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NEW RUMOR!!!

I

IMATALKRADIOJUNKIE

Guest
1510am is to no longer be brokered time....Purchase of the station is in the works. The plan is the station will make the switch to an all "Progressive Talk Format" including the likes of national shows like Peter B. Collins and Stephanie Miller to go along with the local morning show as well as what other local programming they decide to keep and/or add.
Along with this obviously the plan is for the station to once again join the ranks of the rest in regards to grabbing a ratings share.
This is not a done deal but looks very likely and soon!
 
Hmm--well, we'll have to see if your prediction comes true again (as you did before)! How much would
a station like 1510 cost to buy? Will the signal wind up being better overall than the 1200/1430 combo was?
With a good lineup, promotion, and local hosts, who knows? Suggestions:

The Caroline Kennedy Show: Now that she's not in the running for her uncle's old seat, y'know she,
y'know could like, do an interesting, y'know, take on things. She will decline a salary since her family
is well-endowed. On Fridays, Teresa Heinz Kerry ("I'm Jane Nurse Fuzzy Wuzzy"(sic)) will join her

The Best of Deval Patrick: Two hours worth of his "Massachusetts Success Story" ads, back to back!

Music To Pay Tolls By: Turnpike toll takers are guest DJs, playing favorites like "You Never Give Me
Your Money", "Freeway Of Love", "Massachusetts", and "Sweet Baby James" ("so was the turnpike
from Stockbridge to Boston")

Brother Stair's Prophecies: Yeah, we said no brokered time, but the new 1510 lets him on the air
for free. He will say that the Bible predicted Obama's election in the book of Revelations. However,
atheist protestors will launch a petition drive to get him kicked off the air.
 
Moving WWZN to prog talk a la WWKB might work, but I'm not sure that's what Peter Davidson has in mimd. Seems he's made his nut with brokered ethnic; perhaps prog talk might be another thing to try.
 
DG02816 said:
Moving WWZN to prog talk a la WWKB might work, but I'm not sure that's what Peter Davidson has in mimd. Seems he's made his nut with brokered ethnic; perhaps prog talk might be another thing to try.
Click to expand...

According to the post that started this thread, Davidson is selling WWZN! Given that, supposedly, nobody can borrow money for ANYTHING at the moment, the rumor is extremely hard to believe--but maybe Davidson is losing so much on WWZN that he is willing to give away the license. (Don't forget that the lease on the transmitter site has bankrupted or has come close to bankrupting more than one owner in a lot more favorable financial times than these.) So, if somebody who plans a full-time Progressive Talk format plans to acquire the station, that person or entity could quite easily go bankrupt in very short order and WWZN could wind up going dark (wouldn't be the first time). Even if that person or entity gets the license for just one single dollar, it is going to take LOTS of dollars to keep the station on the air!

Unfortunately, Jeff Santos seems to be at the center of whatever or whoever the leasing/acquiring entity is. That means, the station would almost certainly have to have Santos as the centerpiece of its schedule. His show is not good. Who will listen to a show that bad except for Santos himself playing the tapes over and over and telling himself how wonderful he is?
 
raccoonradio said:
Will the signal wind up being better overall than the 1200/1430 combo was?
Click to expand...

It would be in certain areas that would be key for Progressive Talk, especially at night. 1510 comes in very well in the west suburbs within Route 128 (Newton, Brookline, etc...) from its transmitter near the Waltham/Belmont line, where the old (Framingham) 1200 was very weak at night, and 1430 was inaudible. 1510 is also stronger at night in Cambridge, Watertown, Arlington and most of Somerville than 1430 was, and it also covers the city of Boston fairly well including Allston/Brighton, Jamaica Plain, etc... which got very little if anything from 1200 or 1430 at night.

But, the station has been a financial sinkhole for over thirty years. I'm skeptical that this plan, if it is indeed happening, could be successful given the high overhead included in running the station.
 
Let's not forget "Money (thats what I want)", "Money for Nothing" and of course..."Highway to Hell" ;D

raccoonradio said:
Music To Pay Tolls By: Turnpike toll takers are guest DJs, playing favorites like "You Never Give Me
Your Money", "Freeway Of Love", "Massachusetts", and "Sweet Baby James" ("so was the turnpike
from Stockbridge to Boston")
Click to expand...
 
