PLJ SOLD

[BJSteigner]

You're making stuff up here. It was easy to sell because there was a willing buyer. Plus you yourself say that they fixed WRQX, which was in a much stronger position, yet they still sold it. You have to look at the big picture. The debt has been a problem for Cumulus for five years. It's why they fired their CEO. It's why the new CEO changed the way the company did business, and rehired Jack Diamond at WRQX in November 2015. I'm sure she would have loved to rehire Scott Shannon, but he had already been hired by WCBS. Would that have fixed WPLJ? Probably not. But having a willing and qualified buyer made this sale of WPLJ and WRQX a no-brainer. They're expensive to run stations in markets where Cumulus only owns a few stations.

New York City is the most expensive market to run radio and TV.

 

[luperm]

This is what happens upon mismanaging acquisition and mismanagement inside the company.

I know it's fashionable to beat up the "suits" on message boards like this, but reality is that regardless of the debt load, Cumulus did not have the scale to compete in major markets such as NY, LA and Washington. This is particularly true when Entercom and iHeart have such formidable clusters owning such large slices of the pie. So, yeah...it's sad that WPLJ is gone, but in reality the herd has been thinned and perhaps we will end up with the remaining stations being a bit healthier. Who else could actually have bought it? iHeart and Entercom are maxed out. Emmis has it's own woes. Same for Univision and SBS. A new operator would have the same lack of scale issue that Cumulus had.

 

[davideduardo]

New York City is the most expensive market to run radio and TV.

Any large city is an expensive market to run a station in due to higher rents, insurance costs and the like. NYC, LA and Chicago are markets where local taxes are so high employees can demand higher salaries.

 

[davideduardo]

This is what happens upon mismanaging acquisition and mismanagement inside the company.

While some of the Cumulus issues are due to the management prior to the appointment of Mary Berner, the real issue was the "perfect storm" of 2008:

1. The PPM reduced listening levels by nearly 40%, reducing CPP based buying rates proportionally.
2. The recession that began in that year "in earnest".
3. The introduction the prior year of the smartphone and its consequent effect on radio listening.

Nobody could have predicted such a set of disastrous occurrences. Consolidation was based on synergy, savings and growth. When your revenue falls by nearly half in one year, no amount of planning or management skill can reverse the loss. The acquisitions at all radio groups... and even at single station operations like WBEB... were finance based on the best made predictions possible. But every model available failed to estimate the recession, and nobody anticipated the smartphone's impact and the huge damage to agency business and rates the PPM would make.

 

[mikerock]

They sounded pretty good the last few days and probably the most I have listened to them in years. K-Love is definitely a huge improvement from the mess we had been hearing for years. The Christian music is quite modern POP or Alternative sounding at times and if one did not know any better sounds like PLJ in their better years. I will likely leave a preset set to 95.5 which I have not done in years.

The only thing is I thought the John Lennon Imagine send off was kind of lame, hackey and an unnecessary slap to the new format.

 

[JBraddock]

The only thing is I thought the John Lennon Imagine send off was kind of lame, hackey and an unnecessary slap to the new format.

Have to agree. Even Lennon warned people not to take the lyrics seriously before he died. It seems people who like the song don't really fathom what a scary dark world the lyrics paint. Apparently Musicradio WABC signed off with the song in 1982.

 

[Theater of My Mind]

I know it's fashionable to beat up the "suits" on message boards like this, but reality is that regardless of the debt load, Cumulus did not have the scale to compete in major markets such as NY, LA and Washington. This is particularly true when Entercom and iHeart have such formidable clusters owning such large slices of the pie. So, yeah...it's sad that WPLJ is gone, but in reality the herd has been thinned and perhaps we will end up with the remaining stations being a bit healthier. Who else could actually have bought it? iHeart and Entercom are maxed out. Emmis has it's own woes. Same for Univision and SBS. A new operator would have the same lack of scale issue that Cumulus had.

If WPLJ had been a top-5 station I don't believe Cumulus would have sold its NYC properties. They would have had a cluster with a strong enough anchor to make the operation work. But PLJ had some of the lowest FM ratings for years due to poor management and a lack of forward thinking.

If PLJ had kept Scott and Todd together and flipped to Classic Hits when WCBS-FM flipped to Jack, I'm sure things would have gone much differently.

 

[TheBigA]

If PLJ had kept Scott and Todd together and flipped to Classic Hits when WCBS-FM flipped to Jack, I'm sure things would have gone much differently.

That was three owners ago, when Disney still owned the station.

 

[pjc1961]

Here is audio of WPLJ's final hour (6-7 PM 5/31/2019), as recorded from my Denon TU-680NAB tuner:

https://drive.google.com/file/d/1HhURSzzSlMkCGu_ZVaj-wa7UfL8uY0ig

Feel free to reupload and share this recording.

Thanks for sharing that, Kevin

Mega dittos (lol).

Link to audio from the last half-hour of the Todd and Jayde Show on Friday morning 5/31/2019:

https://audioboom.com/posts/7276754-wplj-end-of-final-todd-jayde-in-the-morning-2019

*****

Link to audio from the entire last Todd and Jayde Farewell Show (songs scoped out) from Friday 5/31/2019:

https://omny.fm/shows/95-5-plj-todd...todd-jayde-in-the-morning-daily-recap!podcast

Direct audio link to use in media players:

https://omny.fm/shows/95-5-plj-todd...yde-in-the-morning-final-farewell-5-31-19.mp3

 

[radiojomo]

Do you think Charlie Van Dyke has a permanent, full-time position at EMF with the amount of stations flipping?

