WARM Back On???

[Radiodeity]

I still say they should divide up pieces of the land and offer lots for rent and start bringing in the Trailers. With all the central water pipes they would have to run, the ground system would be superb! Plus, since all those trailers are aluminum coated the occupants of said trailers would be protected from an over-abundance of RF energy - at least long enough to grab a few bucks on lot rental until the transmitters finally take the big dirt nap for good.

I can see it now... the entrance signs proclaiming WARM Estates which with all the RF swirling around could be a literal truth...

;D

 

[warmland]

Vince is dead on target. How many of you on these boards ever worked for WARM? I dont mean lately..I mean the old WARM when almost everyone listened to the station and the ratings were through the roof. I will not talk about this anymore on these boards. I was not upset when WARM went off the air. It was not WARM I miss..It's the people I worked with that have now passed away. The older I get the more I appreciate what I have now and what I'm doing now and how I feel now and who my friends are now...The past is gone. Over!!!!!!
[/quote]

Tom, I am glad you are still with us. It was good people like yourself who got me to look at broadcasting. I worked in it for over 34 years and yes, the good old days are gone. At least we can still look back at them days and remember them and the joy they brought.

 

[BaltimoreJack]

Back in the heady days of private ownership by mom & pop operators, WARM (in its current state) would by the type of station an operator would grab to get a foot in the marketplace if larger (read: more expensive) stations were out of reach or not for sale. The radio equivalent of buying a Nova when the Crown Vic is out of your price range.

As such, those operators would pour on the TLC and invest their heart and soul into the station. We see some of that early legacy lives on with the slim minority of AMs that remain relevant and profitable even today. At one time, those stations had owners who REALLY cared, and lived and breathed the station.

Alas, the M & P operators are all but gone, having sold their property to consolidated groups who run a half-dozen stations as one. That said, I would question any group that would sink money into a property like WARM when other stations in the cluster are enduring layoffs, budget cuts and swine flu. If there isn't enough money to go around, why spend it on red herrings? Or blue herrings, for that matter...

Having WARM be a stand-alone would certainly concentrate management attention, although the economics of scale would be lost. One could argue that the consolidated economies of scale may be the ONLY reason WARM continues to exist.

I had to run away for a few days, but I see that for the most part we are still plowing the same old ground. If we rub the bottle hard enough the genie will pop out, and WARM will be Live-Local & Loved again. I'm done with that part of the debate. There's no place left to go. But Jeff, you bring up a good point about Mom & Pop stations. Sure lots of them sold out, and in truth, you couldn't blame them. CC, Citadel, Cumulus, Entercom & others were running around offering people sometimes 10x what their properties were worth. It was hitting the retirement lottery for many of them, I can't blame them for taking the money and running after many years hard work. But there still are those local operators out there who are working hard, and making a go of it. Joe Reilly's operation in Bloomsburg. He runs a nice shop there, and while I doubt anybody (including him) is making that magic 80K number, he's got a nice sounding pair of stations, he's got some local folks employed, and local people seem to have pride in their local radio station. Another guy is Craig Stevens up at WCDO in Sidney, NY. Nice local operation, keeps local people employed and the town loves them. Dave Radigan at WEBO in Owego, NY has taken a station that had long floundered and turned it back to a live & local place. Ben Smith over in Tunkhannock does a good job too. But with the local owner, you've gotta be doing a little of everything. There's no room for ego-driven jocks just doing "their" show. The owner may be doing the morning news, heading out to sell, and then call the night's high school basketball game. In a sense, it's no different than being a farmer, who has work to do from sun up to sunset. It's yours at the end of the day, and you're not working for some clown like Lew Dickey or Fah-Greed Suleman..but there's a hell of a lot of work to do inbetween sunrise & sunset.

 

[Element9]

B-Jack, you nailed it. WARM was once great, but now too much water has passed under that bridge. Good that you gave props to the local guys who had the fortitude to buy a station, work it and serve the locals. The "farmer" analogy was on the mark. Reminds me of Max Yasgur's line when he went on stage at Woodstock, "I'm a farmer..." America needs more farmers.

 

[mrwattson]

No AM station can relive its glory (top 40) years.

I will admit I am not a radio expert and my post may show that.

Here is my thought based on other AM stations I listen to night and day.....