The only thing that will enable 1510 to actually MAKE money is a brokered time format. Period.

If it is successful to line up all left-leaning programs to fill their entire day/night 24/7 that are all willing to pay; that would be just short of a miracle.
 
JIBGUY said:
The only thing that will enable 1510 to actually MAKE money is a brokered time format. Period.
Click to expand...

I'm not so sure that even brokered time can make money for WWZN in this depressed market. The brokered-time station that I listen to the most is WRCA. The reasons that I listen to WRCA at all are to see if WRCA is running high power yet (it might do so on occasion, but I'm not sure and I'm skeptical) and because they sometimes have some great music on (announced in English) late at night or overnight (the legendary Danny Stiles from WNSW Newark appears to tape shows especially for WRCA GM Stu Fink to run). WRCA runs these shows when Fink has unsold time. Since I almost never listened to WRCA until it moved to Newton, I can't comment on how much unsold time the station used to have when it transmitted from Waltham, but now it is not unusal for as many as four hours between 9:00PM and 5:00AM to be unsold. I suspect that's a significant increase, but I'm not sure.

WWZN has to charge more than the many other brokered-time stations because of its high operating expenses (the lease on the Waverly Oaks transmitter site is the main expense but the power bill is high as well). So I don't think WWZN is in a position to win a price war with the other stations. (WBIX probably has the next highest costs because it leases two transmitter sites, but the odds are that those two sites cost less to lease than WWZN's one site. Although WBIX runs 40 kW days, it has a very modern and very efficient solid-state daytime transmitter. BTW, WBIX now carries an hour a day of Roy Masters, which I take as an indication that the station has tossed it policy of running only shows on business or health. Masters' appearance on WBIX suggests that times are getting tougher locally in the brokered-time biz. WBIX is also running several hours of brokered religion in a foreign language on Sunday mornings--another kind of business that the station didn't used to accept. A further indication of tough times.)
 
WLYNgm said:
That's the funny thing about rumors -
you just never know what could happen...
Click to expand...

Jeff: Are you trying to get one or more of us radio junkies to start a NEW rumor? If so, take a look at similar threads that appeared in this space maybe three or four months ago. The seeds are there. All it will take to get new rumors going is for somebody to plant them;>)
 
I'm buying the station with my growing cache of Monopoly money. Digital radio is going to change everything and make the signal competitive with WBZ's signal, right?
 
Rather than being the 25th group to try to make WWZN's signal profitable, I wish someone would rescue WEZE 590 from Salem. A much much better signal in the Northern and Southern suburbs than WWZN could ever hope for.
 
Smoke said:
I'm buying the station with my growing cache of Monopoly money. Digital radio is going to change everything and make the signal competitive with WBZ's signal, right?
Click to expand...

From what I've heard, WWZN has hands down the best signal in Finland of any US AM! If you look at the night directional pattern, it's not hard to figure out why. So if you have a product that you want to sell in Finland (and probably also in northern Sweden), brokered time on WWZN during hours when the path between Boston and Helsinki is in darkness, might make economic sense. Presumably, you'd need to have at least the commercials produced in Finland because Finnish-speaking radio talent is not readily available in the US. <Insert Finnish/finish pun here.>
 
IMATALKRADIOJUNKIE said:
1510am is to no longer be brokered time....Purchase of the station is in the works. The plan is the station will make the switch to an all "Progressive Talk Format" including the likes of national shows like Peter B. Collins and Stephanie Miller to go along with the local morning show as well as what other local programming they decide to keep and/or add.
Along with this obviously the plan is for the station to once again join the ranks of the rest in regards to grabbing a ratings share.
This is not a done deal but looks very likely and soon!
Click to expand...

A "rumor" you say?

This sounds like one for the Fybush file!
Perhaps he can find out if it's fact or fiction?
 
btw it was said that Entercom's progtalk WWKB 1520 out of Buffalo has a good signal out this way.
Does it ever; tonight in N. Reading I tuned to 1510 for just a moment (Peter B. Collins was talking
the Blago case with someone) and 1520 was splattering all over WWZN 1510. 1510 seemed weak
for some reason and you could hear the Buffalo station invading its territory (talk with Leslie Marshall)
 
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