Gone is the midday adult contemporary/70s80s90s format from WLSW 103.9 for canned satellite delivered oldies. What a shame as the FayWest area does not need another oldies station. Locally, if it's not country, it's oldies. Well, at least its not another repeater for K-Love. Oops, I hope I didn't give someone a suggestion!
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RIP Music Power 104
- Thread starter Jkf
- Start date
NOOOO!!!! That sucks.
Unfortunate but not surprising. The last couple of times I heard the station the morning show's only spot in the last half hour was a live read for a local Dairy Queen, and I'd heard them run infomercials in the noon hour as well.
The station has a TINY signal.... I believe they are less than 500 watts. They just don't cover enough ground to be viable anymore.
The only way to fix this would be to figure out a way to move it in, but that would likely cost more (and take longer) that it's worth.
The station has a TINY signal.... I believe they are less than 500 watts. They just don't cover enough ground to be viable anymore.
The only way to fix this would be to figure out a way to move it in, but that would likely cost more (and take longer) that it's worth.
F
FreddyE1977
Guest
Had them on this morning. They were still running a live morning show with MusicPower 104 bumpers. They went to play a request for the Amy Winehouse "Rehab" song and inadvertently grabbed a hip-hop mix which dropped an F-bomb on us in the first thirty seconds. They they killed it. So the joys of live radio are not completely dead at 103.9!
FreddyE1977 said:
LOL. Reminds me of GLU-92 in Johnstown mistakenly playing "Kiss Me, Kiss Me, Kiss Me" from the Cure instead of "Just Like Heaven." No big deal except there's a very prominent F-bomb in it.
I think it was Wednesday I heard the oldies morning show supplied from what sounded like a satellite service. The jock was Joe Scarr or something like that. I have never heard this jock on a 24/7 format like Dial Global or Citadel/ABC. It was awful. I can't imagine any major network syndicating something so dull. The liners kept calling it 103.9 WLSW. Good to hear that the more contemporary music mix is on at some point still. I always liked the Music Power 104 jingles!
God bless Stan Wall for hanging on as long as he has doing what he was doing with that station. He did not want to go the satellite route at all, and prided himself on the fact that he was the last bastion of live and local radio in suburban Pittsburgh. Unfortunately, the realities of the business set in.
I don't think the station's problems lie with the signal reach. To the contrary, it's one of the best signals in this market. Yes, it's only 325 watts, but it's on such a high point in Fayette county that it does get out quite far than many people think. More than that, the transmitter is an EXCITER...not a real transmitter. And...the tower doesn't even need to be lit. This is one of the lowest cost FM operations you will find in this market, and Stan has has many offers to sell.
This station operated until recently on the pretext that the jocks basically program their own stuff (within the format), just like we did back in the day when we picked our own music out of the record library. Then as business needs changed, so did our jobs.
I know it's probably making Stan sick to have to make changes like this, but I don't think he has any other choice. I hope he's finally having some success with WQTW and can maybe recover with WLSW. I've never met the man, but from what I heard, he's a decent man who truly cares about his people. I wish him the best.
I don't think the station's problems lie with the signal reach. To the contrary, it's one of the best signals in this market. Yes, it's only 325 watts, but it's on such a high point in Fayette county that it does get out quite far than many people think. More than that, the transmitter is an EXCITER...not a real transmitter. And...the tower doesn't even need to be lit. This is one of the lowest cost FM operations you will find in this market, and Stan has has many offers to sell.
This station operated until recently on the pretext that the jocks basically program their own stuff (within the format), just like we did back in the day when we picked our own music out of the record library. Then as business needs changed, so did our jobs.
I know it's probably making Stan sick to have to make changes like this, but I don't think he has any other choice. I hope he's finally having some success with WQTW and can maybe recover with WLSW. I've never met the man, but from what I heard, he's a decent man who truly cares about his people. I wish him the best.
F
FreddyE1977
Guest
kenhawk1160 said:
Even the least technical among us should be very, very impressed by that
M
MsMusicRadio
Guest
Could this be a partial replacement for WAMO?
No, not by any strectch of the imagination.
This station barely reaches Westmoreland Mall and Latrobe, 90+% of the African-American audience lives in Allegheny County.
If he can't make a go of it playing what he's playing now, the only thing this would accomplish is to put him out of business much faster.
This station barely reaches Westmoreland Mall and Latrobe, 90+% of the African-American audience lives in Allegheny County.
If he can't make a go of it playing what he's playing now, the only thing this would accomplish is to put him out of business much faster.
MsMusicRadio said:
It does already serve some of the older African-American audience on Saturdays with the doo-wop shows. They were running local Pittsburgh oldies at night for a time on weekdays, but I don't think they're doing that anymore. That music is becoming more and more of a hard sell with each passing year.
Beyond that, forget it. It will die a grisly death.
The best thing to do at this point is put the station on the bird full-time, and maybe save the specialty programs for Saturday only, if you can eke out a couple of advertisers. Continue with the high school sports and put local news on every hour. Expanded stuff in AM drive, headlines the rest of the day, save the 5 o'clock hour. Make it a full-service AC or oldies.
Parttimer said:
I assume you're being facetious. I don't like seeing that happen with ANY station.
I'd like to know who the engineer is responsible for the planning of 98.5. This signal covers not only the Fayette/Somerset extended area - but many radios stop on 98.5 in and around Pittsburgh as well. Is there some sort of a booster in Pittsburgh on 98.5? Rumor had it being on 98.5 in the Glenshaw/Etna area. Oh, and the Froggy repeater continues to air poor reception of the main frog on 99.3 from its North Park/McCandless repeater. Most days the station sounds out of tune and very low on 99.3.
No repeater or boosters are allowed on same channel. Coverage is due to height of transmitter site (2,690 feet) in relation to other areas. Height in this part of the country does far more that full power with a hillside blocking your signal. Also another reason for a Class A station they only run at 1,100 Watts.
Back in the Burgh over the holiday weekend. The new oldies format on WLSW is the Waitt Radio Network's Oldies Plus format with voice tracked jocks! Music is on the hard drive in the studio, and the WRN talent tracks into it hourly. I enjoyed listening to it and The Pickle this past weekend. The rest of the market, perhaps due to holiday formats was very blah!
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