WDEL traffic report tweak

[ixnay]

WDEL's (and I assume WSTW's) traffic reports have a new sounder and have Robin Bryson reporting from a booth that acoustically makes him sound like his counterpart at DC's 3WT. However, Andrew Schroy (or Shawn Green, I forget which) (spellings?) sounds like he's still out on the road.

Apparently the gang on Shipley Road is cutting costs and sold one of its mobile traffic units. There is, however, three more Friday afternoons in the summer tourist season, so will Delmarva still have aerial beach-bound reports in the Friday rush, or has the aircraft been sold too?

ixnay

 

[MikefromDelaware]

The bigger problem was that their moble phones kept cutting out a lot. My guess is that they've gotten some complaints about that as it's frustrating to wait for the traffic report and then as he's mentioning the road you're interested in, his voice cuts out. So with one of them in studio the sound quality will improve greatly. However, with the price of gas, and upkeep of a vehicle, sure does make sense or is that cents to cut back on how many vans are crusing around NCC. Which is probably why most other stations in Wilmington and Philly now use a traffic service for their traffic reports. So maybe the better question is, how long before WDEL/WSTW drop their local traffic report and go with a traffic service, as their sister station WXCY is using.

 

[WTUX]

As the number of highway monitoring cameras increases, it is easy to sit in a studio and report traffic conditions. WJBR has done it on line, even.

In Philly, KYW uses the "jam cams". Even little WHAT has traffic reports, using traffic.com. These services are actually better than having a couple of vehicles on the road as you can monitor more roads in a shorter period of time.

 

[Keith Thompson]

So maybe the better question is, how long before WDEL/WSTW drop their local traffic report and go with a traffic service, as their sister station WXCY is using.

Unless Drewe Phinney's been canned recently, WXCY uses an in-house traffic reporter.

 

[Chris Carl]

Hello all.

We launched the WDEL TrafficWatch Command Center on Monday. It was a “soft” opening – meaning we’re not making a big deal about it, yet. Robin Bryson is reporting from the WDEL newsroom, with frequent on-air reports from Andrew Scroi and Sean Greene.

We made this move primarily due to the inconsistency of our two-way radios. My understanding from engineering is that someone, somewhere was/is using a transmitter which compromised our radios. Our engineers apparently heard some call letters in the other transmission, and they’re trying to figure out whom it is.

We tried cellphones as a backup, but they too were unreliable for broadcast.

In the end, I think we’re getting the best of both worlds. Studio-quality reports from Robin with two reporters still in the field. That’s two more than most other radio stations.

The savings from taking one vehicle off the roads is just icing on the cake. We are in the process of selling one of the vans, but that was in the works before we made this move. We have one extra van after purchasing a hybrid van earlier this year.

We do not own the plane. We rent it, and we plan to continue using it through the end of the summer for Beach TrafficWatch on Friday afternoons and weekends.

As for WXCY, their TrafficWatch reporter is Drewe Phinney. He is employed by Delmarva Broadcasting Company. WXCY does not use a traffic service. Drewe gets his Delaware information from the WDEL/WSTW TrafficWatch team. Same for our stations in Salisbury. In fact, the Salisbury TrafficWatch reporter is on vacation this week, so Sean Greene has been down there. That’s why you haven’t heard Sean on WDEL this week.

And we have NO plans whatsoever on dropping our local traffic reporting team. TrafficWatch is one of our most important franchises, which is why we made the move to improve it.

 

[MikefromDelaware]

I've noticed how much better the WDEL traffic reports sound with Robin Bryson being in studio. Carl, I think you guys made the right choice, as those two way radios just weren't cutting it. WDEL has gone back to being the full service station for Wilmington that they were years ago (they had NBC then and MOR music, today CBS with live and local talk). I've noticed, it seems that you're having more live and local newscasts in early evening hours and on weekends now (Loudell was there at 7:30pm doing a newscast the other day, I'm guessing filling in for someone on vacation), where as WILM has gone the other way. I realize that Delmarva is spending money to do this, I hope it pay offs for your company as it's good to have at least one station being a real local news/talk station again. Keep up the good work.

As a Delawarean, this is an important issue as there are only 2 full service daily newspapers (Wilmington News Journal and Del State News from Dover) and four news/talk radio stations (WDEL - Wilmington, WILM - Wilmington, WDOV - Dover, WGMD in Rehoboth) and one PBS TV station (WHYY -TV 12 /64 Wilmington /Seaford) in the state for local news. Philly TV basically ignores Delaware news for the most part. WDOV and WILM are basically on the bird for the most part with some local news coverage, not as extensive as in past years thanks to Clear Channel's appraoch to news/talk). WGMD does some local news and serves Sussex County, leaving only WDEL as the local radio news voice that covers most of the state
(I guess when you get that 10K signal approved you'd blanket the entire state giving you an even more important role to play in serving the state) that offers local news even on lesser listening times. Again, it's nice to have a radio source for local news that is there when you need it, on the off times after rush hour, as newspapers and Channel 12 news are very limited once a day for 30 minutes leaving radio as that immediate source for information. Hopefully WDEL can make a financial go of this as well.

 

[WTUX]

Mike, I'm going off on a tangit (sp) here, but I wonder about that 10kw signal. With 50kw WRVA in Richmond on 1140, I wonder how much of the night-time signal (at least) will be allowed to go into Kent and Sussex? So even if you could get a clearer WDEL signal during the day, the total impact will be minimal due to the sun-down power reduction or phasing change.

 

[MikefromDelaware]

Good point as WDEL now powers back at night at their lower 5Kw signal, so for sure they'd have to power back for WRVA's sake with double the signal. Also, another point, how many people in "Lower - Slower Delaware" would listen to a "Wilmington above the canal" station anyhow? My guess is if Delmarva wanted to be a statewide leader in radio news, they could take one of their lower Delaware stations and make it a sister station of WDEL and share newsfeeds, etc, sort of like what WILM and WDOV now do minus all the satellite programming that both also do.

 

[WTUX]

WDEL has always had listeners downstate, particularly along the beach areas where the signal is not bad (or at least it used to be listenable - haven't been down there in awhile). A signal improvement toward central Sussex would be helpful. But my (limited) experience with power increases has seen more power result in reducing coverage area, not increassing it. You get a boast in your primary coverage area, some boast in your secondary, but you have additional nulls to contend with. The biggest advantage to powering up is to better penetrate office buildings that AM has trouble with these days.

I imagine that the increase will not improve WDEL's strength in Newark, where early spring/late summer Phillie's games are hard to hear. In fact, when I leave the house in the morning (4:30am), WILM is stronger than WDEL until I am pretty far up I-95.