SAVE WGIR-AM!!!!

[newhampshiredude]

WGIR-AM 610 out of Manchester, New Hampshire (thought I'd say this since this blog thing is for ALL of northern New England) needs some help. It has either tied or been lower rated than Boston talkers WRKO and WTKK in the Manchester arbitron survey.

These steps would make WGIR-AM way better...

1) Increase signal to 5000 watts nighttime. I think it could happen.

2) Add more local programming: bring Gardner Goldsmith back, but replace Gleen Beck with him instead and add a local sprots night show, which used to be on Thursdays I believe.

3) Get the Red Sox back!!!!

4) Add Mark Levin (maybe 10PM-Midnight)

5) Add paul harvey

The weekday line-up should look like this:

5AM-9AM WGIR Morning News
9AM-11:45AM Gardner Goldsmith
11:45AM-12PM Paul Harvey News and Comment
12PM-3PM Rush Limbaugh
3PM-6PM Sean Hannity
6PM-7PM WGIR SportsNight
7PM-10PM The Savage Nation With Michael Savage
10PM-12AM Mark Levin
12AM-5AM Coast to Coast AM

 

[NHRadio]

1) Increase signal to 5000 watts nighttime. I think it could happen.
no way-if it could be done, CC would have done it. The 4 tower DA is already complicated enough. Their engineers are excellent.

2) Add more local programming: bring Gardner Goldsmith back, but replace Gleen Beck with him instead and add a local sprots night show, which used to be on Thursdays I believe.
They got rid of local programming because it wasn't making them enough money. You're still young-understand profits come before anything else, especially programming.

3) Get the Red Sox back!!!!
Didn't know they gave them up.

4) Add Mark Levin (maybe 10PM-Midnight)
See comment number 2.

5) Add paul harvey
They're not an ABC affiliate IIRC. Doesn't matter...Harvey is retiring shortly.

The weekday line-up should look like this:

5AM-9AM WGIR Morning News
9AM-11:45AM Gardner Goldsmith
11:45AM-12PM Paul Harvey News and Comment
12PM-3PM Rush Limbaugh
3PM-6PM Sean Hannity
6PM-7PM WGIR SportsNight
7PM-10PM The Savage Nation With Michael Savage
10PM-12AM Mark Levin
12AM-5AM Coast to Coast AM
[/quote]

 

[probuttonpusher]

paul harveys still alive?

 

[raccoonradio]

Red Sox got picked up by WKBR 1250 Manch. & WGAM 900 Nashua...WGIR running Fisher Cats instead.

http://www.wgamradio.com/

 

[radiotony]

WGIR has the Fisher Cats now. According to my sources, WGIR let the Sox go because they were too expensive.

I don't know if I would put Gardner Goldsmith back on. He's a money-loser. I mean, all that talk about bringing in more ads for WNTK than Arnie Arnesen was bringing in, and in less than a year, Gardner was gone.

Why not be a bit creative, especially with three signals which cover a some really liberal areas of the state? I'm not advocating bringing Arnie back, but if you are going to do local, don't bring back another rightwing wanker when you already have a bunch of rightwing wankers already on.

Red Sox got picked up by WKBR 1250 Manch. & WGAM 900 Nashua...WGIR running Fisher Cats instead.

http://www.wgamradio.com/

 

[Mainedude2007]

this would be interesting/risky but what about splitting the signals up and carrying a local show on WGIR or on the 2 seacoast signals instead of Rush?

 

[argytunes]

For Anthony Schinella...

BEING CREATIVE IN RADIO USUALLY COSTS MONEY!

Most corporately owned radio groups don't want to spend it...or even encourage the practice...unless they can see an immediate return on their investment!

And for the most part...that's NOT gonna happen! :

argytunes

 

[FTL_Ian]

They should add FTL at night. NH produced, costs nothing to add. Plus, Gardner joins us every week or so.

 

[radiotony]

Absolutely. But my point was this: if you're going to put on something local, why not try being creative instead of just putting on any old thing or some previous local person that didn't work?

For Anthony Schinella...

BEING CREATIVE IN RADIO USUALLY COSTS MONEY!

Most corporately owned radio groups don't want to spend it...or even encourage the practice...unless they can see an immediate return on their investment!

And for the most part...that's NOT gonna happen! :

argytunes

 

[radiotony]

Gardner is small doses is fine.

They should add FTL at night. NH produced, costs nothing to add. Plus, Gardner joins us every week or so.

 

[argytunes]

One more comment headed in Anthony's direction:

Rule of thumb with most corporate ownerships is: GIVE SPECIAL INTEREST GROUPS AND LISTENERS ALL THE PSA's THEY WANT! Just don't spend any money or digress from the format!