 

[pjc1961]

Kidding aside, Van Dyke was the first voice heard when "100.3 The Sound" Los Angeles
flipped to KKLQ "The K-Love for Christian Music" in November 2017.
This was just after he joined EMF as their "imaging voice".

Audio link: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=53-p7-3wrag

Similar to the WPLJ switchover, there was a significant pause between the sign-off and sign-on.
(WPLJ's was 69 seconds, KSWD/KKLQ's was 25 seconds.)
Note that they had to agree to use a slightly altered "description" so as not
to infringe on the intellectual property of Univision's KLVE Los Angeles "107.5 K-Love".

Audio link: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=53-p7-3wrag

 

[GEDA1990]

Playlist of the last four hours of WPLJ (source : https://onlineradiobox.com/us/wplj/playlist/1)

11:59 - Huey Lewis & The News - Hip to Be Square
12:09 - Queen - Bohemian Rhapsody
12:22 - Cheap Trick - I Want You to Want Me
12:38 - Jonas Brothers - Sucker
12:44 - Lionel Richie - All Night Long
12:55 - Donny Osmond - Solider Of Love
13:10 - Marshmello Feat Bastille - Happier
13:29 - Backstreet Boys - Everybody (Backstreet's Back)
13:40 - MKTO - Classic
13:44 - Cynthia & Johnny O - Dreamboy/Dreamgirl
13:59 - Five for Fighting - Superman
14:03 - The Romantics - What I Like About You
14:06 - Ellie Goulding, Diplo & Swae Lee - Close To Me
14:25 - Frank Sinatra - New York, New York
14:30 - Goo Goo Dolls - Better Days
14:34 - Fountains of Wayne - Stacy's Mom
14:38 - Maroon 5 feat Christina Aguilera - Moves Like Jagger
14:42 - Panic! at the Disco - High Hopes
14:45 - Europe - The Final Countdown
15:00 - Bon Jovi - Never Say Goodbye
15:05 - Rob Thomas - One Less Day (Dying Young)
15:13 - Huey Lewis & The News - Doing It All for My Baby
15:19 - Dave Matthews Band - Crash into Me
15:26 - Bruce Springsteen - Glory Days
15:32 - Bob Seger - Old Time Rock 'n Roll
15:36 - Del Amitri - Roll To Me
15:49 - John Lennon - Imagine*
15:55 - Hall & Oates - W-P-L-J*

*Don't appear on the Onlineradiobox's website

 

[Mike Sheridan]

RIP PLJ

 

[MarkW]

Good riddance to a plain vanilla, unremarkable radio station!!!

 

[Barry]

Good riddance to a plain vanilla, unremarkable radio station!!!

WNEW 102.7, the remaining hot a/c, seems more boring. It is certainly nothing special.
Probably WPLJ is the one among the two stations that was sold, because Cumulus is in worse financial shape than Entercom.

 

[gr8oldies]

I saw the WPLJ sign off video with the silence sensors going off

Kidding aside, Van Dyke was the first voice heard when "100.3 The Sound" Los Angeles
flipped to KKLQ "The K-Love for Christian Music" in November 2017.
This was just after he joined EMF as their "imaging voice".

Audio link: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=53-p7-3wrag

Similar to the WPLJ switchover, there was a significant pause between the sign-off and sign-on.
(WPLJ's was 69 seconds, KSWD/KKLQ's was 25 seconds.)
Note that they had to agree to use a slightly altered "description" so as not
to infringe on the intellectual property of Univision's KLVE Los Angeles "107.5 K-Love".

Audio link: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=53-p7-3wrag

 

[DOB]

I saw the WPLJ sign off video with the silence sensors going off

I thought that there was nothing more painful than listening to Nickelback but I was wrong, a Nickelback wanna be rip off singing about Jeebus on K-Love is the worst thing that I have ever heard. All this music sounds the same. NO WAY it doesn't sound anything like today's pop, it's all like Creed, Nickelcrack, 3 Chords down crap with the Christian stuff. BTW, nothing positive or encouraging about forcing poor minority women to have their baby they can't afford and then not allow any gay couples to adopt who could give that baby a good life.

 

[TheBigA]

BTW, nothing positive or encouraging about forcing poor minority women to have their baby they can't afford and then not allow any gay couples to adopt who could give that baby a good life.

Did you really expect that?

 

[mikerock]

I thought that there was nothing more painful than listening to Nickelback but I was wrong, a Nickelback wanna be rip off singing about Jeebus on K-Love is the worst thing that I have ever heard. All this music sounds the same. NO WAY it doesn't sound anything like today's pop, it's all like Creed, Nickelcrack, 3 Chords down crap with the Christian stuff. BTW, nothing positive or encouraging about forcing poor minority women to have their baby they can't afford and then not allow any gay couples to adopt who could give that baby a good life.

You are not the target demo. I suspect they will pick-up quite a bit of the WPLJ target demo in recent years. Only the lyrics have change so there is not reason it will not appeal to them.

Of course those that have a beef with Christians or hard rockers are going to have a problem with the new format. People that were not targeted and/or did or do not matter before or after the format change.

 

[CTListener]

You are not the target demo. I suspect they will pick-up quite a bit of the WPLJ target demo in recent years. Only the lyrics have change so there is not reason it will not appeal to them.

Of course those that have a beef with Christians or hard rockers are going to have a problem with the new format. People that were not targeted and/or did or do not matter before or after the format change.

He obviously has a beef with Christianity, but his real beef should be with the Founding Fathers and succeeding lawmakers and justices who have carved out a special place for codified folk tales and superstitions in this country's institutions. No one should be persecuted for belief in any faith, but allowing companies like EMF to operate tax-free just because they play songs championing only one of the world's myriad religions doesn't strike me as a logical extension of the founders' original intentions.