KJCB said:My point was not that Salem will be an influential programming presence, but that their business model of buying stations to program with, more or less, exclusively their own content (where they also make money), that runs on the cheap, and that they can streamline staff with, is the future. When you think about the dozens of formats CC employs, they HAVE to have as many stations as they do. Imagine if you could have one national PD for 50 talk stations because they all ran the exact same lineup. Just hookup a satellite feed and some phone lines for sales and you've got your studio. I suspect we'll see more non-mainstream networks buying marginal or bad AMs in different markets as AM slides further into disarray. An example of how this is already happening is Business Talk Radio and Lifestyle Talk Radio networks.
Other all-of-a-kind AM networks (such as Relevant Radio) are having all kinds of problems. Business Talk Radio -- aren't they mostly brokered these days? I don't think the Salem model is working -- otherwise why would they have trashed their Miami secular talker and dumped their Jax properties -- which brings us back full circle to the original topic.