Source: Merlin To Flip WRXP To News/Talk

[TimeIsTight]

Would the new talk station hire Joey Reynolds?

Not likely at all.

The reason for putting a talk or news station on FM is to attract younger demo's that are attractive to advertisers.

Joey's act appeals mostly to the AARP set. WOR was the right place for what he did, but unfortunately that is now history.

 

[Oldiesmike]

An example of FM Talk, Here in Albany NY, Clear Channel took out a rock music channel on 103.1FM and starting simulcasting 810 WGY on that frequency. And 103.1-HD2 is a simulcast of 980am Fox Sports.

 

[radioguy39nj]

I would love to see news and talk on the FM dial.

News and news/talk is on FM and successful in such markets as San Francisco, Seattle, DC among others. It has been absent from the top 3 markets of NY, LA and Chicago but that will apparently soon change.

WTOP all-news in DC at 103.5 FM is not only the #1 rated station in that market, it's the highest billing station in the country. All News KCBS in San Francisco simulcasts on AM and FM and is the highest rated station in the Bay Area. News Talk 97.3 KIRO-FM in Seattle may not be #1 there but is quite successful after many years as a heritage talker on AM.

The migration of spoken word formats (news, N/T, sports) to the FM dial continues!

 

[KyleSmith1988]

An example of FM Talk, Here in Albany NY, Clear Channel took out a rock music channel on 103.1FM and starting simulcasting 810 WGY on that frequency. And 103.1-HD2 is a simulcast of 980am Fox Sports.

FM talk is actually not as good in the market near me, WLNK 107.9 is literally 50/50 talk & hot ac, and both of those hurt the other on that station. The other game in town, WBT 1110 (same owners - Greater Media) simulcast on FM at 99.3, 30 miles southwest of town, it's like a translator so the western part of the metro can hear it at night, really not listenable in the city of Charlotte. You would think they could move 1110 to 107.9 and make 99.3 a hot ac only kinda station.

Also in my opinion, on the clear channel AMs, such as 810 WGY or 1110 WBT, they probably get most of their listeners on AM at night. I can hear WGY on 810 clearly at my home in SC at night, but 103.1 for them barely makes it 30 miles, missing parts of the metro such as Glens Falls or Saratoga or Amsterdam, while 810's daytime coverage makes it at least half way to NYC. The fringe coverage for them may also lessen the impact of an FM talk station, I list 750 WSB as an example with it's 95.5 FM about 50 miles northeast of Atlanta.

 

[Kent]

Also in my opinion, on the clear channel AMs, such as 810 WGY or 1110 WBT, they probably get most of their listeners on AM at night. I can hear WGY on 810 clearly at my home in SC at night, but 103.1 for them barely makes it 30 miles, missing parts of the metro such as Glens Falls or Saratoga or Amsterdam, while 810's daytime coverage makes it at least half way to NYC. The fringe coverage for them may also lessen the impact of an FM talk station, I list 750 WSB as an example with it's 95.5 FM about 50 miles northeast of Atlanta.

Talk radio listening, in general, is almost nonexistent after about 6 PM. Of course, with a monster signal like WGY, it may very well have a ton of listeners at night with none of them concentrated in one particular area. The fact that Clear Channel and Cox want to use relatively weak or rimshot signals at 103.1 and 95.5 respectively should tell you just where most of the listeners those stations target are. Not only that, but, I believe, in 95.5 Atlanta's case, it's not broadcasting in stereo, and that will usually significantly increase a station's range. I wouldn't be surprised if WGY-FM 103.1 also cut the stereo off.

As several others have mentioned, AM is almost dead, and it probably will be gone in most of our lifetimes.

 

[TheBigA]

Talk radio listening, in general, is almost nonexistent after about 6 PM. Of course, with a monster signal like WGY, it may very well have a ton of listeners at night with none of them concentrated in one particular area. .

If they do, it doesn't matter, because the audience doesn't show up in the ratings, so they can't sell it. WGY runs syndicated shows like Michael Savage and Mark Levin at night. So the monster signal is of no real benefit. What has really hurt radio listening at night has been all the choices on TV, movies, computers, and anything else you can think of. There was a time when radio was the one and only way for someone to experience music and culture from a long way away. Not any more.

 

[scott5]

"If they do, it doesn't matter, because the audience doesn't show up in the ratings"

What kind of non-sense !?!? Arbitron records the evening ratings just like they do with the morning & afternoon ratings, and it does matter to the stations as it was reported lately that John Bachelor is #1 on WABC late evenings . Savage has monstrous ratings in many markets after 6 pm.

 

[KyleSmith1988]

Not only that, but, I believe, in 95.5 Atlanta's case, it's not broadcasting in stereo, and that will usually significantly increase a station's range. I wouldn't be surprised if WGY-FM 103.1 also cut the stereo off.

I believe it extends out it's usable clear signal by about -10db, so going by the purple on Radio-Locator's maps. It doesn't help much, though some for WBT at 99.3 but that still won't help most of Charlotte, though it does towards the west I can hear it clearly from Gaffney untill about the time I enter Spartanburg, I still think they'd do even better at 107.9 in Charlotte.

Also in my market of Greenville-Spartanburg-Anderson, SC, the FM News/Talk at 106.3 WYRD-FM has been up for just over 3 years now (since Entercom pulled the plug on Charlie FM adult hits) and they still haven't turned off their stereo feed. They still have kinda bad coverage to the city of Anderson, 3rd largest city in this side of the state, if they turn off stereo (finally) that may help just a little.

