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THEY SHOULD'VE DID EITHER

M

MR. JAROME_CALVIN

93.7 Should've used either

"Jayne FM"
http://www.live365.com/index.live

or

From Dial-Global "Sam FM"

http://www.sam1039.com/

Both sounds better than what (93.7 Mike FM was)

If they used these two, I think they would've been better and lasted longer. If they used (Sam FM) they have an option to have a News Update/Sports Update at ?? The Top of the hours, and different times within the hour.

Have any of you heard of these formats?

If so, your thoughts?
 
It's not too late, 97.7 can look into these? Instead of having so many Rock and Roll stations, put one of these on there? These are the cloest you can get to Rock and Roll, it has a Variety of Classic Rock/HOT AC put into one, especially "Jayne FM"
 
Sorry, but radio exists to make money and this was what Entercom decided to do. To quote what Mrs.
Carlson said in the very first episode of WKRP in Cincinnatti, "This radio station is a business. It is not
here for your personal listening pleasure." Sure, you may have wanted that format but a lot more people
want sports. Entercom should have made the move of WEEI to FM years ago.

And there is a reason why there are "so many rock and roll stations". Because there are so many rock and
roll listeners. They buy things that are advertised on stations like WAAF, which needs 97.7 to get its
signal into Boston.

People like baseball. They like the Red Sox, and in fact like them enough that Fenway Park has that sellout streak, and the various broadcast outlets that run their games, local and national, make a lot of money
from running the Red Sox. Maybe one person would write to the Red Sox ownership and tell them,
"I don't like baseball. I want them to stage operas at Fenway Park. I want you to shut down the team
and stage operas."

Sorry fella. You are outnumbered. Radio has lots of consultants and programming people and they
want to put on what the majority of people want. Those who would want 96.9 to play classic country,
WGBH to run heavy metal, Kiss 108 to run Spanish-language, or WBZ to run nothing but Old Time
Radio, you are outnumbered. The options are out there for those who don't get what they want on
radio, be it satellite radio, webstreams, HD radio, mp3 players, and so on.

If one person wants WBZ to run the 54 hour audiobook of William L. Shirer's "The Rise and Fall of
The Third Reich: A History of Nazi Germany", they may find they are...outnumbered...by the many
who would like to hear news and talk.

It's a money business. If you were program director at Entercom Boston and decided to try these
Narrow-Cast formats, they would fail and your boss would use that famous two-word
Donald Trump phrase when he calls you into his office: You're Fired. So you think, but if they only gave it
a try...They have, at various places across the nation and the region. Believe me. And if some other
owner decided to try this format and it's a rousing success, then, great! The free market and
capitalism worked in their favor.

Sorry, just telling it like it is. The majority rules, give the people what they want, radio is a business,
and as some British rockers would tell you: You can't always get what you want, but if you try
sometime, you might find, you get what you need.

Start a business, make a whole bunch of money, then you can buy radio stations and put on
what you'd like to hear. And let the chips fall what they may.

I don't have the figures in front of me, but Entercom has made a LOT of money especially from
WEEI and WAAF. Now they will make a lot more.

---
RED SOX DISBAND TEAM --(Boston): The Boston Red Sox have decided to change their business tactics.
After a consultant urged them to do so, they will now present operas at Fenway Park, the first being
Mozart's "The Marriage of Figaro". "We have laid off all our players...well, actually we still will owe
them their salaries...but we hope more people in Boston want to see opera," said Chief Operating
Officer Larry Lucchino.

The move did not sit well with Entercom Boston, where WEEI Program Director Jason Wolfe lamented
the loss of the successful baseball team. "They offered to have us run the operas from Fenway instead,"
said Wolfe. "I don't think there's an audience for them, personally..."

