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WGLD/1440

I

isnore99

Why is this station still on the air? It is a spot carrier for ESPN and the home of the largest collection of PSA's to be found in North
American radio. Obviously no sales are being made. Cumulus Cloud has a couple of choices.....go dark (nobody will notice) or take the station to another format.
I am going to do some outside the box thinking...........why not go to a format that will make noise and very definitely get noticed///
Progressive Talk. Wait, I'm not totally crazy. $$$ No sales on WGLD = 0 billing. Progressive Talk will piss off 75% of the people in York County who can receive the miserable 1440 signal but, it will create buzz and if Cumulus Cloud has any sales talent it should be able to generate some sales.

Prediction//WGLD will go dark within the next 90 days.
 
isnore99 said:
why not go to a format that will make noise and very definitely get noticed///
Progressive Talk. Wait, I'm not totally crazy. $$$ No sales on WGLD = 0 billing. Progressive Talk will piss off 75% of the people in York County who can receive the miserable 1440 signal but, it will create buzz and if Cumulus Cloud has any sales talent it should be able to generate some sales.

Prediction//WGLD will go dark within the next 90 days.
Click to expand...

Only 43 percent of York County voters went for Obama last year.

Oh, wait. Actually, 43 percent of York County voters went for Obama last year.

In a radio universe--and a radio market--where 10 percent of the audience (a 10 share) triggers wild parties, massive drinking, and generally wanton behavior, staring at a prospect pool of 43 percent of anything should make Cumulus salivate.

No, you're not totally crazy. Progressive Talk would be a great bet for this otherwise waste of electricity on 1440.
 
Cumulus took over WLBY in Ann Arbor in 2008 (I could be wrong about the year) a onetime progressive talker in as big a college town as there is anywhere. The station has a very marginal signal, however, it did make a showing in the ratings. The geni(my version of plural geniuses) flipped the station to an all business format and the station no longer appears in the ratings.

The wacky part of WGLD vs. WOKY is that the ESPN format (just my opinion) is far better than the offerings from Sporting News Radio.
But, York is York and it is no secret that it is very slow to adopt anything new. So, WOKY is obviously the long established station and WGLD is lost in the whispering winds of the Susquehanna Valley.

Another idea for Cumulus Clouds would be to go all religeon. There is no shortage of good Christians in the region who might find a listening home if the station played modern Christian music. Yeah, I know it is an AM station...why play music? Well, nobody seems to care about ESPN Sports on 1440 either.
 
that is WOYK, not WOKY! i have always thought a music of your life format would work on WGLD. it's demographics would favor the 40+ audience and the fact that it's strongest signal is during the day coincides when most folks of that demographic are most active. they could promote themselves as York's hometown station, which has worked in Lancaster.
 
I just believe the liberal talk format (progressive is a term to hide what it is) won't fly in York County. I doubt OBama will get 43 percent next time.

That being said...if anyone knows...how is that blowtorch in Buffalo at 1520 doing? You always hear the excuse that the Progressive format doesn't fly because of poor signals. I generally think it's because most of the programming is dreadful. Buffalo should be a good testing ground..blue collar area.
 
In response to how "the blowtorch" WWKB (formerly WKBW), 1520 is doing in Buffalo your sense of radio is right on target. 1520 has the usual boring, mostly non-talented progressive/liberal lineup that is failing everywhere. The station is lucky to have a 1 share.
WBEN-AM, owned by Entercom is the major talk player....and in fact, is one of the market leaders AM or FM with a format that features news blocks in AM and PM Drive (yes, WBEN has a news department!!). The station features two major local personalities in late AM Drive/early PM Drive with G-D...excuse me Rushbo in midday. One of the MAJOR local personalities is the truly great Sandy Beach, a Buffalo icon. The station also carries Sabres Hockey. A REAL LOCALLY ORIENTED (for the most part) powerhouse of a station. Big ratings are not by accident. Central Pennsylvania will never, ever have decent local radio until ownership changes take place eliminating The Clear Channel/Cumulus mentality. WSBA should be serving York and Central Pennsylvania with a more locally oriented talk/news effort. No chance of this happening and I will not be surprised to see the morning show eliminated for more syndicated
right wing babble. WHP does have a local effort in AM/PM Drive, however, the news presentation could and should be stronger.....that is not going to happen in today's $$$$ climate.
 
I sure someone knows why WOYK droped ESPN Radio in favor of Sporting News Radio? If you are going to be an all sports radio station ESPN is T H E brand to hook up with, as they did at first. ESPN radio is just the best at what they do.
 
woyk did not drop espn. espn dropped them for 1440.
1440's parent company offered to put espn on 7
fm's for 1440 in york. since that deal 5 of those
fm's have dropped espn.
 
A little surprised Cumulus doesn't make 1400/1440 a simulcast. The local ads on 1400 have taken over,
and I'd think additional coverage along the I-83 corridor would sell more drive-time ads. Inevitably, commuters
between Harrisburg and York lose either signal this time of year in early AM and PM. At least they could switch between the two enroute. Also, Harrisburg needs a local affiliate for the Phillies; 1270 and 1210 are lousy at night.
 
My guess what is keeping the Phillies off the radio in Harrisburg is rights fees. Very expensive these days. And, there's no Phillies affiliate in Lancaster either. With 1490 in bed with the Barnstormers, you would think 1390 would grab the Phils. But the expense again of rights fees.
 
The rights fees to the Phillies are very high, and the amount of tickets, promotions items, etc has dropped in the last few years as well. Unfortunately, alot of advertisers want more than their ads played during the games...they want tickets, shirts, hats, etc in exchange. Many were spoiled in the 70's and 80's when promotional items were plentiful and prize closets were bursting at the seams....and don't understand why it's not that way today.
 
Well, when you have a winning team and your payroll is beginning to balloon and you know there is high demand to purchase tickets right now, you don't need nor want to be giving tickets away. So the radio affiliates are going to be the ones who suffer. The bulk of the promotional bounty is probably going to the 1210 and it's 50000 watt signal.

The other thing.....the NFL figured out 10 years ago or so that they wanted their product primarily on FM stations. If Cumulus wants to get the Phils attention, put the games on one of their four Central PA FMs. As ludricous as this may have sounded just 5 years ago, it's not such a crazy idea anymore. Especially in this era where it's more about revenue than anything else. If you're the Phillies, you really can't be that excited about WGLD.

I know the problems of the amt of games, etc. Perhaps you run the night games only on the FM and dump the weekday day games to 1400 & 1440.

Perhaps the next move for WARM will be all sports.
 
Last weekend, I was out snapping pix of transmitter sites (former radio stations). There's a tower lying in sections along the driveway at the WSOX / WGLD site, does anyone know if that's the old 1440 tower?
 
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