I have heard from a very reliable source, someone who works at the station, that WGUN will have new call letters soon. They want to get away from the "gun" as it relates to violence, and this will be an all music station by the end of September, with maybe old AT 40 shows. And they are also applying to be 25 k directional at night. No more gospel........................ ;D 8)
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WGUN call letters
- Thread starter BIGSTICK
- Start date
Interesting.
WGUN operates on a Canadian clear channel and would have to limit signal to the north. There are also, if my memory serves, stations to the west. They could probably use a site north of Atlanta and put signal to the south - and probably lot's of signal.
WCNN 680, the 1080 site in Marietta, and possibly the 790 site near downtown might be usable. The Douglasville cp at 1520 might also be a candidate for an all east lobe.
None of these sites would provide a listenable signal over most of the metro area. Even an intense signal created by a highly directional pattern would have a difficult time overcoming the massive skywave interference on 1010 khz. There are just not many good options for an AM station - even clear channels suffer from interference issues - check out WSB AM some night when you are 30 - 35 miles out of town.
Changing the calls is a good idea. The station has a poor reputation - a new start would be good. But trying a music format will not work unless it is a niche format like blues or bluegrass. Oldies isn't going to get them an audience - all they will have is a handful of listeners (which is all they have today.) Even doing a niche format will require putting a staff together to sell it. And for those of you who work in radio.....you know how hard it is to find a good radio salesperson. And the good ones usually don't want to work for the commissions you will earn selling $10/minute spots.
Here's what I would do.
Brokered time would work if they would focus on one area and attempt to build an audience. I would take the health niche - building on the base of Dr. Chris, their long time health food talk host. I would bring back Duke and the Doctor which is another almost mainstream talkshow dealing in health and nutrition issues. And then I would develope relationships with every health /workout club in Atlanta. I would make local involvement a main strategy - get the trainers on the air to talk about fitness and the particulars of their programs. It's amazing how many people are into going to the gym!
The mistake they have made all along is dealing with the religious nuts like Brother Stair. Get rid of all the religion and gospel. The "three R" model (race, religion, rural)was, and is, a stupid concept. Pick a niche and focus, focus, focus. But for the sake of Geebus......don't waste your time and energy on music.
Instead of wasting your money putting up a night signal.....do some advertising! Pick your niche - target an audience - then advertise the hell out of your product. And put up a good product - not just a series of blathering infomercials. Get local,local,local - involve as many businesses as possible - and don't make them buy time to get on and talk. Get them there first - let them help you build an audience. Get them hooked on being public and when the time comes they will happily buy time.
WGUN operates on a Canadian clear channel and would have to limit signal to the north. There are also, if my memory serves, stations to the west. They could probably use a site north of Atlanta and put signal to the south - and probably lot's of signal.
WCNN 680, the 1080 site in Marietta, and possibly the 790 site near downtown might be usable. The Douglasville cp at 1520 might also be a candidate for an all east lobe.
None of these sites would provide a listenable signal over most of the metro area. Even an intense signal created by a highly directional pattern would have a difficult time overcoming the massive skywave interference on 1010 khz. There are just not many good options for an AM station - even clear channels suffer from interference issues - check out WSB AM some night when you are 30 - 35 miles out of town.
Changing the calls is a good idea. The station has a poor reputation - a new start would be good. But trying a music format will not work unless it is a niche format like blues or bluegrass. Oldies isn't going to get them an audience - all they will have is a handful of listeners (which is all they have today.) Even doing a niche format will require putting a staff together to sell it. And for those of you who work in radio.....you know how hard it is to find a good radio salesperson. And the good ones usually don't want to work for the commissions you will earn selling $10/minute spots.
Here's what I would do.
Brokered time would work if they would focus on one area and attempt to build an audience. I would take the health niche - building on the base of Dr. Chris, their long time health food talk host. I would bring back Duke and the Doctor which is another almost mainstream talkshow dealing in health and nutrition issues. And then I would develope relationships with every health /workout club in Atlanta. I would make local involvement a main strategy - get the trainers on the air to talk about fitness and the particulars of their programs. It's amazing how many people are into going to the gym!