(WITH APOLOGIES TO ANY OPERA LOVERS OUT THERE.)
 
oh no
I don't like that type of format.
I'd rather see an Urban AC, or Spanish HOT AC, but Spanish HOT AC is already on 1430am
I love the fact 93.7 changed to Sports
I was just saying maybe they could've lasted longer if they used either of those two services
I don't like it personnally
 
LAUROJRM said:
oh no
I don't like that type of format.
I'd rather see an Urban AC, or Spanish HOT AC, but Spanish HOT AC is already on 1430am
I love the fact 93.7 changed to Sports
I was just saying maybe they could've lasted longer if they used either of those two services
I don't like it personnally
Click to expand...

The format had nothing to do with how long WMKK was on the air. It all had to do with WBZ-FM.

I'd like to mention here as well how much I've fallen back in love with WAAF. I listened when I was a teenager (of course) but I've rarely listened over the past 10 years. I've gotta tell you, I love it just as much as I did when I was a teenager. I love the mix, the imaging and production is incredible, and I still love the jocks. There's no need to touch the WAAF simulcast.
 
It cost Entercom a source of income to kill off the Mike format but indeed competition from Sports Hub
was the big reason for the move...to shore them up. Of course this is happening all over, like most
recently in Mansfield OH where 2 FMs will wind up simulcasting talk station WMAN (though admittedly
that station is a mere 920 watts! But "better night reception" and the trend for the young to stay
with FM are two reasons for that move). If Entercom had another station to dump Mike to, they would
have but it became the odd man out, as it were.

The simulcast is indeed needed for some people; I don't listen to WAAF but many wouldn't be able to
get it clearly, or at all, if not for the 97.7

Maybe there's room for an Urban AC or Spanish (in some places you do have it--102.9 simulcasting
the AM 800 from Lawrence, for example). Heck, if 96.9 FM talk were to get lousy ratings or billing
maybe they'd give it a try...in a year or two maybe.

Yup great that 93.7 changed to sports...as I mentioned before I can now hear the Sox, Mon. Night
Football, etc. clear as a bell at work, and the signal reaches into some areas of southern NH
and even a sliver of Maine, too.
But you (LauroJRM) may have meant maybe Mike could have stayed longer had it used those
services...got it.
 
My favorite "Adult Hits" formatted station for a few years now as been 101.1 & 93.5 Frank FM on Cape Cod. They play 1970s through now, with a bit heavier lean on the 80s and classic hits. They've also taken some numbers away from Cool 102, so they are doing something right. BTW, Cool 102 is one of my favorite stations as well, so nothing negative implied.

Frank FM does commercial free from 9am to 12 noon every weekday. They also have themed weekends almost every weekend including:

* No Repeat Weekend
* Back to the '80s Weekend
* One Hit Wonders Weekend
* Class Reunion Weekend (songs from a different year each hour, 1970-current)

They also have one I forgot the name to, but only songs that hit #2 on the charts, but never made #1. Frank FM is jockless, but it in my opinion is programmed extremely well and probably one of the most overlooked adult hit stations in New England. The station image voice is the same person who voices 100.7 WZLX in Boston (not sure of his name). They have often funny sweepers as would a Jack FM station. I honestly believe it is the best in the northeast. I am curious to know if anyone else likes this station and has been enjoying it for the past few years as I have?

www.frankplaysitall.com
 
raccoonradio said:
Maybe there's room for an Urban AC or Spanish (in some places you do have it--102.9 simulcasting
the AM 800 from Lawrence, for example). Heck, if 96.9 FM talk were to get lousy ratings or billing
maybe they'd give it a try...in a year or two maybe.
Click to expand...
All I have to say is, as long as Greater Media owns 96.9, it'll never be flipped. :p
 
Why the hell would you want them to stick a SATELLITE FORMAT on 97.7?! And why would a satellite service keep "Mike FM" around any longer? It isn't like it cost them anything to run it off a server in a broom closet.

The handwriting was on the wall when The Sports Hub hit the air on 98.5. I'm surprised it took them so long to flip 93.7.

At this point, looking purely at the $ aspect of things, I would start to broker out 850. What other format could it be where it would make any money on the AM signal? And by broker out, I don't mean all prostate health snake oil shows all the time, I mean sell blocks of time to the pirate broadcasters! Put Touch on 850, let them buy 6 hours a day or more. 93.5 in NYC does it. Everyone makes money, the communities get served with their programming and a few less pirates are on the air.

