• Get involved.
    We want your input!
    Apply for Membership and join the conversations about everything related to broadcasting.

    After we receive your registration, a moderator will review it. After your registration is approved, you will be permitted to post.
    If you use a disposable or false email address, your registration will be rejected.

    After your membership is approved, please take a minute to tell us a little bit about yourself.
    https://www.radiodiscussions.com/forums/introduce-yourself.1088/

    Thanks in advance and have fun!
    RadioDiscussions Administrators

WBGO and WFUV differ in their approach toward newscasts in morning drive

B

BruceNYC

I regularly listen to and donate to WBGO and WFUV which are excellent not-for-profit radio stations. They differ in their approach to newscasts in morning drive.

I regularly listen to WFUV from 6:25 AM until 7:10 AM. Until recently the station had a brief newscast at 6:50 AM. For the last week or so this newscast was dropped. Several years ago, the station dropped NPR news but kept a local newscast. I don't know if this situation is permanent or temporary. Is the station trying to cut its costs by eliminating newscasts or is there evidence the listeners turn to another station to avoid hearing the news?

Later in the morning, I listen to WBGO which plays jazz. There is an NPR newscast at the top of the hour followed by local news. At the bottom of the hour, there is only local news.

I remember in the 1960s WABC had news at :25 and :55 while WMCA's newscasts were at :00 and :30. When WABC had news, I would switch to WMCA and visa versa.
 
I don't see the point of putting lots of news on specialist music stations. Particularly during the pandemic and the current situation, where the news is pretty relentlessly grim, I think there are a large number of people who actively don't want regular newscasts (Roe v Wade getting trashed, crazy guy Putin waving his missiles around, doom and death and destruction) while getting their daily fix of AAA or jazz.

For those who want news, there are multiple public and commercial news stations, plus (of course) the ubiquitous smartphone, apps and internet. It's not like there's a shortage of news in 2022, and I don't think people are tuning into these stations for news, so why not drop it and do something else?
 
If you're a contributor, why don't you contact them and ask them? I think it's reasonable as a paying supporter to expect a response to a question like that.

My guess is that it's not a budget cut but that the station did some research and determined listeners/supporters would rather hear music without news in the morning.
 
I'm still one of the odd/old ones who prefers news in the morning with music. I actually prefer a newscast many times throughout the day with a music format, but that is almost non-existent these days, and 99% of music stations wouldn't touch that I'm sure. WXRT in Chicago had at one time an excellent News Department, which went perfectly (IMO) with their progressive rock/AOR/AAA format. I think that also applied to WBCN at one time too, and probably many other progressive rock radio stations many years ago. Ratings, especially in the PPM world, I'm sure have now dictated (more than ever) that news in music formats was becoming a tuneout. WXRT, even within the past few years, finally eliminated news in morning drive. So did Boston's Classical WCRB. I am glad WFMT and WQXR still provide news during morning drive. So I wouldn't doubt that both WBGO and WFUV are doing a little tweaking, and either reducing or eliminating news in morning drive. These days WFUV is very polished, as compared to even a few years ago. Somebody somewhere is responsible for making these changes. I wouldn't be surprised if both WFUV and WBGO were being consulted in some form or another. Funny thing about WXRT; their former morning drive newswoman (Mary Dixon) then moved on to morning drive at cross-town News/NPR WBEZ, and (coincidentally?) saw WBEZ's ratings skyrocket. This is just a hunch, but it's possible that many listeners found Mary Dixon's reporting so reliable, and her voice possibly comforting on WXRT, that they followed her over to WBEZ.
 
Last edited:
I listen to WFUV when I first wake up and get dressed and eat breakfast. It is useful to me to have a short newscast so that I know that nothing outrageous happened overnight. I don't expect WFUV to provide in-depth coverage. If I want that I can turn to WINS, WCBS-880, or turn on a news program on TV.
 
Miss Tuned said:
I don't see the point of putting lots of news on specialist music stations.
Click to expand...

I don't see brief news updates in drive time as "lots of news." It's something that WBGO has done since the beginning. It was founded with the idea of being a community station with jazz and news. It's part of the mission statement.

We are committed to providing our community with independently produced music programming and journalism for the purpose of public enrichment, entertainment, and insight.
Click to expand...

At one time they ran Morning Edition from 10 to 12AM and All Things Considered at 6PM. They've dropped a lot of the NPR programming, but I think they take the role of being a community station seriously.
 
When I listened to WFUV at 4:55 PM today there was a brief newscast. There hasn't been one in AM drive for about two weeks.
 
Status
This thread has been closed due to inactivity. You can create a new thread to discuss this topic.


Back
Top Bottom