Given how 101.1 as a news station didn't even last a year, how would this rank among the most failed radio stations in Chicago radio history? I've made a number of trips to Chicago over the years visiting family and always checking out the radio stations, but I don't ever remember an FM station lasting this short of a time.
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What are Chicago radio's biggest failures?
- Thread starter the golden boy
- Start date
the golden boy said:
Basically everything on 94.7 FM... which, also had a Randy Michaels affiliation for quite some time.
...WSCR. It's been on three different frequencies over the last couple of decades-plus, two of which are 50-kilowatt AMs, and it still draws a puny audience...
Ultimajock said:
10th in market billings, and 4th or 5th on average in 25-54 Men is hardly a failure.
the golden boy said:
WYNR, one of Gordon McLendon's few failures, did not last very long.
But, as the rather amazing John Kluge told a PD he was letting go, "... you don't learn from your successes."
Failure has always been a part of great radio. Failing, of course, means that you have taken risks, and few take risks today.
...fools and their money...DavidEduardo said:
Ultimajock said:
One of those 50kw stations was only during the daytime hours, with nighttime hours only being 5kw. Their former frequency, 1160, is now owned by Salem, & they were able to make it full-time 50kw, where then Infinity Broadcasting couldn't figure out how to make it 50kw. Since WSCR is still around in the same format, they're nowhere a failure. Going from a daytime frequency (that frequency has since got night status, but mainly covers the SW suburbs & most of the city), to a signal that gave them nighttime status, to a blowtorch has helped them.
Now as far as format failures, the only one that comes to mind would be FM News 101.1. I don't remember any city grade signal doing so poorly, that many suburban stations actually beat them in the ratings. I'm only counting stations in the commercial band, & not any Class B stations in the non-commercial band, since most non-commercial stations don't care about ratings.
Back in the 70's NBC tried all news on 101.1 as WNIS. That tanked too.
theharleyshow said:
I didn't realize that. Wow. The very same frequency tried news and failed before.
theharleyshow said:
It wasn't so much that they tried news as NBC couldn't find an affiliate for NIS in Chicago so corporate forced WMAQ to put it on their FM. But it certainly has a place on the list of biggest failures.
I'd nominate the "lifestyle/talk" format on WCFL under Mutual ownership. Short segments on things like cooking tips or how to buy tires, etc. MBS had plans to syndicate it or put portions on their network, but it went over like a lead balloon on AM 1000.
jh said:
It's Randy again, but the attempt to "Power Pig" Z95 in 1991 only stood to kill what could've become a heritage format (and the proper connection to WLS as a Top 40 station). You can't do something like Power Pig twice, especially considering that the radio biz seemed to be following play-by-plays of everything going on in Tampa--and B96 successfully fended off the entire Power Pig playbook. The fault here is not so much Randy but ABC--they should've never become involved in something like this in the first place. In the end, it only caused over a decade of flailing about at 94.7 FM until the switch to oldies.
D
DX
Guest
I nominate "Mutual 'CFL". Awful, awful, awful. Far worse than FM News!
DX said:
I remember Mutual brought Larry King to Chicago to kick it off.
A month later somebody called King and said he was the only thing worth listening to on WCFL and King replied 'Yes Lifestyle radio is boring'.
...well, that was about the time that Larry himself became boring. He got too comfortable in Washington and then grabbed the CNN show, taking his attention off of the radio show. Larry had fun with the radio show for the first three years or so, then turned stale in a hurry around the end of '81. By the time his show shifted from WCFL to WIND (or was it 'CFL to WCZE then WIND?), it was a chore to listen to...Fenway1912 said:
WLS-AM from 1987 to the end of what was left of the music format in 1989 was a hodge podge of radio. The station had no full time PD, no promotional budget compared to just a few years earlier and a music selection that made no sense. It went from being a radio station that inspired to, "What the hell is going on?"
jh said:
Actually, NBC put the NIS format on its O-and-O FMs in New York (WNWS), Chicago (WNIS) and San Francisco (KNAI). In Washington, where it was on O-and-O WRC-AM 980, it did well in early ratings books. (I can't vouch for later.) It wasn't going to knock country music off WMAQ (then the highest-rated country music station in the U.S. by cume, and finally a moneymaker for NBC after years of losses as a talk and middle-of-the-road music outlet).
What killed NIS was NBC's inability to find more subscribing stations (NBC was paid per month for NIS, as opposed to the standard network clearance of NBC Radio Network) across the country. It started with 21 on June 18, 1975, missing Los Angeles, Boston, Philadelphia, Pittsburgh, Charlotte and Seattle. NBC hoped for 150 by the end of 1976. NBC reported 47 by 9/1/1975, according to the massive NBC-NIS brochure posted by David Eduardo on his site. It's a must-read for radio newsies.
tvnut said:
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