Ross "First Listen" to WWWN

[uncamark]

Sean Ross must be in town or have a secret stream (for God's sakes, Erwin, don't write to him!), because he listened to about an hour of WWWN Monday afternoon and says that for the most part, the station's coming together as a more traditional all-news than the stunting was indicating:

http://www.radio-info.com/programming/programming-music/first-listen-wwwn-fm-news-1011-chicago

No comment about the reverb. What I noticed from the writeup: "Weather and Traffic on the 5s" and, if Sean is correct, AccuWeather, which should be a surprise to WBBM, unless they are non-exclusive in a market. They're also using ABC for a news wire (and, I suspect, for network ads).

 

[pjc1961]

The weather service mentioned on-air on the NYC Merlin Media station WEMP is "AccuTrack". The same term is used for AccuWeather's radar system, so it could be a roundabout way of using AccuWeather's service without officially mentioning it.
Or it could be a "made up" term just for the air - granted, most of the names used are trademarked and copyrighted, so I'm sure any terminology used is checked out legally before it's used on-air.

 

[BRNout]

I like Ross and tend to agree with - and relate to - a lot of what he says. Not to mention that he's quite an affable fellow. All that said, I think that he was far too kind as far as his review of WWWN is concerned. A big budget station in a huge market is not the place to do amateurish try-outs.

Merlin should have come out of the gate sounding polished and smooth as if they had their act together. If that meant letting the 105.9 WBBM signal on first, so be it. Only radio geeks care about that timing anyhow. I disagree with this business of "it's an all new station, so it takes time to gel". NO, you've got armloads of talent there and a huge payroll to match. You've got the signal, you've got the technical facilities and you've got the people. Any big-time pro with the experience of Randy Michaels should be able to make that combination sound good. The old expression that "you only have one chance to make a good first impression" is very important here. Doing that is far more important than being 2 days earlier to the format than WBBM.

Because of their hastiness, they have a lot of ground to make up - already.

 

[radioman148]

I like Ross and tend to agree with - and relate to - a lot of what he says. Not to mention that he's quite an affable fellow. All that said, I think that he was far too kind as far as his review of WWWN is concerned. A big budget station in a huge market is not the place to do amateurish try-outs.

Merlin should have come out of the gate sounding polished and smooth as if they had their act together. If that meant letting the 105.9 WBBM signal on first, so be it. Only radio geeks care about that timing anyhow. I disagree with this business of "it's an all new station, so it takes time to gel". NO, you've got armloads of talent there and a huge payroll to match. You've got the signal, you've got the technical facilities and you've got the people. Any big-time pro with the experience of Randy Michaels should be able to make that combination sound good. The old expression that "you only have one chance to make a good first impression" is very important here. Doing that is far more important than being 2 days earlier to the format than WBBM.

Because of their hastiness, they have a lot of ground to make up - already.

Right on target BRNout.

 

[Holland Cooke]

Could it be "the coach?"

The problem could be what outspoken Radio-Info.com denizen MedianJ calls, in another market, a "weak PD."

 

[uncamark]

Re: Could it be "the coach?"

The problem could be what outspoken Radio-Info.com denizen MedianJ calls, in another market, a "weak PD."

Would that be Walt Sabo? In all the names being thrown around both stations, I have not seen PDs or NDs for either station mentioned.