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The Rev. Al Sharpton on Cleveland Radio? Soon?

O

OldAkronite

Yep, you read me right...it appears that Radio One is likely to make a transformation at brokered/talk WERE/1300 in the next few weeks/months:

<a target="_blank" href=http://ohiomedia.blogspot.com/2005/10/urban-talk-network-slated-to-air-in.html>http://ohiomedia.blogspot.com/2005/10/urban-talk-network-slated-to-air-in.html</a>

Well, the OMW Newsroom is making the assumption that it'll be WERE, as opposed to Radio One's other AM in the market, WJMO/1490.

-OA<P ID="signature">______________
Ohio Media Watch - <a target="_blank" href=http://ohiomedia.blogspot.com>http://ohiomedia.blogspot.com</a></P>
 
> Yep, you read me right...it appears that Radio One is likely
> to make a transformation at brokered/talk WERE/1300 in the
> next few weeks/months:
>
http://ohiomedia.b> logspot.com/2005/10/urban-talk-network-slated-to-air-in.html
>
>
> Well, the OMW Newsroom is making the assumption that it'll
> be WERE, as opposed to Radio One's other AM in the market,
> WJMO/1490.
>
> -OA
>

Well, not to start a race riot here, but if Radio One is looking to super-serve the urban community, WJMO is right in the heart of it. It's been a presence in the black community in one form or another for 50+ years.

WERE just hired Jim Davis as Ops Manager. Now, Jim is a great programmer and a great guy, but does he have the wear-with-all to program an urban talk station? Does he want to? And what about the WERE commitments to its programs? Surely those are contractual.

I gotta go with WJMO here--for a number of reasons. Sorry to disagree OA.
 
> I gotta go with WJMO here--for a number of reasons. Sorry
> to disagree OA.

You know, I thought of it, too...but I couldn't see WJMO dumping gospel, for whatever reason. That's the biggest reason I don't think it'd be them. It also has no history in the talk format, as far as I know, where the vast majority of WERE's history is as a talk station. Furthermore, WERE even has a semi-recent history of some African-American talk programming, particularly with various evening brokered talk shows.

It also depends on which format they want on the stick with the better signal.

If they're looking to make a big deal over this talk format, they have to put it on 1300. It's not the best signal in the market, but it's better than 1490, no?

Heck, either one of us could be right. That proverbial gut of mine is still saying 1300 over 1490.

-OA <P ID="signature">______________
Ohio Media Watch - <a target="_blank" href=http://ohiomedia.blogspot.com>http://ohiomedia.blogspot.com</a></P>
 
> You know, I thought of it, too...but I couldn't see WJMO
> dumping gospel, for whatever reason. That's the biggest
> reason I don't think it'd be them. It also has no history
> in the talk format, as far as I know, where the vast
> majority of WERE's history is as a talk station.
> Furthermore, WERE even has a semi-recent history of some
> African-American talk programming, particularly with various
> evening brokered talk shows.

As far as demographics go, this would be dead-on with WJMO's target.

Anyone wanna venture as to whether Roger Brown will mention this and give his "take" on it? ;)
 
Roger's "Takes"

> As far as demographics go, this would be dead-on with WJMO's
> target.
>
> Anyone wanna venture as to whether Roger Brown will mention
> this and give his "take" on it? ;)

You know, I was using LexisNexis for some research related to a C-Town radio topic here a while back, and Nexis has the Plain Dealer archived in its system back to, oh, about 1991-92 or so.

Reading from then, I forgot how "straight" Roberto Santiago's radio reporting was (facts, "who, what, where, when," even listing demo numbers). Santiago wasn't the best reporter, per se, but he was good at writing an ARTICLE.

Then you get this assclown Roger Brown--and the radio section turned into an opinion piece. It was Roger's opinions, quarterly reviews, who's upwho's down, etc. He used only overall numbers (12+) (if any), and his "reporting" was more what he liked and didn't like (and who he liked and didn't like). It was a HUGE change in direction that I guess I noticed at the time, but forgot over all these years.

Can't we get Santiago back? Or at least Tom Feran?
 
>
> I gotta go with WJMO here--for a number of reasons. Sorry
> to disagree OA.


Yes, me too.

WJMO is the black brand for the older African-American audience.

They had, at one time, quite a community image. They used to do a real newscast and had community call-in shows during their important days of the 60s and 70s--well within the memory of the target demo of a black-talk.

WERE is a moneymaker now with their brokered format. I believe that WJMO's present gospel format is either operating at a loss or is pretty much a write-off or an insignificant revenue non-performer.

