WCBA

[Mark Giardina]

It's kind of sad to hear WCBA being referred to in a blog as a 'has been' station which was recently sold (or traded) for just $6,000 a part of some swap deal.

WCBA was one of the stations that I worked at early in my radio career and it was (then) a great place to work and fine learning experience. It was a top 40 station featuring local and national news. I was the morning announcer for a while. Now I read where the station is just carrying syndicated sports and is considered the runt of a group of stations.

It's just a damn shame what's happened to a number of small market stations over the years.

 

[fybush]

I feel for you, Mark...but consider: when you were doing mornings at WCBA, what did you have for competition? WCLI AM/FM (or was it KZ106 by then?) and whatever Elmira signals came in in Corning, right?

Today's WCBA, or what's left of it, has to compete against a dozen FM signals, all of which come in 24/7 and don't run down to 42 watts at sunset. And it has to compete against a half-dozen local TV stations that sell ads as cheap as radio did back in the day. And against cable advertising. And satellite radio. And Groupon. And...

Ask yourself honestly - if it were your money on the line, would you want WCBA as a standalone? (And I'm not just talking $6000 for the license; I'm talking the capital expense of building some sort of new studio and the monthly nut of transmitter-site rental on Davis Road, studio rental wherever, and the cost of the staff you'd need to try to make the thing work.)

It's not so much what's happened to WCBA itself; it's what's happened to the rest of the

 

[Mark Giardina]

Yes there was competition from WCLI and also WENY in Elmira. I acknowledge that things have changed in the 40 years since I was playing the hits in Corning. But holy cow for the station to be dragged into the dregs the way CBA has it just heartbreaking to those of us who once worked there.

Corning was a nice small market for us up and comers in radio.

 

[Kelly Watts]

I never worked at WCBA, but I "did time" at WENY (1979-1982 on air)and worked for Scott Bloor and the late Dave Abby at WCLI. Corning for the most part in those days was a market on to its own. To be sure that the Elmira stations penetrated but Dean Slack's WCBA with such people as Jack Shane were a major force in the market. I like the other posters really feel a sadness of the demise of small market radio and the service it provided to the communities.

 

[Savage]

As an Elmira radio alumnus (1969-1972, WENY, WELM) I think it's instructive to compare Elmira-Corning in the two eras. Kelly is right: in the day, the two cities were separate and distinct markets. Elmira had a nice local economy rolling along with Bendix, Thatcher Glass, American Bridge, American-LaFrance, Westinghouse and Ann Page Foods, et al. In Corning it was, of course, Corning and Ingersoll-Rand.

In Corning there was WCLI, owned by the newspaper, and Dean's WCBA. The Elmira side was WENY A/F, WELM, Manny Panosian's WIQT-WQIX (new in 1970) and the local mom-and-pop, WEHH A/F. Essentially there were four players.

Today there are, by my count, 27 signals in the market. And there are in the aggregate fewer people employed in radio in Elmira-Corning than there were at the four station "combos" in 1970.
It's just the way things are now. Gone are the days when Elmira was a farm-team training ground for the talent that went on to big markets. The overnight and weekend shifts once occupied by eager college-student jocks and newspeople are now filled with automation and satellite programming.

It's sad to see the WCBAs fall by the wayside. But honestly, if I were offered 1350 as a gift, I think I'd pass.

 

[Bigyo]

I agree with everybody.
WCBA was a station I grew up listening to as a kid.
I can barely remember the day when WCBA was located next to Carpenter's Funeral Home until the flood of '72.
Alot of my memories were at Davis Road in South Corning.
A friend of mine worked at WCBA from 1984 until the day when 98.7 signed on in 1989.
Whenever I come back to Corning for vacation, I always make the drive to Davis Road for some memories.
I was surprised at the time when all the stations went from Davis Road to Market Street.
If Jack Shane was still alive, I bet he would be in shock to find all the stations in Downtown Corning instead of South Corning.

 

[Dave-N2DS]

Hi all, I have good memories of WCBA too.

I remember my mom listening to CBA on the DeWald kitchen radio. Then in the late fifties
listening to "Dial M For Music" in the afternoons on my crystal set.

I knew Paul and Dean as I would do some occasional technical work at the station in the
70's & 80's. I remember hauling my ham transceiver over there in the times before they
were on at night. I would connect the rig to the tower for some dx contacts on 80 meters,
making sure to remember to connect the antenna back to the transmitter before I left. I
would do meter readings when the main engineer was out of town. That was in the cart
machine days.