Get a great morning man and go syndication the rest of the day.

Excuse me if WARM already tried that, I am not from the area, or maybe it is already being done on another local AM station in the Scranton area.

I can imagine that syndication does cost some money, but it is the only way AM can survive, because music is certainly not going to bring in the listeners on AM, no matter what.

Hire a GOOD LOCAL morning man that does a great show and then back it up with good talk throughout the day.

People and advertisers will listen, given its good signal.

Just my three cents worth.

 

[BaltimoreJack]

No AM station can relive its glory (top 40) years.

I will admit I am not a radio expert and my post may show that.

Here is my thought based on other AM stations I listen to night and day.....

Get a great morning man and go syndication the rest of the day.

Excuse me if WARM already tried that, I am not from the area, or maybe it is already being done on another local AM station in the Scranton area.

I can imagine that syndication does cost some money, but it is the only way AM can survive, because music is certainly not going to bring in the listeners on AM, no matter what.

Hire a GOOD LOCAL morning man that does a great show and then back it up with good talk throughout the day.

People and advertisers will listen, given its good signal.

Just my three cents worth.

One of the main problems in revitalizing any "used to be" station" not just WARM is that the public at large has most likely forgotten about the station. The newspaper articles about WARM's being off the air proved the point. The story indicated that quite a number of people seemed to think that WARM had "gone out of business" a long time ago. Those of us who inhabit these boards tend to live and breathe radio. It's no different than a board that talks about old Detroit muscle cars. Somebody on a muscle car board could tell you everything there is to know about the 1970 Plymouth Road Runner 440+6. It's important to them. Away from that board most of the population wouldn't even tell you who made the Road Runner and no..it wasn't the automotive division of Warner Brothers! But you see what I mean. So whether it be WARM or some other station of past glory, the new owner would have to be ready to sink some very serious money into promotion to tell people that the station is back and what it is doing. Buying a small ad in a newspaper or buying a single billboard for a month or buying a square on the ad-mat at the local diner isn't going to get it. You must RE-EDUCATE people, and that takes a lot of time. More so in these days when an entertainment consumer has many, many choices to select from. As a whole, radio is very, very guilty of "do what I say, not what I do". A radio sales rep is going to be explaining to a client about the advantages of long-term advertising to create a top of mind awareness of their product. Long term commitment is the key. But what does radio do about promoting itself....OH..there's no money in the budget for that..just tell the PD to increase the in-house promo load. BS!! If perchance all the stars aligned, and the genie did pop out of the bottle, and a new owner had the money to buy WARM & had the cash to make good repairs & had a credit line so he could run the whole place for up to a year without making any money (an old FCC requirement that went away with TComm-96) He would still need a good, serious long-term outside advertising & promotion budget to RE-EDUCATE the public and bring them back.

 

[jondavidvox]

AM Radio Dead? RIP WARM? Come now....

No. Incompetent Radio Management is what's dead...Even now insisting through clenched teeth in twitching death throes that the medium itself is to blame...the economic downturn is to blame...the damn DJ's are to blame...the music...

The Sword never lost a War....It was the One who wielded it.

Quite simply, WARM, and any other Radio outlet for that matter was, is, and always will be an unequivocal statement of the people who operate it....A vehicle waiting to travel exactly where it is steered, and nowhere else.

Throughout the Ages, ABC Radio was the greatest, most profitable Radio company in history. Yet it has been destroyed in less than three years. You can actually own a piece of this once-proud institution for a pathetic fraction of what it costs to buy even a :30-second commercial on any of their languishing stations...pocket change, in fact. E Pluribus Unum....

These over-blown tin gods bent on disaster, attended by their simpering, sycophantic drone acolytes demanded absolute obedience to their every whim....Dispatching those who argued, and laughing about it afterwards.

But now, Harsh Reality has come calling. And has deeply, indelibly, and irrevocably inscribed their names, and the unflinching True History of their infamous work, on the Monument of Inescapable Accountability...Ironically, with razor-sharp, remorseless, diamond-hard steel chisels, formed of breath-taking ignorance, and powered with the irresistable steam of unjustified ego....


....Forever.


Fortunately, We are still here....The Meek, Who will Inherit the Mess.

Cheer up! Be patient, My Friends, and rest up...for We will soon have a mountain of work ahead of us.

