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Source: WINK & WNOG To Flip In About A Year?

DToTheJ

DToTheJ

Tying in with the recent switch on 92.5 FM from oldies to a basic simulcast of the WINK/WNOG lineup.

I found a press release from a station employee announcing the switch, which says: "For the next 12 months you will still be able to tune in to 1270/1240 AM..."

So I guess the intention is to indeed get listeners to start switching over to the FM station, and eventually either change the AM properties to something else, or just sell them off.

Also, if you go to winkwnog.com and winknewsradio.com, everything refers to "Fox News 92.5".
 
DToTheJ said:
Tying in with the recent switch on 92.5 FM from oldies to a basic simulcast of the WINK/WNOG lineup.

I found a press release from a station employee announcing the switch, which says: "For the next 12 months you will still be able to tune in to 1270/1240 AM..."

So I guess the intention is to indeed get listeners to start switching over to the FM station, and eventually either change the AM properties to something else, or just sell them off.

Also, if you go to winkwnog.com and winknewsradio.com, everything refers to "Fox News 92.5".
Click to expand...

They may be trying to duplicate 970WFLA.

Jeff in Sa-ra-so-ta!
 
DToTheJ said:
Tying in with the recent switch on 92.5 FM from oldies to a basic simulcast of the WINK/WNOG lineup.

I found a press release from a station employee announcing the switch, which says: "For the next 12 months you will still be able to tune in to 1270/1240 AM..."

So I guess the intention is to indeed get listeners to start switching over to the FM station, and eventually either change the AM properties to something else, or just sell them off.

Also, if you go to winkwnog.com and winknewsradio.com, everything refers to "Fox News 92.5".
Click to expand...

This would not surprise me at all. I truly expect to see the AM's go a different direction in time. I am surprised that it will take a year for that to happen though. I thought that they would simulcast for a few weeks at most to give everyone a chance to get us to the switch to 92.5. A year seems a long time to run a simulcast.

Now the big question is what will become of 1240 & 1270? What kind of format would work on them? Actually an oldies format could work there if done properly (I know I'm dreaming). Other than that I am not sure what format they could use there. The market has 3 sports stations and several Spanish stations. All the other main stream formats are covered pretty well locally. About the only thing else I could see them doing is maybe second tier talkers.

Any ideas?
 
signalid said:
Up for sale?
Click to expand...

I am sure that is a distinct possibility. But if that happens I would be afraid what would become of the stations then. My best guess they would end up in the hands of either religious or ethnic broadcasters.

I guess why it concerns me is the fact that those two stations are the "heritage" stations in their respective communities and I would hate to loose them just to have them filled with some sort of syndicated garbage.
 
I would expect at least one or both of the AM's will flip to some kind of Spanish Language programming.
 
sbe1 said:
I would expect at least one or both of the AM's will flip to some kind of Spanish Language programming.
Click to expand...

While that is entirely possible and would not surprise me at all, the Ft Myers/Naples area already has 4-5 Spanish stations serving the market and I am not sure how many more stations of that format could be justified here.
 
<<<A year seems a long time to run a simulcast.>>>

On another board it was pointed out that moving successful AM's to FM generally does not make good sense, as the question gets to be "what else can you do with an AM station?" WINK/WNOG were ratings leaders, would anyone here think they will get better ratings on FM?

As to simulcasting for a year, I have asked this question before, and have never really received a solid response... Rolling all the expenses of physical tower operation together (electricity, tower engineering staff and maintenance) HOW MUCH does it cost to fire up a 1000kw stick? If the transition to 92.5 goes successfully, and I would expect it will, what would be the expense incurred by Meridian in powering up facilities that virtually no one will be listening to? In an era of cost cutting would that not be an obvious one? If keeping the license requires that some broadcasting be done, would they be able to meet FCC regs by broadcasting on the AM's a couple of hours a day, and then saving the expenses; especially overnight?
 
Sense they say the AM stations have bad signals in some locations at night, they could simulcast on 92.5 from about 5:30PM to 7:30AM, that would cover most of the night time hrs, run oldies on 92.5 at 7:30AM - 5:30PM but maybe 96.9 would be a better choice.

Those broadcasters need to check to make sure if I'm right or wrong. During the day there would be more people want to hear music not talk especially in a office. They use music in the back ground to help the day go by, if it was talk I would think they would want to be able to hear it, so they would turn it up so they know what there talking about, talk may take there mind of there work causing mistakes to be made.
 
signalid said:
During the day there would be more people want to hear music not talk especially in a office. They use music in the back ground to help the day go by...
Click to expand...

That's what their sister station, WTLT, is for. ;)
 
Increasingly more difficult to pick up, AM suffers from inherent interference from power lines to bridges, from the car's computer to Cuban and co-channel. Inadaquate front-end design and FCC political decisions.

The move to FM will probably work to keep buttons from being pressed when moving from county to county. 92.5 has a problem with co-channel and 2nd adjacent to the north, but may be far enough away to not make that much difference to sales.

A recent problem with FM interference, I've been experiencing within the last several years is my GPS. It is shortening the range of stations. I imagine that will get worse with more and more gadgets added to the car.

The Ft. Myers market was the first I saw that started siding with their cable TV position only - September 1994. They do things differently because they can.

The interesting thing about vacating the AM band, if that is their intention, is that it frees up 2 buttons to be used for commuters to Miami-Dade/Broward stations that are strong enough to be received in that area.

Jeff in Sa-ra-so-ta!
 
Yeah some people may not like WTLT, so the business orders SirrusXM, and this broadcaster hit there self in the foot when most listeners hear radio...
 
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