This came out loud and clear during the recent FCC hearings in Portland, Maine on June 28th! After listening to more than 7 hours of panel discussions by broadcasters, special interest groups...not to mention dozens of comments from other broadcasters and the general public...I walked away with 3 thoughts:

1. It's the Lower Power FM's and Community service radio stations that are more receptive to trying a new idea...as opposed to the commercial radio stations which want to continue airing syndicated programming.

2. Most of the innovative programming is usually scheduled late at night and/or on the weekends...and is rarely promoted. So a good idea will quietly die before the public is aware of it!

3. Several of the New England Radio Station owners, GM's and PD's who testified at the public hearing have already applied for SAINTHOOD---in exchange for the time their stations or corporate ownership has donated to public service!

Kind of ironic since the airwaves were originally set up to serve the public to begin with! ???

argytunes

 

[Oldbones]

1. It's the Lower Power FM's and Community service radio stations that are more receptive to trying a new idea...as opposed to the commercial radio stations which want to continue airing syndicated programming.

2. Most of the innovative programming is usually scheduled late at night and/or on the weekends...and is rarely promoted. So a good idea will quietly die before the public is aware of it!

Isn't that what the whole argument for LPFM was in the first place? To allow for community-type stations doing programming which is in most cases not commercially viable? Not that the promise has been fulfilled in a lot of cases.

As far as the "innovative" programming being buried on off-hours, hasn't it always been that way? I worked at a top 40 AM in the early 70s that an album-rock show Saturday overnights. AORs have pretty much always buried their "homegrown" hour at 10pm on Sundays. This is nothing new.

Kind of ironic since the airwaves were originally set up to serve the public to begin with! ???

Sigh. This lame argument again. Can't you think of anything original? If a station is attracting a sizeable audience, they must be serving a segment of the public, right? You can have all the "innovative" programming you want, but if no one's listening it's like the tree falling in the forest. The WKXL thread from a few weeks ago is a perfect example. Having a local pharmacist do a weekly show to discuss irritable bowel syndrome may look good in the public file, but listeners will tune away in droves.

 

[argytunes]

oldbones...

I'm only echoing the thoughts that were brought out at the hearing.

If you truly want ORIGINAL...then ask one of your broadcast acquaintances to get the balls to broadcast something different in primetime?

And by the way...broadcasting in the public interest wasn't something that I came up with? Talk to the FCC and have it repealed if you don't care for it!

argytunes

 

[radiotony]

All good points. I too, am shocked by what broadcasters are calling "public service" these days.

When I was working at small AM radio station in Concord, I put together an application for NAB's Crystal Award for Public Service. It basically amounted to a 5 or 6 page report cheerleading all your public service efforts, efforts by employees to interact with the community, etc.
After the submitting the application, I was surprised at the letter I received back that the station wasn't even a finalist. Since I had been to NAB's national convention and looked over all the things which the winners had done to win, I thought for sure we would be one of the 100 finalists.
I asked the organizer if he could email some of the comments by the judges, which he offered to do, and did. This is done so that stations can see what they have to do to improve the next entry they make. In the comments, the station was commended for all the local on-air content, PSAs, and donated ads, etc., but they felt the station fell short on sponsoring events, like blood drives.
I was a bit surprised, since none of the employees had time to do put together blood drives - we were all spending our employee time working on content!

My point is that nothing in this "public service" commitment says anything about providing public service content - something thousands and thousands of people have been screaming for at these public FCC hearings [C-SPAN broadcast an entire hearing from Las Vegas or Los Angeles, I forget which, a few months back which was riveting, to say the least]. What serves the public better: An employee who is a newscaster delivering relevant content about traffic, fires, crime, emergency information, etc., or an employee who is a promotions person, sitting around in the company van at blood drives and concert promotions? Obvious, the former, who can also go out and do public events, is a more important public service than the latter.

One more comment headed in Anthony's direction:

Rule of thumb with most corporate ownerships is: GIVE SPECIAL INTEREST GROUPS AND LISTENERS ALL THE PSA's THEY WANT! Just don't spend any money or digress from the format!

This came out loud and clear during the recent FCC hearings in Portland, Maine on June 28th! After listening to more than 7 hours of panel discussions by broadcasters, special interest groups...not to mention dozens of comments from other broadcasters and the general public...I walked away with 3 thoughts:

1. It's the Lower Power FM's and Community service radio stations that are more receptive to trying a new idea...as opposed to the commercial radio stations which want to continue airing syndicated programming.

2. Most of the innovative programming is usually scheduled late at night and/or on the weekends...and is rarely promoted. So a good idea will quietly die before the public is aware of it!

3. Several of the New England Radio Station owners, GM's and PD's who testified at the public hearing have already applied for SAINTHOOD---in exchange for the time their stations or corporate ownership has donated to public service!

Kind of ironic since the airwaves were originally set up to serve the public to begin with! ???

argytunes