The mistake they have made all along is dealing with the religious nuts like Brother Stair. Get rid of all the religion and gospel. The "three R" model (race, religion, rural)was, and is, a stupid concept. Pick a niche and focus, focus, focus. But for the sake of Geebus......don't waste your time and energy on music.
Instead of wasting your money putting up a night signal.....do some advertising! Pick your niche - target an audience - then advertise the hell out of your product. And put up a good product - not just a series of blathering infomercials. Get local,local,local - involve as many businesses as possible - and don't make them buy time to get on and talk. Get them there first - let them help you build an audience. Get them hooked on being public and when the time comes they will happily buy time.
WCNN has good nighttime reception...as long as you are in their pattern and not in that hard null over Gwinnett. They're only 10k night.taylorengineer said:
The problem I see with most existing AM arrays/patterns is that they miss the northside, especially the NE side. This is a big problem for WQXI and WCNN already. WATB would be the same, if not worse with their array already east of town in Scottdale.
My daughter says the WDWD array in Powder Springs does an okay job at night with only 4500W, although the skywave interference on that regional channel is intense near the edges of its pattern. 1080 and 1520 might work with enough wattage, although getting enough northside coverage would be tricky, especially with Douglasville.
WGUN has new management; Georgia Salva's siblings won a lawsuit and took over the station. The GM is a guy named Kevin Hemmings, who has a good reputation.
In Valdosta, Rivers Radio (owner of WGUN) is changing its WLYX-FM call letters to WGOV-FM; they own WGOV-AM in that market. Things seem to be getting much better within the company.
I heard WGUN was planning to run all its brokered programs in the morning, opening afternoons for nostalgia music.
There's a poster on this board who's much more knowledgeable than I am about WGUN.
In Valdosta, Rivers Radio (owner of WGUN) is changing its WLYX-FM call letters to WGOV-FM; they own WGOV-AM in that market. Things seem to be getting much better within the company.
I heard WGUN was planning to run all its brokered programs in the morning, opening afternoons for nostalgia music.
There's a poster on this board who's much more knowledgeable than I am about WGUN.
If WGUN can add a decent 25k night pattern to 50k day and 45k CH, all kinds of options open up for it, including sports (Auburn, Florida, Clemson, FSU, Bama, Ga. Southern) and second-tier syndicated talk (Ingraham, Rhodes, Levin, Savage, Ramsey). Pretty much anybody not locked up by Cox, Premiere/CC, or Salem. It could fill the roles that WGKA, WFOM, WIFN, and WCFO have aspired to. I wonder if the Dickeys would trade them WIFN + a big ol' check.
jabba17 said:
Even if you get some good sport action for Saturday afternoons you still have to have a staff to sell it. Advertisers just don't fall through the door begging to buy 60's! And that's just Saturday afternoon and maybe Thursday nights.......what about the rest of the time? What could an AM station on a channel with heavy interference possibly do to pay the power bill for a 25 KW transmitter?
Take a look at night time cumes.....radio listening falls off a cliff after 7PM. It has been that way ever since television came along. Most people do not listen to the radio after 7PM. The ones who do are teens.....and more of them are listening to music online every day.
I believe the interference on 1010 plus the pattern restrictions make night operation for WGUN not economically feasible. If it had metro wide coverage.....even if it did what would you do to create revenue/sales?
I think BigBand/Nostalgia might have been a good choice ten years ago - today there is very little interest in the format. The listeners have all died! (Sorry AMLover!!) But again.....who is going to sell the spots to pay the bills? Just where are they going to find anyone decent to sell spots at $10/minute??
I wish the Rivers family well......I really do hope they find a niche for 1010 and that it thrives. IMHO the ideas presented are not good ones and will only result in more blood letting and family fighting..........
