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No radio in Michigan?
- Thread starter b344077
- Start date
T
tjthedj
Guest
It could be that there are a FEW other Michigan radio boards with more clout.
With so many small to medium markets in Michigan, one would think that this oage would be abuzz. Is it because most of the stations are fully automated and run from places like Salt lake City or San Antonio and nobody actually running these stations?
If you're in anywhere other than Lansing, Grand Rapids, Flint, Saginaw, or even Detroit, then it's highly likely that you're in a market with a fluctuating population in the offseason because of the lack of tourists. Stations in those markets need multiple ownership just to survive. I worked for an AM/FM combo in Gaylord...(it has since been sold to another owner) the GM/owner did mornings, the traffic manager did afternoons, I did news and OM duties, and the owner's wife kept the books and answered the phones. Now the AM station, like a bunch of others like it in Northern Michigan, have all gone dark. It's a shame...someone with a little bit of creativity could really bust some heads with them.
If you're in anywhere other than Lansing, Grand Rapids, Flint, Saginaw, or even Detroit, then it's highly likely that you're in a market with a fluctuating population in the offseason because of the lack of tourists. Stations in those markets need multiple ownership just to survive. I worked for an AM/FM combo in Gaylord...(it has since been sold to another owner) the GM/owner did mornings, the traffic manager did afternoons, I did news and OM duties, and the owner's wife kept the books and answered the phones. Now the AM station, like a bunch of others like it in Northern Michigan, have all gone dark. It's a shame...someone with a little bit of creativity could really bust some heads with them.
Look on my blog for a link to one of them.
What about the soo? I cut my teeth mucho years ago doing AM drive on WSMM-FM (now something else)...and we did pretty good to. sure, there were only 10,000 folks on the U.S. side of the river, but we aimed our programming and ad sales at the 150,000 canadians across the river. used to be a very competative market. before clustering that is.
Traverse city also had some good competition....
Traverse city also had some good competition....
ruger22com said:
TC and the Soo still do. But, when you're doing radio in a tourist-driven market, it gets harder and harder to survive in the off-season.
Mackinaw City is a great example of that. It's a literal ghost town in the off season.
What I find interesting about Michigan radio back in the 1970s was the number of small market stations that entered the conversation when talking about "good" radio.
When you heard these stations mentioned in the same conversation as WKNR, CKLW, etc, you had to take note. Your curiosity was peaked.
But unlike the big boys with great signals, there was no chance of hearing them where I lived.
The short list of stations I remember from thirty years that were mentioned included...
Sadly, I don't think there are many airchecks around of these stations back when they were really in their hey-day.
When you talk about VERY EARLY small stations, such as WQTE Monroe, I've never heard of any airchecks being recorded. I would love to hear some of that radio.
Memories!
ADDED: going east, some of the Canadian stations that came into the conversation included CHYR-710 in Leamington, and CHLO-680/1570 in St Thomas.
When you heard these stations mentioned in the same conversation as WKNR, CKLW, etc, you had to take note. Your curiosity was peaked.
But unlike the big boys with great signals, there was no chance of hearing them where I lived.
The short list of stations I remember from thirty years that were mentioned included...
- WJML - Petosky
- WKFR - Battle Creek
- WIBM - Jackson
- WTAC - Flint
Sadly, I don't think there are many airchecks around of these stations back when they were really in their hey-day.
When you talk about VERY EARLY small stations, such as WQTE Monroe, I've never heard of any airchecks being recorded. I would love to hear some of that radio.
Memories!ADDED: going east, some of the Canadian stations that came into the conversation included CHYR-710 in Leamington, and CHLO-680/1570 in St Thomas.
FredRichards said:What I find interesting about Michigan radio back in the 1970s was the number of small market stations that entered the conversation when talking about "good" radio.
When you heard these stations mentioned in the same conversation as WKNR, CKLW, etc, you had to take note. Your curiosity was peaked.
But unlike the big boys with great signals, there was no chance of hearing them where I lived.
The short list of stations I remember from thirty years that were mentioned included...
- WJML - Petosky
- WKFR - Battle Creek
- WIBM - Jackson
- WTAC - Flint
Sadly, I don't think there are many airchecks around of these stations back when they were really in their hey-day.
