Actually, one thing might have gotten ratings. They had Missy, a rabbi's wife. Then they hired Elaine Soncini, another rabbi's paramour (her rabbi was convicted of hiring two hit men to off his wife in order to pursue his affair, according to court testimony). Put them on together and wait for fireworks.
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Matt, that comment about Elaine was totally and completely out of line.
MattParker said:
MattParker said:
Why would you ridicule someone whom you've never met for being closed-minded and then list the reasons that you, yourself, believe explain why WHAT would be unlikely to succeed as a listener-supported station doing nostalgia. If so happens, your reasons and Bob's coincide; the two of you agree with each other on just about every point you listed, except that when Bob says the same thing you said, you call him closed-minded.
You didn't mention one factor that is very important in WJIB's success and that Bob (and probably you) believe WHAT would never do: WJIB is a one-person operation. Bob does all of the work pretty much single-handedly! He does get help on technical matters, but only very infrequently.
Bob was able to make it work on WJIB because since establishing the music format in 1992, the station has amassed a loyal following of affluent listeners in the Boston area. And more importantly, WJIB is commercial-free. Not too many non-religious stations can get away with playing commercials and asking listeners for hand-outs.DanStrassberg said:
satech said:
Bob also makes it work on WJIB and WJTO by cutting his costs down to nearly nothing. He has no staff, programs all the music himself, has (I assume) relatively low rent at WJIB and essentially operates WJTO from his own backyard in Maine. That makes for a fairly small nut to cover out of listener donations. I suspect WHAT is starting off with significantly higher costs to cover.
Correct me if I'm wrong, but I believe for a time this station did indeed have some kind of a "donation link" on its website-- offering folks a chance to join a "listener club" or something. Perhaps I'm thinking of some other station, though.
As one of about seven people on the planet who equally enjoyed this station's Alternative and MOR-ish formats-- I shall be sorry to see it go. Not surprised, but sorry. Add me to the chorus of many here who have questioned some of the station's "bizarre" moves (the late-morning "talk show" for example), along with its seemingly ongoing identity crisis (the station website still has the artist pictures on the header from the "Martini" days).
There was a time about a year or two ago when this station began to sound very good with Bowe, Craig, Knight, and of course Wee-Willy. But the program schedule always baffled me (splitting mid-days with Bob Craig, the "Doo-Bee-Doo Lunch", etc.)
If ever there were a music station that **should have** done more weekend brokered programming, this was it.
No matter how well this station could have been operated, it was doomed from day one-- as this ownership group significantly overpaid (even by 2006 standards).
WHAT could be a nice little clearinghouse for a lot of the unaired syndicated fare not currently heard here. The signal is certainly better than 1480's (going back to the Beck/Hannity discussion from a few weeks back), but not much. And it doesn't cover the suburbs all that well, which would be important for building an audience. But it would get the Philly clearance as far as national media buys are concerned.
The only local operator who has even a remote chance at making this work would probably be John Forsythe of WNJC. He could probably bill $20k a month going straight Brokered-- with minimal overhead.
Otherwise I think this'll be a foreign language or religious station in the near future.
As one of about seven people on the planet who equally enjoyed this station's Alternative and MOR-ish formats-- I shall be sorry to see it go. Not surprised, but sorry. Add me to the chorus of many here who have questioned some of the station's "bizarre" moves (the late-morning "talk show" for example), along with its seemingly ongoing identity crisis (the station website still has the artist pictures on the header from the "Martini" days).
There was a time about a year or two ago when this station began to sound very good with Bowe, Craig, Knight, and of course Wee-Willy. But the program schedule always baffled me (splitting mid-days with Bob Craig, the "Doo-Bee-Doo Lunch", etc.)
If ever there were a music station that **should have** done more weekend brokered programming, this was it.
No matter how well this station could have been operated, it was doomed from day one-- as this ownership group significantly overpaid (even by 2006 standards).
