WBEN Setting Its Sights On FM?

[Element9]

You've got to hand it to Entercom and WBEN. The company plays hardball and takes no prisoners when it comes to extinguishing the commercial news-talk competition and protecting WBEN AM 930. When Entercom purchased the Sinclair properties in Buffalo years ago, it wasted no time changing the WGR format to sports. When WHLD rattled Entercom's cage with a feckless venture into progressive news talk, WBEN retaliated by putting a progressive line-up of satellite talkers on co-owned WWKB. When WECK was purchased by Culver Communications and turned to talk earlier this year, WBEN flexed its muscle and pulled Sean Hannity away from Culver's WLVL, adding the slant-headed right wing tautologist to WBEN's late night line-up. Now comes word, unconfirmed but from reasonable sources, that Entercom is exploring the idea of putting WBEN's news-talk format on an FM signal well before Arbitron's PPM technology arrives in the Buffalo market. Arbitron notes that PPM will be rolled out in markets #1-#50, but informed sources speculate that PPM may debut in Buffalo, market #52, in 2011 or 2012. The question is, what FM signal would be chosen to carry the WBEN format? Star 102.5 is a highly rated AC station that generates bushles of revenue. Kiss 98.5 likewise, is very successful in the CHR arena. One doubts that Entercom would entrust WBEN to the weak-signaled 107.7 frequency. So the question is, will Entercom make a play for the Regent properties in Buffalo, perhaps picking off two strong Regent FM signals and spinning the remaining two plus its own 107.7 to another company, then putting WBEN on one of the newly acquired Regent FM's? WYRK and WBUF would be the strongest and weakest of Regent's Buffalo litter respectively, WYRK staying the course with its higly successful, market-leading Country format while the WBEN news-talk format transitions to the 92.9 frequency. Talk may be cheap, but not when its future is on FM. Entercom has executed a similar news-talk format shift from AM to FM on its properties in New Orleans.

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[fybush]

It's almost a shame that WBEN, unlike so many AMs, never (at least to my recollection) branded itself with an abbreviated version of its AM frequency, i.e. "93 WBEN." It would have made the transition from AM 93 to FM 93 a snap...

 

[Mike Sheridan]

107.7 might surprise you if it was mono. Turning off the stereo genrator often increases coverage.

 

[Savage]

Not a lot though, in my experience. 107.7's problem is, it's located in the Southern Tier, and coverage in one of Buffalo's two metro counties, Niagara, isn't good. WBIV (!) has better coverage in much of Rochester than it does in key parts of the Buffalo metro. Plus IIRC there's a Canadian interference problem.

 

[Radknowski]

WBIV? Wow! There's a blast from the past. Is there any Buffalo-Rochester FM frequency which has had as many call letters? Going back: WFNF, WRRL, WBIV WUWU, WBYR, WBMW, WEZQ, WNUC, (three call letter changes during the John Cascianni era) WNSA, WLKK... BTW, even in mono 107.7 isn't a penetrating signal. When the power goes out the signal has to be strong enough to be received on cheap six transistor AM-FM radio in the basement of a home on Buffalo's west side. This is WBEN's strong suite right now.

 

[SirRoxalot]

Maybe They'll Put Them on HD-3

Last I heard, Buffalo was actually a bright spot for Regent, despite the cost of debt service from their acquisition. Regent itself may be in trouble, though.

There was a push by a company that bought enough Regent stock to force their way onto the board. They wanted Regent to reduce debt by selling off some markets. There was some shareholder dissatisfaction with the Buffalo purchase because of the cost. There's less dissastisfaction with the performance of the Buffalo market since they have several very strong properties - WYRK, WJYE, and WBLK. WBUF may be underperforming when measured by their signal, but they're cheap to run and bundle well with other properties.

There appears to be little advantage to trying to sell stations at current prices. There may actually be more profit available from operating that there is from selling, and smaller markets that don't depend on big agency buys are more stable than large markets. Regent may be better positioned to survive than somebody like Citadel, who appears to have bit off far more than they can chew with the ABC "merger".

Entercom is doing comparatively well, and Buffalo is one of their most successful markets. I'm sure that they would like to reinforce their stranglehold, but I'm not sure that they'll have the opportunity in the short term, and there's significant opposition to further consolidation of broadcast assets lining up in both Congress and the FCC in the mid-to-long term.