I agree that any music format would be dead in the water. I like their oldies, but I don't find myself listening to it.taylorengineer said:
Would there still be prohibitive interference even with 25k nights and (big assumption) a decent night pattern that includes the northside? I'm not the radio engineer but how would 1010 be different from 680 or 790? Yes, even WSB doesn't carry the way a 50k class A should, but it's not bad in the suburbs.
No sports team wants a daytimer with all the night games in just about every sport. You can't sell AM or PM drive on a daytimer--not in this city with long rush hours and not in winter. That includes syndicated shows in the 3-6PM slot. That's why Hannity is still on WSB despite being partially owned by CC. A night signal would take care of that. It might not be the best thing to listen to signalwise (nothing on the AM dial is), but at least it would exist and could be sold.
Now, if you want to argue that we have a glut of sportstalk already (between WCNN, WFOM, WQXI, and WIFN) and all the PBP is going to FM anyway, that's fine. I can buy that.
But what about all-news, maybe from a network? Or steal some talk talent and put them on in PM drive, where your choices after sundown are WSB...and WSBB (or WXKT if you can pick it up...talk about interference!). Or what about this comedy format that has been successful in other cities? You don't need FM hi-fi for spoken word comedy.
I guess my point is, interference aside, the station (and scads others on the AM dial) cannot be sold the way it is, but with a night signal it could be for the reasons I mention, since decent night AM signals in ATL are so rare.
During my time at WGUN I encouraged Georgia Salva (Rivers) to do a progressive/liberal talk format. Mike Malloy lives right around the corner from the studio.....there's a huge hole in this market for a well done liberal talker (although progressive talk will never get Rush/Hannitty/Boortz league numbers.) Bill and Gill (1690 khz Air America owners) got respectable numbers with the Air America format - the kind you can actually sell because they had decent demos at 1690 khz. And they never did a penny of advertising or promotion. But Air America was a media darling.....it got plenty of free promotion by the established national media.....so it had that advantage. A new effort, unless someone like Al Franken gets on board, will take considerably more effort to promote.
The 1010 signal is very strong in midtown and inside I-285.....even the pea-whistle night signal could cover Decatur and midtown.....areas where many liberal listeners live. It's another idea which would work.......BUT!
The "BUT" is you still have capital investment up front which the Rivers family has historically NEVER been willing to make. All this "night signal" talk is just that.....talk! When they get a look at what it will take to go 25,000 watts - even if they diplex on another station's sticks - their eyes are gonna' glaze over. It will cost in the hundreds of thousands.....maybe in the millions to make that happen.
Even with a "decent" night signal, the most important part of the formula is the advertising campaign to let people know what you're doing. This is where WGUN could actually do themselves some good - invest in some well placed billboards and a few gorilla marketing experts. A couple of good "Rainmakers" will cost you a quarter million yearly but could, in the long term, create some lasting value for the property.
Good idea, Jabba about doing liberal talk! This idea would also allow them to keep their brokered programming - the health and nutrition shows . The audiences for health and liberal talk would mesh nicely.
Maybe a staff person at WGUN will read this and try to steer WGUN in a more promising direction.
The 1010 signal is very strong in midtown and inside I-285.....even the pea-whistle night signal could cover Decatur and midtown.....areas where many liberal listeners live. It's another idea which would work.......BUT!
The "BUT" is you still have capital investment up front which the Rivers family has historically NEVER been willing to make. All this "night signal" talk is just that.....talk! When they get a look at what it will take to go 25,000 watts - even if they diplex on another station's sticks - their eyes are gonna' glaze over. It will cost in the hundreds of thousands.....maybe in the millions to make that happen.
Even with a "decent" night signal, the most important part of the formula is the advertising campaign to let people know what you're doing. This is where WGUN could actually do themselves some good - invest in some well placed billboards and a few gorilla marketing experts. A couple of good "Rainmakers" will cost you a quarter million yearly but could, in the long term, create some lasting value for the property.