Jon-David Wells
The Warmland Radio Show

 

[jeffwoehrle]

Mr. Wells,

With all due respect, I realize that it has become somewhat in vogue to bash business...particularly large business...and blame everything from swine flu to the declining fortunes of AM on the evil Capitalists.

But...

The Sword you mention is an apt metaphor. Many are still wielding the AM sword quite well...slicing and dicing the competition for both revenue and listeners. However, since the advent of FM, many have dropped their swords in favor of the musket.

Is this the fault of AM itself? Certainly not! AM was dominant in the past and still has at least a toe-hold on relevance in more than a few markets. Much like the sword lends itself nicely when your musket is out of balls.

Ahem.

Vinyl records are pretty much dead. Does that mean folks have given up on music? No way. Folks just naturally moved onward and upward to The Next Big Thing. EarPods, Internet and Sat radio are the natural progression of aural entertainment, and in no way reflect poorly on the technologies of the past. But, past they be.

AM's technical limitations, its inherent high cost and inefficient production has been taking its toll on the band for decades. We are now starting to see the dark stations that many of us predicted for years. It was due to come to pass sooner or later, and what better time than a full-blown depression to make every business look for ways to cut out the inefficient and concentrate on the viable.

WARM (and boatloads of other AM stations) served 'Radio' well. It's not their fault that the clicks and pops and white noise are no longer a tolerable nuisance. Coupled with dollars and common sense, the quaint nuisance seems like a pretty good reason to dig the hole.

 

[jondavidvox]

Great Radio/Entertainment/Content wins, regardless of the medium. You simply must know how to do different things....or at least admit that you don't know, and find those who do.

J-D
WRS

 

[hancock]

Did somebody call my name?

 

[DaveWilliams]

Where WARM really missed the boat was when WEJL/WBAX dropped the standards format and went sports, WARM should have picked up that format the NEXT DAY and they'd still be doing better then they are now and grabbed up someone like Harry West to do the morning show. Instead the standards ended up on WEMR/WAZL/WJQV at some point (on an SCA feed for a while) and WARM went down the drain with the talk format. Didn't Radio Disney try to buy WARM a few years ago for a nice sum and Citadel turned it down? At least the Disnery outfit would have spent the money a straightened the place out.

 

[jeffwoehrle]

Agreed that WARM would have made a fine standards station, and lack of jumping on the abandoned format certainly did contribute to the decline.

That said, is it just me or does a disproportionate share of the fabled 'bad management' seem to congregate at AM stations? I mean, the AMs are part of the same groups and management that house successful FM stations, yet the vast majority of AMs continue to decline and die.

Sort of shoots that whole 'bad management' theory right in the butt, no?

Particularly when the format of a successful AM is grabbed by an FM and the FM demolishes the once-dominant AM.

Dunno. Must be something magic in the ether that allows damn near all FMs to find an audience and profitability while damn near all AMs do not.

Nah, it must just be me. ;D

 

[BaltimoreJack]

Agreed that WARM would have made a fine standards station, and lack of jumping on the abandoned format certainly did contribute to the decline.

That said, is it just me or does a disproportionate share of the fabled 'bad management' seem to congregate at AM stations? I mean, the AMs are part of the same groups and management that house successful FM stations, yet the vast majority of AMs continue to decline and die.

Sort of shoots that whole 'bad management' theory right in the butt, no?

Particularly when the format of a successful AM is grabbed by an FM and the FM demolishes the once-dominant AM.

Dunno. Must be something magic in the ether that allows damn near all FMs to find an audience and profitability while damn near all AMs do not.