 

[TheBigA]

What kind of non-sense !?!? Arbitron records the evening ratings just like they do with the morning & afternoon ratings

Context, context, context. Read the entire post. The only audience that is measured is within the market. If someone in North Carolina picks up WGY or WABC, it doesn't matter. So the station can't sell the DX audience to advertisers.

 

[Time Traveler]

WGY-FM did eliminate the stereo of the former "Channel 103-1" WHRL...

 

[tomservo]

As several others have mentioned, AM is almost dead, and it probably will be gone in most of our lifetimes.

There are certainly select markets where the move to FM talk has really taken off. This will probably never happen in NYC, but in my hometown of Birmingham there are three FM talkers now and one FM sports station. That's four music formats (Hot AC, AAA, AC and Active/Modern Rock) taken off for talk. Other than AAA, those aren't exactly niche formats.

Useless trivia time… These are big signals: a C2, a C1 and two C0's, although two are out of market rimshots. Three of the four have market-heritage calls (WAPI, WERC, WYDE) but only one (WYDE) runs stereo. Three of them run HD (not WAPI). The sports station (WJOX) runs mono with HD and no subchannels which seems like a waste of electricity considering the market's challenging terrain, which renders all HD signals useless.

Birmingham is also a front runner in something that I think will keep the AM dial alive for a wee bit longer, that will have little effect on the NYC dial: AM-to-FM translator pairings. The market has had up to 4 AM simulcasts on FM translators at the same time. So while the market lost four music formats to talk, it gained four music formats on FM (Neo Soul, Active Rock, Rhythmic Oldies, Gospel).

 

[fybush]

Also in my opinion, on the clear channel AMs, such as 810 WGY or 1110 WBT, they probably get most of their listeners on AM at night. I can hear WGY on 810 clearly at my home in SC at night, but 103.1 for them barely makes it 30 miles, missing parts of the metro such as Glens Falls or Saratoga or Amsterdam, while 810's daytime coverage makes it at least half way to NYC.

Glens Falls (Warren County) is not in the Albany metro, where the population is very heavily centered within a 20-mile radius of the 103.1 site. WGY-FM is actually the strongest FM signal on the dial in parts of downtown Albany, where terrain plays tricks on the bigger signals from up in the Helderbergs.

 

[DToTheJ]

The problem with baseball is that it's played every day from April through October...

Hey, if you're not a fan, don't watch the games.

I'm a Mets' fan!

No wonder you have issues with baseball... ;D

 

[DToTheJ]

WGY runs syndicated shows like Michael Savage and Mark Levin at night...

Hmmm, I wonder if a Savage could be the type of syndicated show to show up on 101.9, if they had to carry any... If WOR can let Glenn Beck go... Mancow (currently doing local for WABC and based in Chicago) also comes to mind...

 

[DToTheJ]

@Scott Fybush: Just wanted to say that the intro to your NERW this week really cracked me up! "Want to make every message-board server in New York melt down from a deluge of speculative posts? It's easy, really - just spread the word that... Randy Michaels is coming back into radio in a big way, partnering with an investment firm to take over three of Emmis Communications' biggest stations, including the struggling WRXP... That's just what happened last week, of course, and it's a tribute to the IT staffs of the various radio discussion sites that they haven't crashed under the crush of rumor and wishful thinking that's surrounded the first few days of the new Merlin Media LLC..." Great stuff!

 

[Rusty Muck]

WGY runs syndicated shows like Michael Savage and Mark Levin at night. So the monster signal is of no real benefit.

Outside of morning drive, WGY carries NOTHING but syndicated programs. It's actually a shame to see how much that station has been emasculated over the past ten years.

WLAC in Nashville is another example of a 50kW clear channel signal that is only local in morning drive.

 

[NYC viewer]

News/talk on FM finally coming to market #1? I actually approve of this... figure, when it was still d it'd land on 101.9 or 105.1 (although I doubt CC would flip Power just to launch a Rush Radio station)

I could be a bit off, however I vaguely recall news on FM in New York -- perhaps WNWS on 97 FM when it still owned by NBC (and long before it became WYNY!)?

Also -- just remembered that the all news format on WCBS started on FM. A plane crashed into the WCBS tower just days prior to the all news debut. The flip was not postponed and aired on WCBS FM instead until the tower was rebuilt.

 

[TheBigA]

It's actually a shame to see how much that station has been emasculated over the past ten years.

If there was more money doing live and local, that's what they'd do. AM radio is on life support. Even the big blowtorches are hurting.

 

[DToTheJ]

@BigA: I've read that a lot of AM stations plug in sports programming - at least you can get some money out of it... of course, most of it is off the bird, which makes this a moot observation...

@NYC Viewer: Pretty ironic way to make a splash as a brand-new all-news station in town - just happen to be the news!

 

[Barry]

Robert Feder, the guru of Chicago radio developments, seems so sure that Emmis' Q101 there will go all news once acquired by Merlin Media, he is even speculating who will be among the first hires for the station. Whether 101.9 will also go all news is not mentioned. He expects Merlin to start programming Chicago's Q101 and The Loop in mid-August. Perhaps WRXP will also be switched at about the same time.

Feder's Blog: http://timeoutchicago.com/arts-cult...in-review-encores-slated-for-‘sneak-previews’