Good idea, Jabba about doing liberal talk! This idea would also allow them to keep their brokered programming - the health and nutrition shows . The audiences for health and liberal talk would mesh nicely.
Maybe a staff person at WGUN will read this and try to steer WGUN in a more promising direction.
I've never quite understood why progtalk doesn't do any better than it does. That's speaking as a libertarian who is more at home (but not completely at home) with standard conservative talk. No, I am not expecting Rush/Beck/Hannity numbers or even Savage/Levin numbers. And with WGST with Beck and Rush only getting a 2 share or so, there is a bit of a predetermined ceiling--a 2 share--even a 1.5 share--would be an unqualified success.taylorengineer said:
Now, some progtalk is just bad radio. Some of it is not--Randi Rhodes, even though I disagree with her POVs most of the time, does her craft very well. And Air America had the brains (or lack thereof) to fire her.
Now, consider this: ATL already has a (part-time) progtalker, and no I am not talking about WABE. I'm talking about WRFG...and they are on FM. No, they are not 24/7 talk, but they have enough of it. Would WRFG be enough of an obstacle? And what happened to The King (no, not Tom Hughes)? Was it signal or content/talent issues?
Then there is the theory that a disproportionate number of liberals in the ATL are black, and are more interested in black talk (regardless of political POV). Would the urban demo be turned off by certain socially liberal ideas? Could the urban demo be attracted to a station that is geared more towards white progs?
How about this combo: health/nutrition, progtalk, and mainline (not the evangelical stuff on the Salem stations) faith? Maybe non-Christian faith, too?
Something else to consider: Could Internet streaming make up for the lack of a night signal? At home, yes. On the road, not yet, IMO.
WRFG's talk shows are too extreme. These folks are not mainstream in their political expression - even liberals will say some of the hosts are "out there." I love WRFG....I worked there for many years and fully support the right for all people......including crazy people....to express their opinions! But any format must be accessible to the average Joe/Jane to be widely successful - WRFG falls short in that regard.
There is a black talk station in Atlanta....and a good one at that. WAOK, 1380 khz is all black talk and actually feature several locally programmed features. The ratings for the radio signal are only fair but the internet streaming actually does quite well. WAOK has a CP for 25,000 watts day and will commence operation at that power sometime this fall.
There is an extreme lack of good political talk on both the right and on the left. Most talkers hardly budge the meters.....and it's because most of them are boring. Who wants to listen to a Republican hack or a Democratic cretin??
Mixing religion into the format is a recipe for failure - doesn't matter what the format is. All news off the bird isn't going to work - the comedy suggestion possibly might IF......(the big IF).....you did the advertising and hired the sales staff to make it work. Big $$$ involved.
I just don't think the Rivers family has deep enough pockets to make WGUN fly. They mean well and it seems that Rex Rivers is making the best attempt in years to make WGUN viable but it would take a rather large investment upfront to make it take off - and that would be a risky gamble. I think there's no way to be certain ANY format would work in this situation.
I wonder if they have explored busting up the ED Rivers trust and trying to sell - at least the AMs. You might get 1-2 million $$ for WGUN - maybe $100K for WGOV-AM in Valdosta. I would get a good attorney to get out of the trust, sell the AMs, and then split up the money. Just don't forget to send the IRS their share this time........
There is a black talk station in Atlanta....and a good one at that. WAOK, 1380 khz is all black talk and actually feature several locally programmed features. The ratings for the radio signal are only fair but the internet streaming actually does quite well. WAOK has a CP for 25,000 watts day and will commence operation at that power sometime this fall.
There is an extreme lack of good political talk on both the right and on the left. Most talkers hardly budge the meters.....and it's because most of them are boring. Who wants to listen to a Republican hack or a Democratic cretin??
Mixing religion into the format is a recipe for failure - doesn't matter what the format is. All news off the bird isn't going to work - the comedy suggestion possibly might IF......(the big IF).....you did the advertising and hired the sales staff to make it work. Big $$$ involved.
