Bill_W said:
WNEW-FM goes back to 1958, and yes it was Metromedia. (AM/FM/TV)
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So Where Did the WYSP Call Letters GO?
- Thread starter rtetro
- Start date
WNEW-FM goes back to 1958, and yes it was Metromedia. (AM/FM/TV)
M
marker101
Guest
I've seen this before...simply a placeholder. There's most likely bigger plans out there for those calls. And it will have nothing to do with Family Life Radio.
Bill_W said:
CBS was ordered to sell WCAU-TV in order to proceed with the Group W/CBS merger (which was essentially masquerading as an across-the-board affiliation agreement between CBS and Westinghouse). Since Group W was acting as the buyer, KYW-TV had priority.
TV duopolies weren't allowed in major markets just yet. I highly doubt that CBS wanted to part with WCAU-TV, but they had no choice. Likewise, NBC obviously didn't want to lose their O&Os in Denver and Salt Lake City to CBS - AND have their Miami O&O get demoted to a rimshot frequency - but they were ordered to in order to proceed with purchasing WCAU-TV.
amfmsw said:
And there were also KMET in Los Angeles and WMET in Chicago ("METroMedia," of course).
MetroMedia instituted progressive rock formats on all but one of their FM stations in 1968 - WMMR, KMET and WMMS, plus WNEW-FM/NY and KSAN/San Francisco. (The late-comer to the party, WMMS was the only one in the chain that struggled, dumping progressive rock for pop standards... and eventually "Hit Parade," before finding their footing as a rocker in 1970) Only WASH-FM/Washington bucked the rest of the chain and still carried beautiful music.
Nathan Obral said:
No...no, they weren't. If there was ever a Justice Department (or FCC) order in that merger, I never saw it, and I was working for Westinghouse at the time and following the deal very closely.
What actually happened was this: in 1994, Westinghouse and CBS decided to join forces to strengthen each of their O&O lineups. Without actually merging at the time, the plan was to create a joint venture that would acquire additional stations to fill the newly-expanded ownership caps. If I recall the details correctly (and it's been nearly two decades now, so I may be a bit fuzzy on this), CBS was going to contribute much of the cash and the benefit of a then-top-ranked network affiliation, while Westinghouse would manage the stations and would flip its non-CBS outlets (WBZ, WJZ, KYW) to CBS.
The only deal that came to any kind of fruition was the one with NBC, which desperately wanted an ownership foothold in Philadelphia and was willing to voluntarily trade away its better facility in Miami and its stations in Denver and Salt Lake City to get into the bigger Philly market. The Westinghouse/CBS joint venture was to have been the licensee of the Denver, Salt Lake and moved-to-channel-4 Miami stations, and possibly of KYW-TV as well, though I'm not sure of that.
In the end, it didn't really matter: before any of that could advance from press release to FCC filings and closings, Westinghouse decided it really wanted to swallow CBS entirely, and by the time Miami and Denver and Salt Lake sold, it was to the newly-merged CBS/Westinghouse entity, and only those of us who sat through the staff meetings and read the memos still remember the earlier joint venture plan.
But the point is: nobody was "ordered" to do anything. NBC believed (probably correctly, in hindsight) that the benefit of a Philly O&O far outweighed the loss of Denver and Salt Lake (the latter of which CBS didn't even keep in the end) and what turned out to be a temporary downgrade in Miami. CBS believed that the benefit of an alliance with the strong Westinghouse stations in Boston and Baltimore outweighed whatever pain came from selling off WCAU. Westinghouse saw a chance to get big quickly. And, again, they all did so voluntarily.
My point was that CBS didn't care about the WCAU call letters when they sold channel 10 to NBC. I'm sure WCAU call letters could have gone somewhere else at CBS and channel 10 could have been given new call letters but CBS really didn't care when they changed 1210 and 98.1's call letters. It seems to me that 1210 should be WCAU and NBC10 something else.Nathan Obral said:
The real benefit for NBC in buying WCAU wasn't just actually having an O&O, it was that they could actually get 100% clearance, something KYW-TV was not willing to give them. Not only in daytime but in prime time (remember "The Bulletin with Larry Kane?").
Yes, CBS could have swapped the WCAU calls to one of their radio stations, but why bother? Every CBS owned station at the time had a very strong identity not to be tampered with except for WGMP and they'd only launched that a little more than a year before. The calls meant nothing outside of Philadelphia, so they probably reasoned it wasn't worth doing.
Boy were they kicking themselves a year after they let them get away, though, when 1210 went back to talk.
Yes, CBS could have swapped the WCAU calls to one of their radio stations, but why bother? Every CBS owned station at the time had a very strong identity not to be tampered with except for WGMP and they'd only launched that a little more than a year before. The calls meant nothing outside of Philadelphia, so they probably reasoned it wasn't worth doing.
Boy were they kicking themselves a year after they let them get away, though, when 1210 went back to talk.
I
imhomerjay
Guest
Would anything have been different business wise had they put those call letters back on 1210? Not likely. If you like the programming, you listened (or came back to) the programming. WPHT isn't going to be doing any better or worse than if it were WCAU now.
I know there's some sentimental attachment to call letters in some circles, but business wise, once the break was made from the old station, slapping the old identity on a new incarnation wouldn't have mattered a lick.
I know there's some sentimental attachment to call letters in some circles, but business wise, once the break was made from the old station, slapping the old identity on a new incarnation wouldn't have mattered a lick.
Remember not that many years ago when WSNI 104.5 tried there hand at a Soft AC called "Sunny?" We saw what happend...
In truth I'm not sure how simular that was to the 80's version of 104.5-FM, I've never heard it and didn't listen to that when i was a kid.
To compare the two might give us an idea as to how wel that did (at least for a music station.)
Airchecks of the two, and rateings at different periods.
Since the diaries were still being used in the time frame of 2002, this might give an idea. However the target demo may be different, but stil would be interesting anyway.
In truth I'm not sure how simular that was to the 80's version of 104.5-FM, I've never heard it and didn't listen to that when i was a kid.
To compare the two might give us an idea as to how wel that did (at least for a music station.)
Airchecks of the two, and rateings at different periods.
Since the diaries were still being used in the time frame of 2002, this might give an idea. However the target demo may be different, but stil would be interesting anyway.
I
imhomerjay
Guest
The original Sunny was positioned as a "brighter" alternative to then-competitors like EZ and Magic. In a way, Sunny 2.0 was positioned as the flip side of the first time around. (Never mind the wobbles both versions had where they tweaked one way then another.)
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