WOND staff, and trouble calls from the transmitter weren't always dealt with efficiently.

The only time 1580 ever really made any kind of money was when it was brokered out for Spanish-language broadcasting from 12 noon to 5 PM Monday through Friday, broadcasting out of our secondary production room. The switchover was done manually on a little 5-pot mixer in the WOND studio, with the board operator manually potting down the main programming feed and potting up Prodo-2 to put Spanish on-air. Then reverse the process at 5 PM to put Pinky on.

Dick Taylor and I tried to make something out of 1580 back in 2001. He was the one who came up with the idea of moving the ESPN sports format from 1490 to 1580 and flipping 1490 to Gospel. He tapped me to be Operations Manager of the two station mini-cluster and tasked me with the flip. I programmed about the best local-themed sports station we could put on in Hammonton back then, with the Phillies, local sports updates on the hour (pre-recorded by me, since I was also in charge of the Don Williams Show down the hall and had to record the local sports segments during Don's top-of-hour breaks), and I was ready to sign deals with some of the local high schools to carry their baseball games in what was left of the spring and football in the fall, but we just couldn't get enough spots sold to make it profitable and before long the WOND simulcast was back.

Since then, 1580 has gone back to being the write-off. It got next to no attention during the rest of my time there, and I can't see that Atlantic has any intentions of doing anything with it.

But they will never sell it, because the new owner would need to invest in new studios, a new ground system for the antenna, and a lot of other expenditures that would make the frequency even more of a money pit.

On the other hand, it's the only frequency allotted to Hammonton, so maybe some locals with more money and courage than brains could make a good community station out of it.
 
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