• Get involved.
    We want your input!
    Apply for Membership and join the conversations about everything related to broadcasting.

    After we receive your registration, a moderator will review it. After your registration is approved, you will be permitted to post.
    If you use a disposable or false email address, your registration will be rejected.

    After your membership is approved, please take a minute to tell us a little bit about yourself.
    https://www.radiodiscussions.com/forums/introduce-yourself.1088/

    Thanks in advance and have fun!
    RadioDiscussions Administrators

Times Leader AND Wikipedia report that WNAK

C

carlvenorden

Guest
has indeed switched formats to Spanish effective Oct 15, as I reported in a post below.

This is made more important by the fact that this information came, not from Rt 81 management, but from someone deeply inside another broadcasting Station in Scranton.

I just happened to report on it's possiblity.


I didn't find it so surprising that the Times Leader perhaps got a call asking to announce the switch in format as it apparently was published yesterday. I read the 4 sentence announcement on line but didn't see it personally in the paper.

What I did find surprising was that the wikipedia was already updated to say that WNAK had switched on Oct 15, and this is barely Oct 13 as I write.

As I had guessed in a post from me to Tom Carten, WNAK will indeed simulcast WCDL, which makes sense for two "small" AM stations.

On another note, I found it interesting that one poster guessed that 102.3 The Mountain is doing well and would not flip to Spanish.

While it is true that these AM's will have a difficult time finding advertising immediately, the addition of a FM Spanish formatted station could in fact pick up a lot of it.

If a Spanish FM comes aboard, these AM's will flounder and will be forced, again to flip formats. And to what remains to be seen.

Because of the FM broadcast of WILK, that station has apparently seen an increase in listenership, so it will be a forward-thinking company like Entercom, who will change their FM (or one of theirs) to Spanish, to capture the apparent accounts of Spanish businesses.


While I do not plan to disclose my idea of which FM station will flip to Spanish, as soon as WNAK does on Monday there will be debates as to which one will do it.

It will still be a class A out of the Scranton/WilkesBarre direct area, and all of those signals target the two cities.

When the first FM flips, expect one more to flip as well, with a Spanish, but different type of format.
This will put these two AM's in deep jeopardy.

Northeast PA is changing, at least as far as radio goes as more and more Spanish speaking people move into our counties.
And if I were a radio station owner, I'd be looking at this potenital market in a big way.

Before the year is over, we will have one, and perhaps two Spanish FM's on the air.

What is the future for our AM's?
Well it is not HD. None of them can afford it and so far the experimentation with it seems to be a failure day and night.

I am predicting that, like Canada, the US over the next 5 years will migrate most if not all of the AM stations to the FM dial.....which would leave the AM dial devoid of programming.
What will that leave us??????????
Well, a spacial, very quiet AM dial, and someone will come up for an idea on how to use it.
Those ideas have already been revealed, and they are quite good.

The revitalization of the AM dial will come soon, and my further prediction will be a better sounding, clearer dial, with stations that will surely fill our needs.

But for now, we are looking at a way-different FM dial in the near future than we have right now.

Keep tuned.
 
carlvenorden said:
On another note, I found it interesting that one poster guessed that 102.3 The Mountain is doing well and would not flip to Spanish.


I Didn't Say I Thought 102.3 The Mountain Was Doing Well (Although It Is An Alternative To Rock-107). Just That I Didn't Think It Was Going to Flip To Spanish Due to The Fact That It Is Jim Rising's Baby And Is More Or Less Safe.
 
I don't see Entercom flipping The Mountain to Spainish. First off the station does attract ads, has a very time spent listening number and while it had a bad book last time out, is a perfect part of the overall mix at Entercom. We have to remember in a diary like this, a couple of books landing in the right or wrong hands can mean a big swing in the numbers. As far as being Jim's baby, congrats Jim you gave birth to a great station. :)
 
I am predicting that, like Canada, the US over the next 5 years will migrate most if not all of the AM stations to the FM dial.....which would leave the AM dial devoid of programming.

One could make a decent argument that the AM dial has been devoid of decent programming for 20 years. AM is dead, gone, but some here just will not accept it. 5-6 years ago I'd often get in spirited discussions about digital photography eliminating film. Lots of otherwise sensible people would get apoplectic about how film would never go away. Right. Film is history, and so is AM radio.
 
Carl posted:

If a Spanish FM comes aboard, these AM's will flounder and will be forced, again to flip formats. And to what remains to be seen.

It's called "dark."
 
Re: AM death announcement a bit premature...