I just don't think the Rivers family has deep enough pockets to make WGUN fly. They mean well and it seems that Rex Rivers is making the best attempt in years to make WGUN viable but it would take a rather large investment upfront to make it take off - and that would be a risky gamble. I think there's no way to be certain ANY format would work in this situation.
I wonder if they have explored busting up the ED Rivers trust and trying to sell - at least the AMs. You might get 1-2 million $$ for WGUN - maybe $100K for WGOV-AM in Valdosta. I would get a good attorney to get out of the trust, sell the AMs, and then split up the money. Just don't forget to send the IRS their share this time........
A format that would work - and a needed "niche" in Atlanta: traffic (Cap'n Herb can do only so much with the time he has.) That's right, traffic. It doesn't have to be 24/7 traffic, but make it "hands on" (even with callers with first-hand info on their cell phones). And throw in comedy for some relief for the long commutes, but keep focused on traffic.
Promote it like crazy. You will have listeners, with advertisers to follow. (It could even work for a daytimer.
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Promote it like crazy. You will have listeners, with advertisers to follow. (It could even work for a daytimer.
)Sounds like the old "Traffic Jam & Jokes" on Z93.trusty said:A format that would work - and a needed "niche" in Atlanta: traffic (Cap'n Herb can do only so much with the time he has.) That's right, traffic. It doesn't have to be 24/7 traffic, but make it "hands on" (even with callers with first-hand info on their cell phones). And throw in comedy for some relief for the long commutes, but keep focused on traffic.
Promote it like crazy. You will have listeners, with advertisers to follow. (It could even work for a daytimer.
The problem with it being on a daytimer is that people with commutes that start in the dark will set their dial elsewhere, and may not tune in once the sun comes up unless you give them a compelling reason to change the station....easier said than done. And keep in mind how late the sun comes up and how early it goes down in winter.
I believe Metro Traffic leased or programmed WFOM in Marietta in 1997/98 with INFO 1230, all traffic all day long. It was an interesting concept with traffic reports interspersed with news headlines, with emphasis on traffic. The station ran Business News Network in the evenings and weekends.
Could it work today? Probably. Will WGUN or some other station do it? No.
Could it work today? Probably. Will WGUN or some other station do it? No.
jabba17 said:
I think there is a 1010 in Jacksonville, Fl. with night service.
Even if you did move it out to the northwest you still have the problem of heavy interference on 1010 - especially in critical hours. You have to have at least 15 - 20 millivolts of signal to be usable at night/critical hours - that's a pretty small circle if you think about it. And at those levels you're still hearing monkey chatter in the background.
If they could pull off covering the entire 15 county metro area at night with a usable, relatively interference free signal, it would be quite an engineering feat!
Traffic fulltime would be useful - I would use the service daily. That's thinking outside the box which is what they need to be doing. But we keep coming back to the money vault issue.....I just can't see the Rivers family coming up with the resources needed to make it work.
This is the crux of the matter......it takes money to build a brand and sell it. No matter what direction they choose it will be a lost cause if they do it like they have always done in the past.....on the cheap. Now Rex may be a different kind o' Rivers and maybe he won't continue as his ancestors have. Time will tell.....
Even if you did move it out to the northwest you still have the problem of heavy interference on 1010 - especially in critical hours. You have to have at least 15 - 20 millivolts of signal to be usable at night/critical hours - that's a pretty small circle if you think about it. And at those levels you're still hearing monkey chatter in the background.
If they could pull off covering the entire 15 county metro area at night with a usable, relatively interference free signal, it would be quite an engineering feat!
Traffic fulltime would be useful - I would use the service daily. That's thinking outside the box which is what they need to be doing. But we keep coming back to the money vault issue.....I just can't see the Rivers family coming up with the resources needed to make it work.
This is the crux of the matter......it takes money to build a brand and sell it. No matter what direction they choose it will be a lost cause if they do it like they have always done in the past.....on the cheap. Now Rex may be a different kind o' Rivers and maybe he won't continue as his ancestors have. Time will tell.....
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