WBEN might like to be on FM, but I don't perceive it as vital to their particular format. Their format is targeted 35+, and their median audience is likely over 50. Those folks are more than familiar with AM, and WBEN has a dandy signal in the metro. I'm not sure that moving the current format to FM will offer any real advantage. If they were to skew younger, and try moving toward "hot" talk, then maybe being on FM would have more impact. They may move in that direction when Beach retires, but that appears to be at least a few years away.

In other words, I'm not saying that it couldn't happen, but it seems unlikely right now.

 

[Bob1370]

Don't see WBEN doing an FM simulcast for another reason besides the fact that most of the Buffalo cluster's FMs are healthy. The AM is a healthy frequency in its own right, able to give substantially full market coverage 24/7. They could conceivably make things a little better by bumping up power to 10,000 watts (which I've been told they could do with minimum modification to the Grand Island plant over and above installation of new transmitters) but they're OK as is.

Maybe a 107.7 simulcast helps them marginally on the fringe and gets them more solidly into Rochester, but that's just bonus coverage which isn't likely to lead to much bonus revenue.

 

[Steven21]

WBEN has barely one host who would have hopes of benefitting from FM exposure, and he's not evn on during the daytimne. So I'm not sure an FM appearance is going to help that much overall, especially at this point in time.

People who don't bother to listen to talkradio, don't listen because of the reputation that talkradio has as being a stuffy right-wing propaganda machine.

Will putting 'BEN on FM, allowing younger people to discover it and change all that?

Everybody already KNOWS there's an AM band--WGR proves that during hockey season. Anybody willing to listen to the B&B boys is already listening. Those who don't, probably won't on FM either.

 

[TVJunkie12]

They could conceivably make things a little better by bumping up power to 10,000 watts (which I've been told they could do with minimum modification to the Grand Island plant over and above installation of new transmitters) but they're OK as is.

Actually WBEN has a Harris DX10 running at 1/2 power as their main transmitter.

 

[Yeziknoradio]

Maybe a 107.7 simulcast helps them marginally on the fringe and gets them more solidly into Rochester, but that's just bonus coverage which isn't likely to lead to much bonus revenue.

Can they run seperate ads on the FM?
If there is an area that the FM (107.7?) can reach as an FM mono station that the AM does not, perhaps they can run separate ads that better target those communities?

Just a guess...

 

[OttoM]

Maybe a 107.7 simulcast helps them marginally on the fringe and gets them more solidly into Rochester, but that's just bonus coverage which isn't likely to lead to much bonus revenue.

Can they run seperate ads on the FM?
If there is an area that the FM (107.7?) can reach as an FM mono station that the AM does not, perhaps they can run separate ads that better target those communities?

Just a guess...

It's easily doable from a technical and administrative perspective.

The question is whether or not enough unique sales for FM can be made to justify it.

 

[Philip_Airtime]

I've been away on vacation and just saw this thread. In response to Scott Fybush's post, I do recall that when WBEN was trying to compete with KB in 1977 by targeting a younger audience they branded themselves "93-BEN." That was just silly! Fortunately, as Bob1370 can attest to, Larry Levite took over a year later and had the sensibility to bring back the full call letters while brightening the station's overall sound to keep the younger crowd interested. AM or FM, WBEN should be WBEN!

 

[SirRoxalot]

One more thought....

If WBEN were thinking of going to FM, or simulcasting on FM, why would they give up the rights to WBEN-FM to a station in Philly?

 

[qman]

Ipersonally think that calls that duplicate should stay in the same market. If there's a WBEN-AM in Buffalo, there should not be a WBEN-FM elsewhere. And, beside the heritage KDKA and KYW, why don't we have more calls starting with "K" east of the Mississippi? I thought the de-regulation allowed for that. Just wondering!

 

[w9wi]

Ipersonally think that calls that duplicate should stay in the same market. If there's a WBEN-AM in Buffalo, there should not be a WBEN-FM elsewhere. And, beside the heritage KDKA and KYW, why don't we have more calls starting with "K" east of the Mississippi? I thought the de-regulation allowed for that. Just wondering!

The FCC did propose to relax that regulation a few years ago. The industry said no. I have no idea why.