radioskeptic said:
This is a cultural disaster.
It's a big step down -- though not quite as bad as the debacle Robert Conrad arranged for Cleveland's WCLV a few years back, when he swapped their Class B metro signal for a Class A "rimshot" several miles west in Lorraine, OH (and "a ton of money"). At least this one is a Class B-1, and it's still on the same tower in the city (even if it is licensed to Newark).
The COL is actually spelled Lorain, but "Sweet Lorraine" was used as a sign-on message for Lorain licensed WUAB-TV for years.
Conrad was in that position from the get-go. All other independent stations in town were sold to Clear Channel, CBS, AMFM or Radio One one year earlier, and the only other local station left was licensed to Elyria! The 95/5 (so denoted for years in advertising) signal, while it suffers from an equally powerful co-channel in Detroit and adjacent channel in Norwalk, was a prized frequency. It was a protection move.
However... WCLV's original plans were to be on both the AM and FM stations they obtained with the trade. The FM station was for simulcast and relay purposes of what was a decent 5,000 AM station that had a decent signal pattern (in spite of years of letting maintenance at the tx/ground system slide). The AM station was to be retained by Robert Conrad's Radio Seaway, while the FM was to be donated to a non-profit that would LMA back to WCLV.
Then... Salem Communications decided to shutter WRMR, a heritage adult standards station, b/c the deal left them with one less AM signal (although they received WCLV's original 95/5 signal in return). A public outcry from WRMR's listener base - which was better than most of those with the format, even then - prompted Conrad to acquire WRMR's format, intellectual property and music library for a nominal fee two weeks before the switch, placing it on the AM station.
It was a good PR move. And people did applaud it back then... myself included. But the FM station could only cover the Cleveland market proper from the west side - the original tower was located in adjacent Sheffield Township directly south of Lorain. A new tower about ten miles closer to Cleveland was planned well before this occurred, and was turned on the minute of the switch. But WCLV has a diaspora of listeners from the east side of Cleveland... including University Circle, where Severance Hall is located. As a contingency, WCLV-FM signed an agreement with faded AC WBKC-AM in Painesville to simulcast WCLV's programming outside of AMD.
The standards format, however, didn't work out. Not that WCLV-AM could be blamed for trying... but with the switch, WCLV-AM's playlist was opened up too wide, including 30's and 40's songs and show tunes, skewering an even older audience than the format commanded. In spite of a call letter switch of WCLV-AM to the old WRMR calls 15 months later, and even with a readjusting of the format to a playlist Citahell "Timeless" channel seems to have taken a cue from now (PD Jim Davis ran the MOYL service for many years), the early mistakes were such that they could not recover from.
Conrad gave up on WRMR, selling it back to Salem (where it became conservatalk WHK). In an eerie sense, WRMR's signature personality, Bill Randle, died one day after the sale... his final show was VTed two days later, on WRMR's final day of existence.
WCLV's simulcast arrangement with WBKC was ended in late 2006 when an ownership change flipped it to gospel music as WABQ.