When Dean wanted the transmitter moved from the main building to the shed, I was there
too. It took all night, but we were on the air Sunday morning.

Just wanted to share a few thoughts.

Dave Schmarder, N2DS

 

[JustPastBuffalo]

Elmira-Corning always impressed me as "a cool little radio market" back in the day, even when I was working in Buffalo and would drive through on Rt 17 to visit my family downstate, I thought the market sounded good. WELM and WENY were going mano-a-mano and there was equally good competition in the later years involving the FMs. As Savage notes, it was a good breeder market for Buffalo, Syracuse and even larger markets. But sadly, as RCS also notes, the market is grossly over-radio'd with stations and numerous translators compounded by some of the toughest topography on the east coast (reminds me of a mini-San Francisco) and a diminished manufacturing-corporate base. It's a tough market to crack.

 

[wirelessinnepa]

WCBA was also my first radio job, however, later than you guys are talking about...I changed carts there on 3 different occasions in the early 90's....of course still on Davis Road.

Being from Corning originally, born and raised, I believe that Corning and Elmira only are even listed in the same market by virtue of the fact that they are geographically close. I don't know if things have changed in the past 10-15 years....and I suspect they haven't....but Corning people don't go to Elmira and Elmira people really don't go to Corning, for the most part. They are two disparate cities linked by a common shopping mall.

Even the other group in Corning is trying their darndest to be a Corning/Elmira entity...which is what I would do too if I had their group....that's the key to ratings success in the market. However, I always thought that the beauty of Bob Eolin and Jack Shane's model is that they were the Corning guys...so much so that they had very little Elmira business on the stations even when they bought WENY A/F. If you get WCBA...AND put it on FM with a translator up on Higman or Denmark.....and then take the position of being for Corning...and only Corning....completely ignore Elmira...you might make a go of that. (Maybe.)

 

[Kelly Watts]

I could be wrong, BUT I believe the quote "Elmira/Corning Market" came about because of Channel 36 and 18 wanted to break out of the Binghamton Book. They of course got clobbered by the Binghamton TV stations when Arbitron took the books.

I know that even the "barnburner" powerhouse WZKZ (KZ 106) had a crappy signal in parts of Elmira because of the mountains, and when I ran WLEZ (WENY's FM) we did not fare much better in Corning. For the most part there was a RF Ghetto in Corning for the Elmira stations and visa versa in Elmira for the Corning stations. There were a few advertiser crossovers like Corning Building Company, Evar's, the car dealers, etc but for the most part the radio stations sales forces stuck in their own market.

 

[SHimes100]

I remember working with you at WENY... good to see ya Kelly!!

 

[djpoint]

Maybe WKPQ in Hornell can be and sound like a real radio station??? Last time I visited the southern tier, their audio was horrible and their programming was "all over the road."

 

[Kelly Watts]

I remember working with you at WENY... good to see ya Kelly!!

Twas back when we had wood powered transmitters and the tv studio looked like it was designed by The Flintstones! Biggest mistake I ever made at WENY Inc. was going back into management.

 

[SHimes100]

don't forget the ap telegraph...

 

[Mark Giardina]

Twas back when we had wood powered transmitters and the tv studio looked like it was designed by The Flintstones! Biggest mistake I ever made at WENY Inc. was going back into management.

Hey it beats working out of a flooded house in Corning. First floor was for sales and management and we on-air folks were stuck on the second floor. One could smell the mold and mildew especially in the master control room. That why when I visited my Aunt in Corning a few years ago and toured the studios on Market Street I was amazed and envious. If we only had such facilities when I worked at WCBA I might have stayed a few years longer instead of moving to a larger market.

 

[Kelly Watts]

Mark, I went though the 1972 flood at WMPT in South Williamsport, we had 9' of water, problem was it was a one story building excpt for the owners office (Eagle's nest). MUD everywhere! For weeks after, water would seep out of the cinder block walls and run across the floor, there was a dip in the land behind the station and lots of fish dief there, quite an additional smell. When I came back to the station in 1975, there was still reminders of the flood, temporary wiring, water stains on some of the walls and mold in hidden places. I often said to the owner, we should have bulldozed the building and started again. Almost got flooded again in 1975 the water got to the front door stoop, we had everythign ready to move including the truck parked at the fron door. Even had a long wire strung at a temporary location so we could sign the AM back on. Fortunately we didn't have to do that.