Spanish in Boston isn't going to happen on 96.9 or any FM. There isn't the audience to support it in the area. Check the census demographics on the Boston metro. People who identify themselves as "Latino" or "Hispanic" only make up about 7% of the metro. Even if 20% of that 7% listened, that's roughly 57,000 people. If 40% of the 7% tuned in, you still only have 114,000 people. Not enough to support a full market FM signal.
 
What is it with LAUROJRM and canned formats? Does he/she get a 25 cent bonus every time a station picks one up? Those things don't belong in any large or medium market, and the smaller ones would be better off without them too. They're for small rural and between-market stations that don't cover a large enough area to justify staffing a station with live people.
 
I'm relaxed at least, but do want to point out again that money and ratings drive programming decisions,
that niche formats don't work in all markets and if you can't find it here, there's things like HD, sat.
radio, or mp3s (try to convince the programmers your idea will work but if they don't think so, so be it)
and local is important. WEEI and WBZ-FM have their ESPN and Fox Sports programs to fill out slots
overnight or on weekends, and there's some play by play available on the former, but the idea is to
have local as much as possible...and if that means if no station is available to run what is now Yahoo!
Sports, then what can you do?

You can maybe move to an area that does carry that network just about full time--maybe Brattleboro VT
or something--but realize that satellite programming (and this counts for music, too) is good for low
budget, small and medium markets (though even they will have local content too), and maybe sometimes you'll get it as filler on big local stations here.
WRKO, similarly, does have a lot of syndie like Ingraham and Savage, but it's the morning show and
Carr, in am and pm drive, that matter most. (WXKS also manages to have two local hosts, plus
national names like Beck and Hannity...even they, set up as mostly syndie, realize you need to do local
too!)

Someone up at WNBP in Newburyport could just say, let's just run Yahoo Sports or True Oldies full time.
But they don't. Even they go local, with names like (former WBOQ) Jackie Ankeles, Pete Falconi,
and Win Damon. Win's show has lots of local content--not just CNN news but LOCAL news, "community
happenings", etc. Serving the community with local stuff...imagine that. On weekends, yeah they will
run a syndie show like Sid Mark's Sinatra show, but they also have a local guy doing doo wop.

Satellite shows can be good to augment local content, but local MATTERS to radio. To listeners, as well
as to DJs and talk hosts--who'd like a job, perhaps?

WBZ discovered this when they decided to, at first, junk David Brudnoy in favor of Tom Snyder, and then
later put on Jon Grayson's syndie show in place of Leveille. Listeners complained. Local, local, local.

If you have a lil' bitty station up in Vermont, sure, throw on Pure Country, just a glorified jukebox.
A station just about anywhere in New England can throw on all syndie talk, but these are small
potatoes. They, too, might consider local voices, be it a local country DJ, or a local or
regional talk show (example: True North on WDEV AM and FM in Waterbury and WTWK up in
Burlington http://truenorthradio.com/archives/radio_archive.shtml
 
I'm mostly an observer here, but I guess I'll add my two cents. I doubt an Urban AC or Spanish format would draw any worse ratings than WFNX does on the 101.7 frequency. In fact, there are probably many black-owned and Hispanic-owned businesses in the area who would love an opportunity to advertise on FM radio. Maybe I'm wrong, but it seems to me the current format of WFNX is a complete waste. The target audience for that music is not listening to the radio, as the last poster pointed out. They can get their fix of indie rock on the Internet. Not that I would ever listen to such a station, but LAURO may not be completely crazy. Urban AC wouldn't work on a major frequency, but on something like 101.7 it may not be the worst idea in the world. And it's very possible having a legal urban station on the air could do significant harm to the pirates that exist in inner-city Boston. Fine by me; those who aren't willing to obey the law - whatever that law's merits or lack thereof - need to be cracked down on.
 
