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WBCB AM

V

Vinnie2021

WBCB AM is still on the air serving bucks burlington and mercer county. Sadly though WBCB is automated half of the time now. Its live from 6 am weekdays till 5pm then if the phillies arent playing it goes to automation till the next morning. Saturdays bcb is live from 9 am till 1 then goes automated till 6 the is live until midnight unless the phils ae playing, Sundays with the exception of the Phillies its totally automated , and in the automation is a recorded broadcast of Calvary Church around 10am.

All of these changes are a result of the pandemic, but some of this has been happening for a while. Its sad that the live and local 24/7 format has come to an end in favor of automation, i hope that this isnt a sign of a sale down the road to a religious , catholic or spanish or ethnic lanuage broadcaster who will turn the station into another outlet featuring a format that is already heard on 1000s of other stations around the usa that you can pick up on the internet or dxing..

Remember WBUD AM in Trenton Ewing 15 years or so ago did the same thing automated the station most of the time, and claimed they are just scaling back a little, only for them to be sold to catholic broadcasters 2 years later and becoming a non player in the market with the same format heard on a lot of stations.

I hope and pray that WBCB isnt headed in that same direction, they are legendary in their high school sports coverage and sports coverage in general and have great vibrant personalities, it would be sad to see it go, I hope it can be saved and returned to live and local status, it would be a travesty to lose the last local outlet that cares for mercer bucks and burlington counties.
 
As much as I hate seeing so many local stations automating more and more hours, it seems like - even with pandemic - WBCB is still doing more live and local than many others. So many are fully automated after morning drive on weekdays, if they are even live in the morning. I’m thankful that WBCB has as much live time as they do, considering.
 
Yes in some aspects, but they do a lot of local talk shows with heavy community focus, still it was rather shocking that when the pandemic hit they cutback even more on what they were doing.

I doubt many of the shows currently on hiatus , will come back, I could be proven wrong but the owners might be saving money by automation.

Sundays i probably could see them just automate the day.
 
Where I think that becomes challenging is selling it over the long term, enough so to pay the bills (setting aside the brokered time model as a separate conversation). Is there enough (or for how long will there be enough) interest in “local” talk shows? Much of that information can be migrated more cost effectively to other platforms.

What’s left? The Geator? Randomly incongruous music shows? Streaming can resolve some of the AM issue, sure. But sooner or later reality catches up.
 
It's a good radio station as far as some of the programming and that old school local radio feel. However, their format is all over the road and lots of shows, including The Geator's, are re runs. It is( at least here in the Trenton, NJ/Mercer County area) the last of the old school local radio stations. It sort of reminds me of WHWH back in the 80's/early 90's.
 
Honest question: does old school feel really cut it now? I would never go back to the style of radio I listened to back in my questionably spent youth. Am I alone?
 
AbrahamJSimpson said:
Honest question: does old school feel really cut it now? I would never go back to the style of radio I listened to back in my questionably spent youth. Am I alone?
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The past is a wonderful place to visit, but no place to live. Would I listen to a screaming Q-format jock for longer than it took for the novelty to wear off? I'm going with no.
 
Update: More reruns on wbcb, some nights there are repeats of the saturday night oldies show, and this morning was a repeat of a previous polka show recorded almost 2 months ago, plus sometimes the dj engineer forgets to turn off the internet feed of wbcb when the phils are done. Sometimes infomercials air in drive time and overnights.

W BCB has fallen apart all these signs are pointing towards a sale of the station to relgious or ethnic broadcasters who will just turn a legendary station into another signal for hollar for a dollar preachers, and or spanish oldies/talk rumba , or even christian adult contemporary.

BCB if it is truly going down, served its community well for 60 plus years, and also served Mercer and Burlington with local sports and talk show designed for those communties once WTTM/WBUD/WHWH sold out and became virtual non players in the market.

So sad that WBCB might be headed down the non commercial route, does radio really need another outlet for shouting preachers, and ethnic shows? We have 10000s of stations with that format already on radio and tune in.
 
IF someone is interested, the owner of WBCB should quickly sell to one of the parties you mention. However, something tells me that there is limited interest in a low-powered, high on the dial AM station that has few to no listeners.
 
Legendary seems perhaps an exaggeration.
Regardless, it’s simple economics.

And so what if an ethnic or religious audience is served? Is that somehow bad? Who’s really being well served now?
 
Vinnie2021 said:
Update: More reruns on wbcb, some nights there are repeats of the saturday night oldies show, and this morning was a repeat of a previous polka show recorded almost 2 months ago, plus sometimes the dj engineer forgets to turn off the internet feed of wbcb when the phils are done. Sometimes infomercials air in drive time and overnights.

W BCB has fallen apart all these signs are pointing towards a sale of the station to relgious or ethnic broadcasters who will just turn a legendary station into another signal for hollar for a dollar preachers, and or spanish oldies/talk rumba , or even christian adult contemporary.

BCB if it is truly going down, served its community well for 60 plus years, and also served Mercer and Burlington with local sports and talk show designed for those communties once WTTM/WBUD/WHWH sold out and became virtual non players in the market.

So sad that WBCB might be headed down the non commercial route, does radio really need another outlet for shouting preachers, and ethnic shows? We have 10000s of stations with that format already on radio and tune in.
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I'm not sure how this is a surprise. The whole AM band is on life support anyway - with the FM translators being the machine. I give props to them they even have local stuff. Many smaller AMs are nothing but syndicated talk.
 

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Legendary ill be the first to admit is an exxageration . WBCB AM 1490 original main purpose was to serve the lower bucks area like wbux served central bucks county and wnpv served Montgomery County.It served it purpose. Now with all technologies we have at our disposal , it probably isnt needed any longer, and the owners are having a tough time selling the property cause of the very high am frequency, the asking price and the low listenership.
 
Can it get any worse? WBCB's terristrial air signal is OFF THE AIR thats right OFF THE AIR this afternoon from 3pm til 7pm for transmitter maintenence. This is the drive time shift where a dj should be there providing music for the ride home and news, sports, weather and traffic information . Not a time to do transmitter work, that work should be confined to overnights from midnight till 6am when the listernership is low to none.
 
Vinnie2021 said:
Can it get any worse? WBCB's terristrial air signal is OFF THE AIR thats right OFF THE AIR this afternoon from 3pm til 7pm for transmitter maintenence. This is the drive time shift where a dj should be there providing music for the ride home and news, sports, weather and traffic information . Not a time to do transmitter work, that work should be confined to overnights from midnight till 6am when the listernership is low to none.
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I was thinking the same thing. I have the station on as we speak. I ask questions on their fb page, but to no avail or the post gets removed. This isn't the first time it has happened. Perhaps this is the only time they can get a crew to fix things.
 
The cynic in me would say all three folks in the nursing home may miss it, but more practically, its unlikely someone said it was the ideal time. sometimes you make less than ideal choices because the circumstances are less than ideal.
 
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