When you talk about VERY EARLY small stations, such as WQTE Monroe, I've never heard of any airchecks being recorded. I would love to hear some of that radio.
ADDED: going east, some of the Canadian stations that came into the conversation included CHYR-710 in Leamington, and CHLO-680/1570 in St Thomas.
Northern Michigan stations were able to thrive back then because the majority of them have big sticks and throw out an amazing signal. Still, the markets were soft in the off season. Now you've got competition from other media outlets, divvying up that little pie of ad revenue even further.
The weaker-powered stations still had character. WKKM in Harrison is a great example of that. Dave Carr would hire fresh grads from Specs to work cheap (but were still good) and wet their feet until they got their foot in the door at a bigger station.
K
kirkiefan
Guest
My memories of Michigan radio were in ther 80s while on honeymoon and again a few years later when the wife and I did some camping in NW Ontario.
CKLW was still playing the hits but was mellowed to "Rock n' Talk." At least they scuttled the late 70s TM jingles and brought back the Drake package in 1982 to try to bring its listeners back. I listened until it switched to Music of Your Life a few years later.
WJML "The Music Station" in Petoskey(when it was an AM/FM simulcast) was also a good station. Great audio processing without the listener burnout and can be heard well into the central portion of the U.P.
WIDG-AM in St. Ignace was briefly WLVM playing current hits mixed with oldies around that same time but was automated "live assist" using jocks from FM sister country WMKC when it was still live and local.
Anything new on Owosso's WOMP returning to the air in the Lansing area?
Radio-Locator.com has them listed again and licensed to Waverly with a power increase. DOn't know if they're back on the air or not since I don't live in Michigan.
I miss Keener 13.com's podcast..all that's left are some jingles and airchecks. Scott Westerman put his heart into that podcast and miss it. Since I'm from Ohio..Keener was out of reach on my radio back in the day. Another reason to support the internet radio equality act.
CKLW was still playing the hits but was mellowed to "Rock n' Talk." At least they scuttled the late 70s TM jingles and brought back the Drake package in 1982 to try to bring its listeners back. I listened until it switched to Music of Your Life a few years later.
WJML "The Music Station" in Petoskey(when it was an AM/FM simulcast) was also a good station. Great audio processing without the listener burnout and can be heard well into the central portion of the U.P.
WIDG-AM in St. Ignace was briefly WLVM playing current hits mixed with oldies around that same time but was automated "live assist" using jocks from FM sister country WMKC when it was still live and local.
Anything new on Owosso's WOMP returning to the air in the Lansing area?
Radio-Locator.com has them listed again and licensed to Waverly with a power increase. DOn't know if they're back on the air or not since I don't live in Michigan.
I miss Keener 13.com's podcast..all that's left are some jingles and airchecks. Scott Westerman put his heart into that podcast and miss it. Since I'm from Ohio..Keener was out of reach on my radio back in the day. Another reason to support the internet radio equality act.
K
kirkiefan
Guest
kirkiefan said:
kirkiefan said:
Both of those were great stations back when Doc Benson owned them. For not really being a radio man per se, Doc did a really good job with growing his little group up there. Having Rick Stone (who went on to buy WAIR years later) as a GM there for quite a few years helped quite a bit too. Doc had offered me a job in the early 1990's as station manager at his FM in Cadillac (WCKC) which had been an AC until about a couple years ago, when he converted it to a simulcast of WMKC.
I didn't feel at the time that I could successfully sell a simulcast-only station in a market that was all but dominated by WTCM.
I think that is the same with all markets, radio and TV. In the shop where I work (small market) we usually see good news people step up to large markets, mediocre ones get into public relations, and the ones that can't hack it get into retail.
But you are right, if they are good their either are snarfed away by a bigger station or go looking. In a few cases you still see good talent in small market radio, and that is usually the case where they reached a level of satisfaction with their career, and have settled in to a comfortable position.
I just returned from the U.P. where I spent a whole week on the Little Manistique drowning worms, and renting beers with my my wife, son, bro-in-law, and his family.
There were some expected dogs in the radio pack, but some real winners (IMHO). Here's an overview...