Where AM stations have built strong brands, they are valuable as a portal to the internet. When WiMax is built out and automobiles have internet-capable tuners in their dashboards, all the action will be there and the playing field will be leveled. Satellite radio will become an orphaned technology. There are still a multitude of strong well-remembered AM brands around the country, even if they haven't performed in recent years. How many people on this board speak fondly of the former WARM? If someone with foresight bought that station, built a quality product on it and delivered it via internet, they would have a viable, competitive product in the very near future. I disagree with your statement that there's been nothing on AM in the past twenty years. Maybe not in WB-S, but AMs reside among the top stations in plenty of markets around the country. They may be dead as a music delivery conduit, but there's still plenty of cume in places like Denver, Cincinnati, Phoenix, Philadelphia, NYC, Albany, Rochester, Buffalo, Columbus, Cleveland, Detroit, Minneapolis-St. Paul, Chicago, Boston, Providence, Kansas City, Seattle, Portland (both of them), Dallas-Ft. Worth, Syracuse...shall I go on? Certainly, the FCC has done little to help AM (HD at night, the death of AM stereo in the late 70s, etc etc), but they haven't killed it yet.
 
Regarding Carl's comment, and the thought that AM is dead in this market, as well as many others....

I don't know who would flip an FM to spanish in this market...even though in this market we have plenty of stations on both AM and FM....I just do not think that there's a large enough population as of yet to flip an FM to spanish....and I don't think there's going to be enough of one for many many years.....

AM's have typically been able to survive by doing some nitch programming and/or news programming, which people can't get on FM...and I think that's the perfect place for spanish in this market..on AM right now....

Now, if an AM (or AM simulcast) ever manages to get a 2 share here, I think the situation might present itself that an FM might take on this format...but not until....basically all the groups in this market, large and small are doing what makes sense for them to do...who could possibly take on this gargantuan task? Who has the sales force to make it make money? I think we can count on the stations who are doing spanish now, to keep doing it and the rest of the stations will sit around and see what happens....and that's going to be a long wait.

On another note, I am glad that AM radio can find a format (maybe) to serve the public and make money...that's what it's all about!

Ben
 
Ben, actually what I am saying is not what I wish for.

I don't want AM to die as I am a hugely avid AM supporter.

What I should have said was we have way too many FM's here in NEPA and there are some of them who are not doing well at all (format of the month club).

I feel strongly that one of them will flip to Spanish, even if the two current AM's don't get a 2 share.

I had big hopes for both WCDL and WNAK, because, it was "I" who went on record, and said to Ed Histed that I thought the standards formats would work.

Now, I am not saying it was "I" who made it happen, however, I was very wrong and if I had anything to do with those formats overall, I was still wrong.

I feel there are listeners for the format, but I finally accepted the fact that selling it was too difficult, or, not profitable (enough) at all.

Other hand, I wasn't too happy to see WILK take over a FM when they have three good city-grade AM's to deliver their programming.

The list of formats to fill all these stations we have in NEPA is running thin. And of the Scranton area Class A's, who are trying to serve areas outside the city where their signal doesn't reach they are trying too hard.

I've been predicting for a long time on this board, but I don't find that AM simulcasts of FM's (in our market or outside) is a good idea, and even homegrown formats that would appeal to people who MAY indeed stay tuned to an AM station didn't accept a standards format this year, despite the fact they did in the past.
Flipside, if the WILK-FM format succeeds (and it should) this could possibly close down another 3 AM's, because they effectively cover the same landmass.

All news/talk on FM has failed in many areas across the country. But the fact that AM is more and more difficult to recieve on a home radio (car radio too) is disabling the medium as we know it today.

My thoughts on a full service format for AM has not gone away.
When you think back at how WARM was, you will think of a full service format.
What that is today is a "lot of work, and costs a lot of money".

So, here is what programmers have done:
They have decided to try formats that cost little to nothing to produce, expecting huge advertising returns.

They have not decided to go with formats that do cost money to produce, and could produce a superior product, and perhaps gain advertising revenue.

So, what will these several AM stations, and perhaps at least two FM's do with their signal?

Ultimately, to save money, they will go Spanish (or religeon), because it is cheap to do so and the income is a small possibilty.

..............or.................
maybe they will just go country.
And join the other 5ish stations now doing it in this region.

Lets look for a full service AM, that has basic local news and sports, a little bit of generally accepted music and loads of community information for the family, and my prediction will be that it is a winner.

I hope. :)
 
When you think back at how WARM was, you will think of a full service format.

