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WBVP AM 1230 In Radio World

W

WCWalker

Guest
The July 6 edition of Radio World has an excellent story about the history of WBVP AM of Beaver Falls written by Don Kennedy. Check it out if you have a chance.
 
This is a reply to a post that was started 2.5 Years ago. Isn't that neat?!?!?! Okay, a little bored on my part.

I think used to be a be a glory station in her old day, but now days with around 40 stations competing in the Pittsburgh market at WBVP not really reaching too many people especially in Beaver County especially an audience under 65, its going to struggle against KDKA and others.

I wonder what it would take to be an on air host on WBVP...hmmm........
 
WBVP used to kick it back in the day. They probably peaked in the '80s. It was a stable place to work and people hung in long-term. They did a great job with local news, had a decent local talk show and were exceptional with high school sports. They had a very professional sound with first-rate jingles and a full-time production director. They were live and local around the clock and also had the FM.

Their problem now isn't the Pittsburgh stations (which were around then, too) but things like Cable AdNet, which compete for ad dollars. A lot of those local businesses want to be on CNN rather than a local radio station that has mostly an elderly audience.

They swallowed WMBA/Ambridge but that's almost a total simulcast situation now. WBVP still does some things well, but the realities of small-market radio have hit them pretty hard.
 
Boss Radio said:
WBVP used to kick it back in the day. They probably peaked in the '80s. It was a stable place to work and people hung in long-term. They did a great job with local news, had a decent local talk show and were exceptional with high school sports. They had a very professional sound with first-rate jingles and a full-time production director. They were live and local around the clock and also had the FM.

Their problem now isn't the Pittsburgh stations (which were around then, too) but things like Cable AdNet, which compete for ad dollars. A lot of those local businesses want to be on CNN rather than a local radio station that has mostly an elderly audience.

They swallowed WMBA/Ambridge but that's almost a total simulcast situation now. WBVP still does some things well, but the realities of small-market radio have hit them pretty hard.
Click to expand...

I agree with you, Boss. One thing I have particularly noticed is that they have a rather large contingency of full-time on-air people. That's pretty rare for a market that size, and for them to be able to do it is phenominal. We have a rather large on-air force of our own, all of whom are seasoned veterans who have been with the station for many years. I think Frank Iorio is doing pretty well for building a rather impressive portfolio of stations like these in a rather short amount of time.

I would like to see both WMBA and WBVP separate their programming, and maybe try for a little younger audience, say with AC/oldies on one station and country on another, but leave all the current full-service program elements alone. What I have found is that while AM will still draw an older demographic simply because it's AM, the tuneout factor for this demographic is much less than what you would expect from a younger one. The older demographic tolerates the music. It's still possible to draw a 25-54 audience (at the top end).
 
Parttimer said:
MBA's signal is so poor, I can't see it surviving as a standalone.
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You can do it with the existing staff. You couldn't do it as a station with real-time jocks, though. There would have to be either voice-tracking or satellite for much of it. The trick is, can you get the sales force to effectively market two separate stations? Or will they favor one over another?
 
Parttimer said:
MBA's signal is so poor, I can't see it surviving as a standalone.
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I suspect you're correct. They've always been in a weird situation because they have one end of Beaver County (basically Ambridge and Aliquippa) and the edge of Allegheny County (Moon, Coraopolis, Sewickley) where they have little or no impact. They're always perceived as a Beaver County station, so that's where their advertising base is. That was fine when Ambridge and Aliquippa were thriving towns, but these days there are a lot of vacant storefronts and mom and pops that have no budget for radio advertising. The agencies mostly ignore a station that size.

I believe one of the few times BVP and MBA split is in their coverage of high school sports. Each will cover a game of interest in its area of Beaver County. They can sell those pretty well, but most of the other programming is tougher to sell.
 
I have a friend that used to work at WMBA. While he was there each station did have a couple of programs that were distinct from the other. In fact, I believe his was the last one to air solely on WMBA and when he left they just started to simulcast BVP on MBA.
 
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