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Rush moves to 106.9, Monday, June 25th

RadioVeep said:
In a year (WWIQ) will force WPHT to FM.
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If by "FM" you mean "fiscal malaise", then I agree. To keep a talk format going on AM without a brand or a heritage staff of proven performers would be akin to starting a third all-news competitor in New York, or a second in Philly without a unique approach to providing relevant information to lower demos.

Oops.
 
WPHT has two heritage talkers: Giordano and Smerconish, both of whom have long histories in Philadelphia. Dom Giordano has been on Philadelphia talk radio longer than Rush Limbaugh has.
 
Pab Sungenis said:
WPHT has two heritage talkers: Giordano and Smerconish, both of whom have long histories in Philadelphia. Dom Giordano has been on Philadelphia talk radio longer than Rush Limbaugh has.
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Dom has been all over the schedules at WWDB and WPHT, is well-known and, I believe, has a dedicated audience.

Smerconish has also been around PHT and DB for years, but he's been best known as a conservative leaning talker on PHT. Since 'reinventing' himself for syndication and TV by endorsing Obama in 2008, his heritage audience has scattered and he's a marginal presence at best on PHT. Post-Rush, his local hour is gone and he's now a run-of-the-mill syndicated host in a little listened-to (unless you're Rush) timeslot.
 
Smerconish was good when he was originally on during the afternoon. Moving to morning, in my opinion, changed him to an also-ran among a number of good morning shows. Back in the afternoon, he never regained his appeal for me. I don't see the move of Rush helping him at all, unless he can re-invent himself again.
 
A lot of postings here on Smerconish. To be honest, I found him very boring a couple of years ago when I tried to listen based on the advice from a friend of mine. Maybe I'll give him another shot.
 
MDefl said:
A lot of postings here on Smerconish. To be honest, I found him very boring a couple of years ago when I tried to listen based on the advice from a friend of mine. Maybe I'll give him another shot.
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He is kind of boring in that he doesn't really say/do anything controversial. I personally kind of like him, though, but that's just me.
 
cg41386 said:
MDefl said:
A lot of postings here on Smerconish. To be honest, I found him very boring a couple of years ago when I tried to listen based on the advice from a friend of mine. Maybe I'll give him another shot.
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He is kind of boring in that he doesn't really say/do anything controversial. I personally kind of like him, though, but that's just me.
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Aside from being relatively boring and full of himself, to longer time listeners who know that he changed ideological positions as a career enhancement and endorsed a candidate he would have excoriated a year earlier, he primarily comes across as a phony.

That may work for syndication, where listeners have no prior reference, but for PHT listeners, it's a turnoff. Plenty of genuine hosts available. Smerconish may benefit from a near-complete turnover of the PHT audience, to one that isn't familiar with his history. To them, he'll just be relatively boring and full of himself.
 
cg41386 said:
Robbien said:
When does Mark Levin start on 106.9?
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Didn't he start yesterday?
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Yep. He mentioned IQ several times and had a few live Philly callers during the show. Levin grew up in Cheltenham, so he's always been partial to Philly, despite having never been carried live here on a terrestrial signal until now. In the past he has regularly taken calls from Market 8 XM and internet listeners.
 
musichead1029 said:
cg41386 said:
Robbien said:
When does Mark Levin start on 106.9?
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Didn't he start yesterday?
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Yep. He mentioned IQ several times and had a few live Philly callers during the show. Levin grew up in Cheltenham, so he's always been partial to Philly, despite having never been carried live here on a terrestrial signal until now. In the past he has regularly taken calls from Market 8 XM and internet listeners.
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I've been listening to Mark for years via Siruis-XM (He's been on both Sirius & XM even before the merger). NOW GET OFF MY PHONE, YOU BIG DOPE!
I did turn off the XM radio last night and listen on 106.9. I did hear him mention IQ.
 
aindik said:
Bill_W said:
NOW GET OFF MY PHONE, YOU BIG DOPE!
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I've never heard him. He does the "Get off my phone" bit? Lifted from Bob Grant, though probably part homage.
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Yes, homage to Bob Grant. Mark Levin started his show at WABC in NYC. WABC is still his flagship station even though he does the show from his basement in suburban DC, hence the bunker. He has a radio studio in the basement of his house.
 