WHAT could be a nice little clearinghouse for a lot of the unaired syndicated fare not currently heard here. The signal is certainly better than 1480's (going back to the Beck/Hannity discussion from a few weeks back), but not much. And it doesn't cover the suburbs all that well, which would be important for building an audience. But it would get the Philly clearance as far as national media buys are concerned.
The only local operator who has even a remote chance at making this work would probably be John Forsythe of WNJC. He could probably bill $20k a month going straight Brokered-- with minimal overhead.
Otherwise I think this'll be a foreign language or religious station in the near future.
WHAT is a tough nut to crack...
It would be difficult to be successful with this station as a stand alone.
Even at $850K your yearly loan payments would run about $100K a year. Add that to the (what I've heard) tower rent of over $5K a month, and you have to bill 13,000 dollars a month just for these two things. Now add in electricity, studio rent, staff, rights fees, taxes, FCC fees, maintenance and everything else and you're up to at least $25K per month. There's no way a small station like this can bill 1000 dollars every day! The only thing that might work is for them to be bought by another station owner in the market, like 900, 740 or 1110. That way some of those costs can be amortized over two stations.
Bob Bittner is successful in Boston and Maine for everything listed above AND one more VERY big thing-he paid CASH for both his stations. No loans, no monthly payments. Even so, WJIB still costs him about $85,000 a year to run-and he has no loans and no employees-and essentially less than half the electrical and utility costs of most other stations (his stations are daytimers and both have their studios at their transmitters).
It would be difficult to be successful with this station as a stand alone.
Even at $850K your yearly loan payments would run about $100K a year. Add that to the (what I've heard) tower rent of over $5K a month, and you have to bill 13,000 dollars a month just for these two things. Now add in electricity, studio rent, staff, rights fees, taxes, FCC fees, maintenance and everything else and you're up to at least $25K per month. There's no way a small station like this can bill 1000 dollars every day! The only thing that might work is for them to be bought by another station owner in the market, like 900, 740 or 1110. That way some of those costs can be amortized over two stations.
Bob Bittner is successful in Boston and Maine for everything listed above AND one more VERY big thing-he paid CASH for both his stations. No loans, no monthly payments. Even so, WJIB still costs him about $85,000 a year to run-and he has no loans and no employees-and essentially less than half the electrical and utility costs of most other stations (his stations are daytimers and both have their studios at their transmitters).
Re: WHAT is a tough nut to crack...
Are WFYL's studios at the transmitter in the golf course or are they elsewhere--like in Framingham or Pittsburgh or Minneapolis or Atlanta? And while I'm at it, does WQOM maintain anything like a studio in the Boston area? Supposedly, Holy Family would have nothing to do with renting any space at 100 Mt Wayte Ave from CCU. I can't find the address of a local studio or office at the WQOM Web site. There IS a bit of local content, but for all I know it may be fed from Buffalo. If the feed is via a satellite down-link, whoever set it up did a nice job; I have not heard any dropouts. WBNW's Bloomberg feed drops out on average, for at least a couple of seconds, I'd guess, every minute or two. Almost unlistenable!
LA_Guy said:
Are WFYL's studios at the transmitter in the golf course or are they elsewhere--like in Framingham or Pittsburgh or Minneapolis or Atlanta? And while I'm at it, does WQOM maintain anything like a studio in the Boston area? Supposedly, Holy Family would have nothing to do with renting any space at 100 Mt Wayte Ave from CCU. I can't find the address of a local studio or office at the WQOM Web site. There IS a bit of local content, but for all I know it may be fed from Buffalo. If the feed is via a satellite down-link, whoever set it up did a nice job; I have not heard any dropouts. WBNW's Bloomberg feed drops out on average, for at least a couple of seconds, I'd guess, every minute or two. Almost unlistenable!