A station like 101.7 with nearness to Boston and half decent power could do OK with Spanish or black oriented but I'd think Mindich would want to keep it as is, to reach alternative fans, college students. They sell ads, even if ratings are not the best. In some ways that could be the argument that the younger generation spurns radio, but they must have some listeners...maybe more than ratings show. Is it still true that college students aren't part of ratings because they are transient...move back and forth, in many cases, from home to dorms, as yr goes by?

In 79 or so a short lived mag, Radio Waves (or maybe it was Globe) mentioned that WCAS 740 had a huge amount of college students listening and added, "If college students were to be allowed to take part in ratings, someday Time magazine could be knocking on WCAS's door.'
 
I hate to tell you this but college kids aren't really into alternative anymore in any great numbers. HipHop and Hit Radio seems to be what floats the bulk of their boats today. Alternative has just become another type of Classic Rock with a few artist still cranking out new toons. The bulk of this audience is way out of college years today.

raccoonradio said:
A station like 101.7 with nearness to Boston and half decent power could do OK with Spanish or black oriented but I'd think Mindich would want to keep it as is, to reach alternative fans, college students. They sell ads, even if ratings are not the best. In some ways that could be the argument that the younger generation spurns radio, but they must have some listeners...maybe more than ratings show. Is it still true that college students aren't part of ratings because they are transient...move back and forth, in many cases, from home to dorms, as yr goes by?

In 79 or so a short lived mag, Radio Waves (or maybe it was Globe) mentioned that WCAS 740 had a huge amount of college students listening and added, "If college students were to be allowed to take part in ratings, someday Time magazine could be knocking on WCAS's door.'
Click to expand...
 
RedWingCJS278 said:
I doubt an Urban AC or Spanish format would draw any worse ratings than WFNX does on the 101.7 frequency. In fact, there are probably many black-owned and Hispanic-owned businesses in the area who would love an opportunity to advertise on FM radio. Maybe I'm wrong, but it seems to me the current format of WFNX is a complete waste. The target audience for that music is not listening to the radio, as the last poster pointed out. They can get their fix of indie rock on the Internet.
Click to expand...

Everyone who keeps saying this about WFNX is unaware that the station is not so much about it's own ratings, it mainly exists as a cross-promotional tool for their popular weekly "alternative" entertainment paper "The Boston Phoenix", focused mainly on the "alternative" rock and the college and recently post-college crowd on the young end, through the late '70s-'80s "Gen X'ers" who grew up with "New Wave" in that era on the older end. For that purpose, the "alternative" rock radio format works best.

For at least a decade now, every few weeks, someone different who is unaware of WFNX's co-ownership with the Boston Phoenix entertainment paper comes on to this board suggesting that WFNX go Spanish or Urban AC. It would make sense if WFNX was a standalone station without promotional affiliation with a very popular co-owned weekly "alternative" primarily rock-based entertainment paper, but because of that affiliation, it's not going to happen.

Johnster said:
I hate to tell you this but college kids aren't really into alternative anymore in any great numbers. HipHop and Hit Radio seems to be what floats the bulk of their boats today. Alternative has just become another type of Classic Rock with a few artist still cranking out new toons. The bulk of this audience is way out of college years today.
Click to expand...

There is still a significant young audience for "alternative" rock in Boston, jamming the clubs and concert halls for those bands. "Alternative" rock may have faded somewhat on the national scene, but there's still a vibrant local rock scene here, and in certain other cities.

And, the older end of WFNX and their co-owned Phoenix newspaper's audience are out of their college years, but they are the "Gen X-ers" who grew up with "New Wave" in the '80s and "Grunge" in the '90s, who are now in their 30s and 40s, a prime money demo. The "alternative" format, while never bringing great ratings to 101.7, still works best for their co-owned "alternative" radio/entertainment paper co-promotion.
 
Indie and alternative music is still successful among college kids and actually performs very well with college educated professionals too.

The death of modern rock has been greatly exaggerated. Just because in most markets radio is clueless about what to do with it doesn't mean people aren't listening to the genre. On other platforms. Radio abandoned them about the time it decided Nickelback and their line of third wave post grunge grunters were "modern rock."
 
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