Great! As much as I enjoy Gary R'Nel, I can't turn down the great one. I predict 106.9 becomes the dominant station in Philly within a year. ESPECIALLY with the election, this was a really bad choice of timing for PHT to swing left, when so many of their primary listeners lean right. Funny it happened at the same time of the Obamacare ruling. They will go the way of Air America.
 
Robbien said:
Great! As much as I enjoy Gary R'Nel, I can't turn down the great one. I predict 106.9 becomes the dominant station in Philly within a year. ESPECIALLY with the election, this was a really bad choice of timing for PHT to swing left, when so many of their primary listeners lean right. Funny it happened at the same time of the Obamacare ruling. They will go the way of Air America.
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You can't dominate the market with 2.0. That's what conservative talk has been getting in Philadelphia and splitting that audience isn't going to magically make a dominant station.

WPHT will lose some of its conservative base but the moderate listeners will help offset some of the loss. Philadelphia is NOT a conservative city, if the last forty years of election results haven't given you a clue.
 
Right. Because NYC is a bastion of conservatism which explains why WABC is the number one talk station in America. If the ratings there haven't give you a clue.
 
WABC is the number one talk station in the nation because it's in the number one market, one three times larger than Philadelphia.

But look at the actual share, not number of listeners and it tells you a different story.

In New York, WABC is ranked 17th with a 2.7 rating. That's slightly less a share than WPHT and the fringe talkers get combined in Philadelphia, where it's about 3.0 (according to the May numbers).

Oh, that number also throws a monkey wrench into some of your beliefs too, doesn't it? In the months since WPHT announced its drifting away from syndicated conservative talk, it's started trending upwards. From 2.4 right before the April 9th announcement to 3.0 today. At the same time, WHYY has dropped from 3.9 to 2.8. Some of the moderates who were turned off by WPHT's stridency in recent years have been drifting home, just as I predicted would start happening.

But the real problem with your apples-to-cumquats comparison of WABC versus WPHT is your characterization of New York City as solidly Democratic. That's not so. 47% of New York City residents are registered Democrats, compared with 80% in Philadelphia. New York has had Republican Mayors for the past 20 years, Philadelphia hasn't had one since 1952. Philadelphia is far and away a more liberal and more Democratic city than New York is.

Again, you can't program Philadelphia based on New York. Or Baltimore, or Chicago, or any other market. Each market in the country is unique and needs to be approached uniquely.

The June book will be driven by curiosity. WWIQ will probably peak at around 3.0. July it goes through the floor. When the dust settles after the election, I still say 1.3 for WPHT and 1.0 for WWIQ. I think the other .7 will end up going back to WHYY.
 
Pab Sungenis said:
Again, you can't program Philadelphia based on New York. Or Baltimore, or Chicago, or any other market. Each market in the country is unique and needs to be approached uniquely.
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I love you, Pab.

Thank you.
 
Ah yes. The WPHT numbers starting going up when the Phillies season started. Rush was pre-empted frequently during the early days for day games.
Can't use those numbers to compare with WABC, which saw a loss to WFAN & WCBS for baseball.

July will be interesting with the Phillies in the cellar. Then we will start to see true WPHT/WWIQ numbers. Younger conservatives probably won't listen to AM even for Rush and Hannity. They may listen on FM, once they know the shows are there.
 
They know Rush, Sean, and Mark are there thanks to Twitter and Facebook. You don't need billboards on 95 anymore to tell listeners where to go. each one of those talents has tens of thousands of devoted social mediaites spreading the word about where to find them in Philly. How many FB fans does Smerconish have? 6k? Levin has 200k. How many twitter followers does Smerconish have? It's a fraction of what Hannity has. A tiny fraction. Lets not eve get startedd on Rush or GB. And they all have friendsmFacebook and Twitter in the Delaware Valley. So guess what, 106.9 doesn't have to break a sweat to tell young listeners where to find the top 4 in talk.
 
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