IMNSHO if marginal AM stations are going to continue to operate, they should find alternative means of funding. This is especially true if the station serves a major metropolitan area. I might even suggest that maybe a school, an educational co-op or some other non-profit group l might want to take such a station over. In WHAT's case, It may be advantageous to drop the ERP to 250 watts day and night. IAE if the current owners think they'll get $800K for that station, they're dreaming! Marginal AM stations in today's day and age are grossly overpriced and should be priced below half of what they are now!MattParker said:
DG02816 said:
Cutting the power by a factor of 4 would reduce the signal strength at any point you choose by a factor of 2, BUT that is NOT the same as cutting the coverage area by a factor of 2. That would be the case only if the soil in all directions from the tower out to the 0.5 mV/m contour were perfectly conductive (even salt water at 5000 mS/m isn't good enough, although it's close). You'd be surprised at how little a 4:1 power decrease (or increase) changes the real-world coverage area. The effect obviously depends not only on the conductivity but also on the frequency. The effect is greater at the high end of the AM dial than at the low end. My guess is that the coverage area would decrease by no more than about 25%, which corresponds to slightly more than a 13% decrease in the coverage radius.
Stated another way, no way is the 1 mV/m contour, which would become the 0.5 after the 4:1 power reduction, half as far from the transmitter as the old 0.5; the 1 mV/m is more like 80% as far from the Tx as the 0.5. Get some AM coverage maps and check it out. Probably KFYR or WNAX are about as close as any US stations to having the 0.5 twice as far from the Tx as the 1.0. This is so because they are low on the dial and in an area of superb conductivity.
RE: Rick B's idea of a daisy chain network...it would have been great 20-25 years ago, when AM still had a head of some steam. A really great idea. But to establish listenership in today's buzz filled world with narrow band recievers? Then there's the cost. To gather the 4 would run sbout, what. $2mil? Clear Channel just dumped 2 FM's with good coverage AND cash flow in Salibury MD and Fenwick Island DE(Rehoboth Beach) for only $400,000 for BOTH.
Per Scott Fybush in today's NERW column:
we're hearing that Marconi Broadcasting is shopping WHAT around town, hoping to get $850,000 for the signal for which it paid $5 million just a few years ago. We'll confess to having been skeptical of the business plan behind that big-ticket purchase back in 2006;
Indeed. $5Mil. Whoo.
Expensive hobby! Expensive hobby! Expensive hobby! Expensive hobby! Expensive hobby! Expensive hobby! Expensive hobby!
The station could survive as part of a Forsythe-type brokered empire, but it would be actually useful to listeners with an urban-centric format serving those where its signal can be heard (that would be 5 miles from the transmitter).
we're hearing that Marconi Broadcasting is shopping WHAT around town, hoping to get $850,000 for the signal for which it paid $5 million just a few years ago. We'll confess to having been skeptical of the business plan behind that big-ticket purchase back in 2006;
Indeed. $5Mil. Whoo.
Expensive hobby! Expensive hobby! Expensive hobby! Expensive hobby! Expensive hobby! Expensive hobby! Expensive hobby!
The station could survive as part of a Forsythe-type brokered empire, but it would be actually useful to listeners with an urban-centric format serving those where its signal can be heard (that would be 5 miles from the transmitter).
A few years back Clear Channel paid $4million for an AM in Wilmington with a weak signal.
Those days are gone forever but the people who made such decisions are still working - and handing out pink slips (adding insult to injury).
Those days are gone forever but the people who made such decisions are still working - and handing out pink slips (adding insult to injury).
True, but CC is holding on to WILM and trying to make it work. It was mystifying that CC didn't touch WILM for over a year after its 2004 purchase, but eventually the streamlining began, facilities were upgraded and combined and the talk shows were added to the news lineup.MattParker said:
ILM was a money losing 'hobby station' under the former ownership of the Hawkins family. I wonder if it's profitable under CC.
J
jhguthlac
Guest
Don't know if its making money now. Hardly no ads during Rush or Hannity. But the imaging has improved greatly since they hired the new morning guy. The whole day sounds more professional. They really have a chance now.
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