Nah, it must just be me. ;D

It's not that your so-called "bad management" congregates at AM stations, it is the result of what the corporations spawned by Telecom '96 did when they went on their buying sprees. The corporate groups backed up with plans written by their platoons of CPAs & MBAs essentially only looked at the profits and benefits to be delivered by FM stations. You also need to remember that the entire focus of radio ownership changed in 1996. The focus moved from operating profitable stations for the long term, to changing & flipping stations much like real estate. I have often felt that the new companies were no longer communications or broadcasting companies, they were real estate companies. The emphasis was entirely different than it had been in the entire history of licensed commercial radio. Now armed with their business plans and investment bankers, these companies headed out to purchase FM stations. Unfortunately for them, most of these FMs came as an AM/FM duo. Owners willing to sell, wanted to sell ALL their holdings, not just their most profitable FMs. So you wound up with clusters that housed a number of powerful FMs, and unless a certain AM within the cluster was an unusual winner, the AMs were placed in the back row, with attention lavished on the FMs. NEPA offers a good representative look at what is pretty much in effect across the country. Entercom & Citadel each hold several influential FMs, with other smaller FMs that get less attention, and AMs that in a sense no one in the cluster..or the company care anything about. Costs & staffing levels were cut to maximize profits, and no one along the line really cared what happened to many of the storied AMs who now flounder..or even worse, have just given up, and even gone dark. As I have mentioned before, you cannot continually starve, kick, beat & choke someone and expect them to continue to be healthy. A dozen-plus years later companies like Clear Channel, Citadel, Cumulus & Entercom are finding that while it's fun to eat cake, eating the whole cake at one sitting will make you sick as hell. So now that they are all sick, there's most definately no assets left to recover long-neglected properties like WARM. So they are looking at selling stations. But if you look at the model, it's rather surprising at what you see. You are seeing the rise of small mini-corporations who are built on the same model as the big boyz, only they are buying smaller numbers of stations. BUT..running them with the same cluster mentality. Then, hanging over all of these operations is the cost of money that's needed to buy. While the corporations are selling stations, they are not for the most part, being sold at "fire sale" rates, and so you have the mini-corps doing just what CC & Citadel did..and they're strapped for cash from the get-go. It is likely (and very unfortunate) that the whole structure will have to fail before things begin to shake out. For nearly a year now, we have been seeing the results of choices that we have made in many of our businesses, and in our personal lives..and are finding that we are about to pay for past mistakes. The days of corporate radio may eventually be coming to an end, and we may see some sort of return to local ownership, but in reality it is likely to come too late to save stations, people & formats we love.

 

[jeffwoehrle]

I firmly reject the notion that AM's troubles were caused by management of any kind. The listening public moved on when FM offered different programming and better fidelity. In addition, many AMs were struggling long before '96.

A poster above made mention that content is king. True, unless that content is being offered on a competing FM as well as an AM. In that case, the AM will lose. That's not a management problem. That's simply an AM sucks problem. The listeners make the choice, and NOTHING management can do will force listeners to listen to something that is available elsewhere with better fidelity and fewer problems.

From a business perspective, WARM's signal has often been compared to a B FM. While true back in the day, I challenge anyone to match cost of providing that AM signal versus the cost of providing a commensurate FM signal. Bean counters rule in this situation, as they should. I don't question that many bean counters have been pondering AM's viability for decades. When one looks at any major or medium market ratings, you see the FMs dominate with one or maybe two AMs in the mix. There are plenty of other AMs out there, but they are being carried on the backs of their successful FM siblings...as they have for years. Good for the so-called holy grail of programming diversity? Sure. But at what cost, and for how long? And whose ox gets gored for keeping the lights on and the transmitter fans running for stations that damn near nobody cares about.

Reality is a tough pill to swallow. Witness the continuing attempts to keep Chrysler alive at any and all cost. WARM's earlier darkness offered a glimmer of hope to this realist. Hope that the bandwagon of 'SAVE AM!' was slowing down. That maybe, SOMEBODY will realize that no amount of nostalgia lipstick can make a pig anything but a pig.

Alas, it appears the old corpse that is WARM is propped up yet again, belching its pungent programming out for a half-dozen listeners to enjoy. Bravo, Citadel! Keep burning through that money! America is fast becoming the land where nothing is ever allowed to fail, no matter how putrid, pointless and pitiful.

Because we just can't stand to see it happen.

