WBEN On Top

[AndrewLawson]

According to the latest Arbitrends in Radio & Records, WBEN again leads the market. Despite the Saturday line-up of paid shows from plumbers and dentists, the WBEN news department was on top of things when bad weather hit Buffalo on Saturday morning. As usual, the FM stations were pitiful. How the heck is WECK going to stack up to WBEN, WNED-AM and WBFO in times of extreme weather and local events.

 

[Bob1370]

No shock there, WBEN always shines when the snow flies, as it has for the last 30 years. I'd be willing to bet a lot of the weather emergency SOP manual that Jim McLaughlin developed for us in 1978 is still in use today. (And that in turn was based on the procedure manual he set up for KB back in the early 70s which took it to the top in the books immediately following the Blizzard of 77.) What worked then is still valid now.

Of course, today's WBEN has an added advantage now, that we did NOT have back in 1978--namely no commercial competition. We not only had to meet overall listener expectations, we had to do it better than WGR, WEBR (noncommercial, but programmed like WINS and just as professional as a NYC all-newser) and WKBW, all of which were well equipped and motivated to challenge us with top shelf staffs and (especially after KB's move to Delaware Avenue in 1978) first rate facilities for the time.

 

[Steven21]

The continued success of WBEN should serve as a lesson to those companies that have mastered the art of de-emphaszing local for the sake of cheap homogenization.

One thing all those altrenative audio sources CANNOT be, is local.

When it comes right down to it, if you want to know what's going on in WNY, you tune to 930 AM.

That says a lot.

Any CEO's care to notice???

 

[Yeziknoradio]

The continued success of WBEN should serve as a lesson to those companies that have mastered the art of de-emphaszing local for the sake of cheap homogenization.

One thing all those altrenative audio sources CANNOT be, is local.

When it comes right down to it, if you want to know what's going on in WNY, you tune to 930 AM.

That says a lot.

Any CEO's care to notice???

That's exactly it though. The competition was bought. WGR was the better news leader.
When there's no choice, the only choice comes out on top.

 

[Steven21]

That's exactly it though. The competition was bought. WGR was the better news leader.
When there's no choice, the only choice comes out on top.

You missed the point entirely.

Yes, eliminating competition is a good way to be dominant, but in the bigger picture, LOCAL is radio's strength. Let's remember there are companies who eliminate the competition and then de-emphasize local.

And while we are talking about a newstalk station, the same lesson can be learned for, or applied to, any music stations who think having local air personalities is an unneccessary expense.

Industry leaders/decisionmakers who don't understand this point obviously don't understand the product they are in the business of providing.

Talk about ingredients for long-term failure.

God, is there even a chance that one of these fat-cats ever peruses industry messageboards (in his underwear of course) to take even the quickest look at what those in the trenches are saying?

Probably not.

Then again, if they saw all the typos and overall idiocy by their "employees" they'd feel even more justified in thinning the herd.