Okay, my gong therapy (seriously!) has worn off. I'm back and gonna try. Alex, first you have to understand what Clear Channel wants out of the market. Revenue and the ability to spend less than zero. Radio, while it looks pretty on the radio dial, is still about pleasing the advertiser. Now, the listeners have to want to "engage" the advertisers and pairing that up is like true love. Everyone says they have it, but few really have ever experienced it. That's why I married a bottle of Hendricks, which is calling my name now. The match has to be effective enough to make the relationship as painless as possible. Sometimes, you just don't need to spend a fortune competiting with a giant, when all you really want to do is shave a few points off the competitor to help your companies numbers look better. Sure, it would make sense to US to go out for the kill, but corporations of this era don't compete like many of us have over the years. Sometimes you compete better by just annoying the other guy and focusing on other battles you can or need to win. CHR and Urban are tough sells right now. The results are less predictable, so the revenues are sometimes smaller and the harder to renew. So you create a round house of formats like a chess game to pull the ratings down of the other guy. Mostly, though, CC doesn't see the profit of investing tons of fight dollars to gain only a share or two, if that. 107.3 has had a pretty long list of formats. A certain poster here, I think I am correct, was probably the last guy to be there while it was a mainstay in the market. (??? Right) So, you have to look at where CC has decided to put their focus and that is where they find their best returns. Like it was stated elsewhere, this station is a freebie probably. Makes no sense to us normal business folks. Why spend a fortune on a station only to have it be a dog. It's contrary to our logic here in America. Right or wrong, that's where it is. As for being a place holder for a Talk format, it is certainly possible. What CC will look at is the net gain or loss. If Talk doesn't have a chance to get a certain revenue stream, at a nominal cost, then CHR is better. If CHR goes away and gives WABD and their stations 20 percent more revenues, because of dominance, then Talk is a disaster. And, yes, a PD that would feel your pain, is probably trying to just be a considerate soul, because he or she has very little ability to affect the corporate music and mandates figured out in San Antonio or Atlanta. Its late and I may be missing some points. You have to never look at radio with logic. And remember who the demographics that matter are and who buys those products and what stations sell the most products. That demo probably isn't you. It's generally a female, 25-45 (skewing older, but no one admits that, right?). Oh, and on another post, you mentioned Bert Weiss. He appreciates beaches for the same reason most of us do...and he is a pretty decent guy. The smile is real. The teeth, not so sure. ;D
