The physical presence of those OTA signals continues to give those stations a brand awareness in their markets, even as listening very gradually shifts to digital platforms and smart devices. The question is will the growth of the streaming audience ever catch up with the decline of the OTA audience? I'm sure the AM operators would like to see that happen ASAP but so far it's been a net loss. If the audience and revenue declines lead to even more cost-cutting at those stations, that could translate to even less compelling programming and the whole thing may end up becoming a vicious, self-cannibalizing circle.
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The physical presence of those OTA signals continues to give those stations a brand awareness in their markets, even as listening very gradually shifts to digital platforms and smart devices. The question is will the growth of the streaming audience ever catch up with the decline of the OTA audience? I'm sure the AM operators would like to see that happen ASAP but so far it's been a net loss. If the audience and revenue declines lead to even more cost-cutting at those stations, that could translate to even less compelling programming and the whole thing may end up becoming a vicious, self-cannibalizing circle.
One thing we know for sure: For the past 20 years the AM band is getting no new listeners. Unless AM figures out a way to attract a younger audience via technology AND content, once the existing audience ages-out there will be nobody left.
That's probably where things are headed. Remember the only choice used to be AM or FM radio. Now there are unlimited live streaming radio choices, music platforms like Spotify that learn your tastes and deliver customized playlists, and podcasts on demand. What purpose does AM radio even serve any more with its terrible sound quality, pervasive reception issues and for the most part, canned, low-IQ programming?
There's always been a large, enthusiastic audience for that on AM in this country. FM, though, got off to a slower start.
Nostalgic trips in Mr. Peabody's Wayback Machine for people who grew up listening to it?
Ethnic and religious. That's all folks.
And ethnic is not particularly strong on AM in NYC.
According to the Radio-Locator listing for NYC, there are 11 (of 48 total) AM stations with a listed format that would be considered ethnic, but not religious. Most of those are broadcasting in various Southeast Asian languages: 540, 740, 1170, 1240, 1380, 1480, 1660. Several of those frequencies were once Spanish, but for various reasons they have changed targets.
There are more religious stations in non-English languages, including 4 Spanish Christian stations.
Obviously many of these are not serious competitors in NYC, because R-L shows stations with weak signals in most of the city (like 540).
According to the Radio-Locator listing for NYC, there are 11 (of 48 total) AM stations with a listed format that would be considered ethnic, but not religious. Most of those are broadcasting in various Southeast Asian languages: 540, 740, 1170, 1240, 1380, 1480, 1660. Several of those frequencies were once Spanish, but for various reasons they have changed targets.
There are more religious stations in non-English languages, including 4 Spanish Christian stations.
Obviously many of these are not serious competitors in NYC, because R-L shows stations with weak signals in most of the city (like 540).
That is because few PPM participants who only or predominantly speak languages other than Spanish and English are recruited.
They changed because decades ago Hispanics abandoned AM, just as they have done all over Latin America except, perhaps, Argentina.
And... don't forget Russian, on several stations and translators.
They are not ratings competitors, but they get significant revenue.
Actually, it is getting new listeners, but they are almost all speakers of languages other than English and Spanish. In LA, we have everything from Persian and Armenian to Korean, Mandarin, Tagalog, Japanese, Thai, Vietnamese, Cambodian and others. For many first generation immigrants, this will be their principal language for life.
It is true that the stations all broacast in Asian languages; however, none of those languages is from Southeast Asia (from countries like Indonesia, Thailand, and Vietnam). The languages are from either South Asia (Hindi, for example) or the Far East (Mandarin, Cantonese, and Korean).
That's why they are on FM and on the internet or apps (including even WLW). It's interesting in WLW's case, it was suffering from an aging audience and needed to "young up", by hiring Gary Burbank for mornings, then Randy Michaels to really shake things up. Now, WLW's demographics are probably older than they were in the 1980. They still have some of the air talent that came in in the 80s in their 20s and 30s, and now are pushing or past retirement age. They needed to "young up" again in the 90s. 00s and 10s.
WLW is an excellent example of a station that reinvented itself back into relevance, then got diluted after numerous other Jacor/Clear Channel talkers (WTAM especially) copied their on-air presentation… then rested on their laurels for way too long. Replacing a retiring Gary Burbank with a general talk show is perfect proof of that.
The sad thing is that the likelihood younger demos in 2021 discover a revamped WLW lineup at AM 700 is almost improbable by this point, plus it risks alienating the existing audience that just gets older and older and older. You’d have to literally bank on a miracle.
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Randy Michaels tried to "young up" WGN with some of the same cast that was on WLW. Mike McConnell spent a rather disastrous couple of years there; his act didn't play and eventually, he came back to WLW. Michaels wanted Bill Cunningham for WGN; that I can't even imagine. WLW has survived better that most, and has mostly been allowed to stay local, but those demographics are one step away from calls about late social security checks. In the 90s, WFLA was one of the talkers using the WLW template. They purposely tried to drive off the elderly audience with sex topics, when someone said "I'm 75 years old and...." they bleeped it like a curse word.
Rocky Boiman has been their token young guy. The Eddie & Rocky show holds down PM drive. Rocky is best known as an NFL player in the 00s and an ESPN football analyst. It would be nice if he stuck to sports, but he also ventures into conservative politics.
Thing is, Gary Burbank wasn’t even a talk show in the conventional sense… it was a heavily scripted apolitical comedy show (the closest he’d get to controversy would be lampooning the Reds and Bengals) built to wrap around traffic and weather on the 10s and news updates. I give Darryl Parks all the credit in the world for being able to find some way to succeed Gary in afternoon drive, but it was never truly the same.
Ironically Randy poaching Mike McConnell away forced Darryl to ultimately insert Scott Sloan (I believe the late Doc Thompson was also in middays for a brief spell prior to Sloan) who isn’t that different but a reliable voice that listeners connected with.
But that’s the thing. If you don’t adapt and take risks, you run the risk of becoming another KGO, which was still highly rated but had demos so old, it was almost inoperable by the time Cumulus took over.
As it would happen, on this day per my Facebook memories in 2014 I finally met Gary Burbank in person through a mutual friend when he was passing through town.
If you read his biography, even in the 90s he was looking at the changing atmosphere of AM radio, which was being overtaken with angry white male talk, and wondering if he fit in. Thankfully he had the backing of management. He would spoof politicians and personalities in Cincinnati and nationally, but was an equal opportunity offender. (If circumstances warranted, a flood, riot, tornado, 9/11 he could instantly transform into the voice of information and authority).
Yes, Doc Thompson was the immediate replacement for McConnell, though Sloan filled in for a week or 2. He was fired on his honeymoon with Yuna Lee, a former reporter on WHIO-TV. Scott Sloan took over after that.
Oddly enough, I just went out this afternoon to the historic (built by the original owner, John Harrington from WBBM) WJML 1110/98.9 Studio Building in Petoskey where the Bob and Tom show began, to check out the site after some demolition and reconstruction was done due to leaky roofs on the building and doghouses, over the last six months or so. It looks different, but they fixed the front from the sad state it looked like early this year. No WJML sign anymore though. Maybe someone is selling it on eBay. They diplex with WARD 750.
1560 was a powerhouse. I remember getting it near Harrisburg, PA as a kid when it was Radio Disney (not that long ago). Seemed to come in as well as 770 and 880 most nights. The audio quality was poor and the sound periodically got louder and quieter (as expected for receiving AM via skywave), but I was just so fascinated that I could get a station from the Big Apple! The fact that it has been silent for this long exemplifies the sad state of AM radio.
It partially exmplifies the owner/programming is dry and boring as milque toast and has little audience
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