Traffic reports on WMTX

[iimutt]

What is with the new traffic report format on Mix 100.7?

I relied on that station for my traffic information and Daisy Ash did an awesome job of covering the area.

Now, it seems her reports are just a few seconds in the morning. The intro seems longer than the actual traffic report. In a few cases, the reports are even skipped.

In the afternoon, Kristy Knight seems to be covering for her when I listen in.

Daisy is one of the main reasons I listen to Mix in the morning. Gary McHenry does an excellent job on the MJ show and his reports seem to be longer than Daisy's now.

What happened?

 

[Parttimer]

(cue the O'Jays....) money money money money.......MONEY....

Privatization of CC leads us closer to the ultimate jukebox.....

If they could figure out a way to feed 1,000 stations from somebody's iPod they'd do it.

 

[frankberry]

It wouldn't be an iPod ... it would be a cheaper knockoff ... and they would trade it out!

 

[billalm]

I heard this nonsense one afternoon as well. Although I won't go as far as saying Daisy was "awesome", I'm of the belief that this is one of the areas where cost cutting is just getting plain silly. Honestly, how much money are you really gonna save by having your jocks read their own traffic reports? Not only will the majority of em not give a crap, but most will probably report incorrectly and flat out sound embarressing (However the one I heard Kristy Knight do was remarkably well done.) Seems to me if you're gonna cut staff and traffic is where you want to do it, why not pear it down to a couple good reporters that feed generic reports to the entire cluster. This appears to be what they're doing over at Cox as one afternoon I heard the same guy reading the same report on 101.5 and 102.5 at almost the same time. It was obviously recorded for playback at the beginning of the stopsets.

 

[CCB]

This has nothing to do with money. Clear channel traffic in Tampa, has taken on MANY new markets to do traffic for. Other cities all over the state. With the same number of reporters, this makes things difficult when those reporters already had full schedules of reports to do (they have to change things around to accomadate more now)... Also the programming dept. has been leaning towards jocks doing their own reports for formatting reasons. So given both reasons.... you will notice more jocks covering traffic than in the past.

 

[RickSklar77]

Bottom line is this: Does an average listener care who delivers the traffic report, or do they care about the accuracy of the report?

One step further: Given a choice, would an average listener rather have a stumbling, poorly delivered but accurate report, or a smoothly delivered but innacurate report.

CC has chosen wisely (imho).

And on 100.7, they've also wisely kept Nancy Alexander from doing the traffic. I can only imagine.... "... this morning on my way into work, my car sideswiped another vehicle on 275, but I'm pretty sure I wasn't drinking..."

Sorry. Kidding. Sorta.

 

[Studio20]

Leaving the FM on an almost permanent scan on my way to work, I've noticed that the content of the Mix reports have been squeezed to add more sponsors than a Nextel Cup car...its pretty much down to just intersections where the problems are. Trouble with that is, if i'm not 100 percent familiar with Tampa or St Pete...and I don't have a GPS on board...I no longer hear options about how to avoid the trouble spots.

I actually got for free one of those traffic radios that ex Lightning Brian Bradley put out...and even though it was Metro, I was far more informative that what passes for most traffic reports these days.