jonblaze said:
If Cox researches their products as much as it is said they do, then I don't see Moby staying on past the fall. Most listeners want a local morning show on WNGC. Cox may not put too much money on a morning show. It makes sense for them to have a local show and not a has-been radio dj hired because Paul Stone and company wanted to save money and not put anything into a morning show since the Morning Crew was shown the door, and the Cox deal has been in the works for many years.
But who knows, Cox may flip WNGC. It'll be intersting to see what happens...
JB
It sounds like picking up Moby is a cheap way to get a known talent, especially in a market that's already familiar with him. A good in-house morning show costs money.
Certainly, Cox could open their checkbook and have a go at it where Southern Broadcasting couldn't. But as I recall, Kicks did well with him-my only guess is that they wanted a different morning product instead of someone who competed and overlapped so closely with Rhubarb down the hall.
Now, if Cox wants to start dumping a bunch of money into WNGC as a country station, there going to have to consider that they will be competing with Citadel's (ABC's) two country stations, CC's Bull, and CC's WSSL in Greenville. WSSL is a ratings monster (a 10 share last book), and it rimshots Toccoa and Athens. Eagle's new (as of a couple years ago) transmitter on The Beat's old The Fish's tower near Loganville (thanks Roddy) pushes them eastward, easily covering Toccoa and Elberton. Kicks and the Bull rimshot Toccoa and easily cover Gainesville and Athens.
There's also CC's WKSF out of Asheville, which covers the Toccoa area and almost-but-not-quite rimshots Gainesville and Commerce; it was DOWN to a 14 SHARE last book, from a 17+ share.
That's opportunity, and a lot of share to potentially pick off, but you're not dealing with a bunch of small-timers-and COX will be the underdog with its intermarket signal with no true metro to lean on for ad dollars.
I could see Cox being the odd man out, and I could see CC's Bull being the odd man out. Obviously, the two out-of-town CC stations aren't going anywhere, and neither are Kicks and Eagle.
As I said before, Cox could put on a format on WNGC that simultaneously targets students at UGA and Clemson, not to mention a large chunk of the ATL (alternative, active rock, AAA, etc.). Cox could flip WPUP 103.7 to something else if they go the active rock route with 106.1; heck, they could move country to it and cover most of the same Athens/Toccoa/Gainesville territory and not be up against the CC stations.