Why would not Radio One chose WJMO? To put a black-talk on WERE would be an inefficient use of a signal that is grade-A into Parma, West End, Lakewood, and other areas with few potential regular listeners to an African-American talk station. Plus, again, WERE is, from what I understand, quite profitable with the brokered format against virtually no major operational expenses.
 
> WERE just hired Jim Davis as Ops Manager. Now, Jim is a
> great programmer and a great guy, but does he have the
> wear-with-all to program an urban talk station? Does he
> want to? And what about the WERE commitments to its
> programs? Surely those are contractual.

There may be exceptions, like some national shows, but I've had many shows with 26, 52, etc. week deals blow out after two weeks. If the show hasn't aired or the schedule date hasn't past, I'm not sure why these obligations couldn't be brokered.

If OA's right, Salem should step up its brokered presence in the market. WERE makes a pretty penny, up to $600/hr, selling time. No offense, but this is Cleveland. That's a high rate for a station with no ratings (I think O'Reilly peaked at just under a 1 before he got axed).

I wouldn't rule out some brokered presence on an urban talk WERE or WJMO. R1's WOL/Baltimore runs Roex 3-4PM, as do other urban talkers. I guess they figure they're a unique format and that anyone looking for urban programming will have to go to another R1 station.

Bottom line, WDBZ does alright but doesn't make huge inroads in Cincinnati. I do think, to go off on a tangent, that 1300 would be stupid to dump all of their paid shows, because I have a funny feeling they'd find homes at Salem stations in town.
 
> Anyone wanna venture as to whether Roger Brown will mention
> this and give his "take" on it? ;)
>
Only if he can tie in "Indian fans death grip on the offensive Chief Wahoo mascot"
 
Is Urban Talk Headed For 1300, or 1490?

> As far as demographics go, this would be dead-on with WJMO's
> target.

I'm just wondering if Radio One wants to "superserve" the African-American market, by putting urban talk on 1300 and keeping the gospel on 1490. I guess I'm still having trouble seeing Radio One shuttering the gospel format...a gospel/talk combo of two AM stations is more along the lines of what they usually do.

I am also guessing that whether it ends up on 1300 or not depends on if they're willing to accept the loss of brokered income to do it. With the talk network, they could still sell AM drive (not covered by it) or post-7 PM, but they'd still be losing some regular time buyers during the day, no?

If that means anything to them, then it's talk on 1490 and gospel on that frequency 7 PM to 10 AM. This may actually make sense, as it doesn't appear Radio One will be programming outside the 10 AM-7 PM window, and it still saves some face with keeping the gospel format to a smaller degree.

> Anyone wanna venture as to whether Roger Brown will mention
> this and give his "take" on it? ;)

Believe it or not, Roger's got a sports "in" to mentioning it. The announced afternoon drive team is "2 Live Stews", a sports talk radio team of two brothers (Doug and Ryan Stewart) currently at WQXI/790 "The Zone" in Atlanta. Though, I have no idea how their show will change upon going on the Radio One network...or if they'll still even talk sports at all.

-OA<P ID="signature">______________
Ohio Media Watch - <a target="_blank" href=http://ohiomedia.blogspot.com>http://ohiomedia.blogspot.com</a></P>
 
OK, You've All Convinced Me...

> Why would not Radio One chose WJMO? To put a black-talk on
> WERE would be an inefficient use of a signal that is grade-A
> into Parma, West End, Lakewood, and other areas with few
> potential regular listeners to an African-American talk
> station. Plus, again, WERE is, from what I understand,
> quite profitable with the brokered format against virtually
> no major operational expenses.

Yeah, you (and Johnny Morgan) make a lot of very good points. And I brought this up in another reply - that money part may be the biggest reason WERE doesn't pick up this format. No matter if it's Alfred Liggins' "vision" and "dream", even if he thinks he has a higher public service purpose for this format, it'd be hard to look at those balance sheets for the Brokered Talk Money Machine that is WERE/1300 and say "bye" to that money.

I guess I'm just not familiar enough with the history of WJMO, for one. I know that even in recent years, they've done a lot of public service to the Cleveland African-American community...I just didn't know how attached they'd be to the gospel format. If it's basically just music filler between whatever else they do on that station, here comes the talk.

-OA<P ID="signature">______________
Ohio Media Watch - <a target="_blank" href=http://ohiomedia.blogspot.com>http://ohiomedia.blogspot.com</a></P>
 
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