On a trip to Munising, 1400 was dead carrier all day.
Their FM, WRUP, was not heard at the camp site near the lake, and frankly I forgot to change over to it while driving through the city on my way up to Christmas.WPIQ-FM Manistique MI was not heard, although I tried for them at the camp site using a Sony ICF2010.
I was impressed with WNBY AM/FM. Both sounded live, reasonable spotload, and had a fair amount of public service. AM is County, while the FM is oldies. The FM dual IDs as Newberry-Sault Ste Marie which was kind of a stretch for me. While in Sault Ste Marie the signal picketed badly, and was lost about 10 miles south of the Soo.
WMJT-96.7 in McMillan (ripshot of Newberry), also sounded good with the slogan of Eagle, and "we play everything". I heard everything from Patsy Cline to Phil Collins which was not disturbing to me. The only thing that was a bit of annoyance was one of the DJs named "Casey" who was boarding on being a "puker" in his delivery. Overall a good sounding station.
My bro-in-law, being a county fan, camped on 102.5 WCMM "The Moose" in Gulliver. It was an exceptionally good new country station, equal to what I've heard in larger markets. WNBY-AM tended to skew to the older "traditional" country.
WKHQ-105.9 in Charlevoix was so-so. I liked them better in their early years, late 70s. I found their ChR format somewhat of a bore.
WIDG-940 in St. Ignace was All Sports when I listened, and if I wanted to hear guys argue and one up themselves, I would go back to work, so it was a short listen. Same with WMKT-1270 in Charlevoix, both of which had horrible signals. 940 was barely heard in the area, and after 7PM at night WMKT was getting hammered by WXYT out of Detroit!
The girls had WLXT-96.3 from Petosky while we drove to the ferry to Mackinaw Island. It was a nice sounding Lite Rock station, live, with a reasonable spot load. One thing that impressed me on the day I listened was that they did Amber Alerts, while others stations (WBCM, WKLZ, WCMW, and others) didn't. I carried a portable with me on the trip and was channel hopping.
WJML-1110 in Petosky was doing sports, and had a so-so signal where we were. I noted that in the early evening that it sounded like their ground wave and the sky wave were mixing to produce some distortion. Also, in late evening, just before their power cut, WTAM from Cleveland was hammering the crap out of them with IBOC. WTAM must have been working on something but it was going on/off at the TOH, which really showed the effect of out of channel emission IBOC has. After they went to night power, 10 watts according to my notes, they were gone.
AM reception where I was could only be described as dismal. Nothing was coming in at all from Manistique, Sault St. Marie, Escanaba, etc. FM was somewhat the same way, but when I was sitting on the boat in the lake it seemed like all the stations (locals included) would have some spots where they would slip out for a moment.
Not really U.P. news, but while driving back from the upper, I was listening to WOMC-104.3 in Detroit and heard them play a Pams series 32 jingle like WKNR had, and promoed the Woodward Dream Cruise. Man, that brought back some memories of Keener. Dana Masucci was the jockette on while we sat in traffic on SB US23.
After that, we switched on XM for some 50s after the wife and I lamented how good Honeyradio sounded in the late 70s and early 80s.
Anyway.... that's a what I can remember. Oh? The fish? Fishing suxed. Only caught 3 Yellow Perch about 7" long. Better luck next year.
FredRichards said:
Hmmm...Newberry-Sault Ste. Marie? That is quite a stretch, with the terrain up there and only a Class A signal. Funny thing about WMJT...the guy who owns it has a son who owns a station formatted exactly like it in Gaylord (WMJZ). Though they're separately owned, you'd swear they were one in the same. They're doing a great job, though.
106 KHQ rocked in the early 80's. It was a great-sounding Top 40 station for its market size.
Sorry to hear the fishing wasn't so good. I haven't fished northern Michigan in forever. Try Lake Huron just off the coast at Oscoda. Nice perch there.
kenhawk1160 said:
I remember them from their TM Productions "Rythem of the City" era, just after their sign on.
That's what I've heard. We may try there, Harrisville, and according to some other guys we know the fishing off Naubinway (sp?) wasn't too bad.
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