 

[BaltimoreJack]

For the most part, humans only accept change when it doesn't interfere with their view of life. Most of the people on this board tend to believe if only WARM would come back..then The Boston Store would re-open and the the trains would run again, and people would be employed in unionized coal jobs, and there wouldn't be any hispanics in the area to muck up the natural order of things and on & on & on. Your assertion that AM is inferior to FM is correct. People moved on. They moved on to FM and to I-Pods and the computer. The fact that there are AM stations in this country that are doing well, has nothing to do with the fact that for the most part, AM isn't a large part of radio listening anymore. There are very few folks who are sitting breathlessly around the Philco waiting for the latest weather..news or school closings. There are also not a lot of people out there driving around in 1957 Buick Roadmasters. PEOPLE MOVED ON. You can't turn the clock back. WARM will never again be a winner, and if you really look at the statistics...take the wool from your eyes and REALLY look..radio listenership is falling...fading...going away. It's not going-going-gone..but people are making other..more technologically current choices. You can listen to music on your Verizon cell phone. I'm sorry radio's going away. I'm not some bitter troll who's mad at the world..I'm looking at the reality of the situation, and the bottom line is...time & technology are marching on...and AM radio's winding up farther and farther in the back of the parade line. I have a feeling it won't be more than a decade before this board is discussing a thread titled..."What we will do to bring back XXXX-FM??" Time marches on........

 

[BaltimoreJack]

I saw a very interesting short video tonight. The Prez was addressing a health-care organization about efforts to "get the word out" about the potential dangers of swine flu. In the video it was stated that the government would be spending it's largest amount of resources on MySpace, Facebook & Twitter to make swine flu information available. I think this points out a lot about where radio is headed in the long run.....

 

[mrwattson]

Who was on the talk format that failed on WARM?

Does anyone remember what syndicated shows were on? Was it progressive talk, conservative talk, .....

 

[mrwattson]

I guess WILK pretty much covers the conservative talk format for the region, leaving WARM pretty out in the COLD for talk.

 

[jeffwoehrle]

I guess WILK pretty much covers the conservative talk format for the region, leaving WARM pretty out in the COLD for talk.

Which pretty much mirrors other markets as well. One, maybe two AM stations garner significant ratings, while ten or twelve others show little for their efforts. Now, a single-stick daytimer with 250 watts can carve out a little revenue for itself with a niche format, and maybe even turn a little profit. But when the physical plant is as imposing as WARM, the expenses create a minimum spot price that is unattainable unless it is one of the one or two AM stations in the market that get top ratings.

The odds against AM are steep.

 

[BaltimoreJack]

I guess WILK pretty much covers the conservative talk format for the region, leaving WARM pretty out in the COLD for talk.

Which pretty much mirrors other markets as well. One, maybe two AM stations garner significant ratings, while ten or twelve others show little for their efforts. Now, a single-stick daytimer with 250 watts can carve out a little revenue for itself with a niche format, and maybe even turn a little profit. But when the physical plant is as imposing as WARM, the expenses create a minimum spot price that is unattainable unless it is one of the one or two AM stations in the market that get top ratings.

The odds against AM are steep.

There are a lot of talkers out there. BUT...the only way you're going to cut it is to have the "First-String" on your station. About 6 years ago WARM dropped yet another weak attempt at oldies and put on talk. But WILK already had Rush, and they were doing some local talk, so round #1 went to WILK. But...then WARM managed to pick up Sean Hannity, and so it kept WILK from getting that deadly combination and just crushing WARM's talk attempt. At that point, between the 2 stations other program offerings..such as baseball, college football and local sports, (At that time both WARM & WILK were doing a certain amount of local HS football & basketball) the audience levels were marginally the same. But then here came the knock-out. Route 81 had originally wanted to buy WARM when it bought WCDL, WAZL & 94-3 from Citadel. It never wanted WNAK. BUT....when they actually did the due dilligence, their company engineer, the well-respected Jeff DePolo told them that they had two options on WARM "Buy it..ot Fix it..but you can't afford to do both". During this time, Farid was so absolutely certain WARM would be gone that he instructed Jules Riley to cancel all of WARM's program contracts at the end of August 2003. She did, Lloyd couldn't be convinced to buy WARM and so now WARM had cancelled all it's talk contracts. WILK immediately picked up Hannity giving them the full knock out punch in talk radio..
Rush followed in tandem by Hannity. WARM was able to keep the rest of it's line up of 2nd & 3rd string talkers because nobody wanted them..and the race was totally over. For whatever reason, the only talk that consistently works on radio..especially AM radio..is conservative talk and for that you need Rush, Hannity, O'Reilly & Savage. Since those are all sewed up in NEPA, you'd have a hard time making your way against WILK with what's available from USA Radio, Salem and the others.