If WARM could have taken its format, cleaned it up, freshened it up, tinkered with it some, then put it on FM, it would have pulled respectable numbers. Just taking it and plopping it on FM was not the way to make it succeed. In fact, didn't they do just that briefly? Seems I recall WARM's signal simul-ed on FM, which only magnified every wart and pimple WARM's line feed had. Without its two tons of processing, WARM's sound was crap. When I was there and in need of an aircheck, you could either run a RTR off the board, or do an off-air skim on a casette deck. I always went with the skim, because taking the board output was horrible.

Speaking of old formats coming alive; I am convinced a BOSS-type format would work again. Just as I said above, it would need updating, freshening, serious adjusting, but I honestly believe it could work. That high-energy approach made radio fun to listen to, and fun to work in, and I do believe there is a place for it one more time.

On the subject of AM's future, I've made it beyond clear that my belief is that it has no future. For those who feel otherwise, consider this; we now have several generations of listeners who don't even know what AM is, they have likely never even so much as experimented with listening to AM, if only out of curiosity. The end is near, very, very near.
 
Whatever listeners WNAK had, are now all gone. I'm sure the new 20 listeners of WNA-Karumba will be very pleased. I listened today...Loved the Spanish guitars, the Jocks didn't say much, (not that I could understand) and the music had a nice beat...I give it a 2
 
Au-Vox said:
Whatever listeners WNAK had, are now all gone. I'm sure the new 20 listeners of WNA-Karumba will be very pleased. I listened today...Loved the Spanish guitars, the Jocks didn't say much, (not that I could understand) and the music had a nice beat...I give it a 2
Ah 1 anna 2 anna......
 
I think that it is good that they went spanish. Ethnick programing may be a lifesavor to local am.
Why not an Indian station. a polka station... how about a jewish station....nith markets with loyal people
 
Nairda said:
They killed it. Bob Nielson must be rolling over right about now.

Bob and his wife used to come in now and again . . .

We liked him!
 
Bob spoke to my Broadcast Management class one time. I introduced him as Attila the Hun; he got a big kick out of that and said, in that voice of his, "Yes, I guess I do go over the edge on the right some times." He did a very good job.
 
Now I'm sitting here trying to remember who it was who used to do the:

"Buy a <insert name of product here> get a pie!"

Priceless....
 
Radiodeity said:
Now I'm sitting here trying to remember who it was who used to do the:

"Buy a <insert name of product here> get a pie!"

Priceless....

Are You Thinking About The Jim Ward "Jacob Kurlancheek Furniture" Spots?

They Had Free Cherry Pies On Washington's Birthday.
 
The AM band is becoming a barren wasteland. As much as it pains me to say, it is the sad truth, being squeezed out between FM, TV, Internet radio, SAT-RAD and MP3 players. What do we have?

1) Brokered: the old "dolla-a-holla". Sell airtime, just in 30 and 60 minute segments instead of second spots.

2) Religious: God sometimes saves AM radio stations.

3) Ethnic: target other groups not being served by the English and Spanish stations.

4) Talk: hunt for the multitude of shows and run your station on the cheap.

5) Sports: Between ESPN, Fox and Sporting News, see #4.

6) News: Outside of KYW, WCBS and WINS, any stations making a legitimate go at 24/7 "all news, all the time"?

7) True Oldies: file under "music on AM".

8) MOR/New Adult Standards: see also point #7.

9) Classic Country: unique, yes. But again, see #7.

That is what has become of the AM band. After the AMs move to FM, HOPEFULLY these locals can be returned to their city of license and serve THEIR community, instead of seeking a larger piece of the pie by subserving a larger market. Also, HOPEFULLY, these stations will be sold on the cheap.
 
Dave McAndrews said:
Radiodeity said:
"Buy a <insert name of product here> get a pie!"
Are You Thinking About The Jim Ward "Jacob Kurlancheek Furniture" Spots?
They Had Free Cherry Pies On Washington's Birthday.

Yup - that's it! Buy a sofa, get a pie. But I think it would sometimes extend to other times of the year too. And of course the pie filling would change with the seasons - apple, peach, pumpkin, etc....

It was such a wonderfully hokey concept - wonder if getting a pie would actually produce sales for the client?

I remember hearing about the Jim Ward pumpkin give-away one year that collapsed the loading dock... another priceless radio story...  :D

(Sorry about hijacking the thread - I'll be quiet now. Thanks for the memory jog...)
 
Status
This thread has been closed due to inactivity. You can create a new thread to discuss this topic.


Back
Top Bottom