What Cities Are Like Buffalo?

[AndrewLawson]

I've often wondered what markets are similar to Buffalo, not only in size but population make-up and radio styles. Would Buffalo have more in common with Pittsburgh, Milwaukee, Cleveland and Cincinnati than it does Rochester, Syracuse and Albany? From what's posted here, Rochester and Buffalo have as many differences as they have similarities.

 

[Steven21]

I've often wondered what markets are similar to Buffalo, not only in size but population make-up and radio styles. Would Buffalo have more in common with Pittsburgh, Milwaukee, Cleveland and Cincinnati than it does Rochester, Syracuse and Albany? From what's posted here, Rochester and Buffalo have as many differences as they have similarities.

Size-wise, the NY markets you mentioned are very similar. The out-of-stater's you mentioned are all much bigger now.

Mentality and economy-wise, I'd say Milwaukee is pretty similar, as is the much bigger Detroit.

Weather-wise, they all suck. No winner there.

 

[SirRoxalot]

Like, Buffalo?

Let me preface this with the fact that I travel a bit in the Northeast and Midwest, and have a nodding acquaintance with much of Western and Central NY.

In my experience, Buffalo and Rochester are quite different. Rochester, though smaller, had the good fortune of being the home of George Eastman, who funnelled LOTS of Kodak money into a number of institutions from the University of Rochester to RIT, Eastman School of Music, and others. He established Rochester as a center of technology and education. Other technology companies, like Xerox, took advantage of a well-educated populace. It's only in the last 10-15 years that Rochester has faced hard times with the virtual demise of Kodak and Xerox, and shift of techology companies to the West Coast.

Buffalo, on the other hand, was a rough-and-tumble center of commerce and manufacturing. It's decline began after World War II when Europe and Asia rebuilt manufacturing from scratch, and workers gladly manned production lines for wages that were far less than the unionized workers in the US. The St. Lawrence Seaway and Welland Canal bypassed Buffalo as a major shipping hub, and the city has never quite recovered from the loss of jobs in the manufacturing and transportation industries. Buffalo does have significant educational assets. Both cities have the blessing (and curse) of being on the Great Lakes.

I think that Buffalo has more in common with Cleveland than any of the other cities mentioned. Cleveland is considerably larger, and Ohio appears to be more business-friendly than NY. The southern half of Ohio exerts a little more Bible-belt influence on Cleveland than we see here. We also have a lot more Canadian influence than Cleveland.

Buffalo has almost Mid-Western friendliness, but has a lot more Eastern sophistication than Milwaukee. Cincinnati is almost a southern city that just happens to be on the wrong side of the Ohio border, and quite different than Buffalo. Pittsburgh has some similarities, but the differences in terrain and provinciality are significant.

One thing that sets us apart in the media is that fact that we were ranked a lot higher within the lifetime of a lot of residents. We're used to - and demand - a higher level of performance than audiences in markets of similar size. The Buffalo News is much better than any Gannett paper in Rochester, Syracuse, or Albany. I find Buffalo TV and radio to generally be much better than many markets that rank higher. Yes, we have our provincial qualities, and we have our losers, but our best stack up well against the best performers in much larger cities.

Maybe it's because Buffalo is home, but the more I travel, the more I feel that WE DON'T SUCK. I do get the feeling that some corporate honchos are doing their best to reduce the quality of the broadcast product here.

 

[Mike Sheridan]

Rox did a great job in his evaluation of the Buffalo market.

I haven't been to Cleveland or Milwaukee but I will say that when I was in Detroit it felt a lot like Buffalo. There was an air of a friendly blue collar town. Rochester somehow doesn't feel quite the same as Buffalo dispite the close proximity.

 

[fybush]

Rox did a great job in his evaluation of the Buffalo market.

I haven't been to Cleveland or Milwaukee but I will say that when I was in Detroit it felt a lot like Buffalo. There was an air of a friendly blue collar town. Rochester somehow doesn't feel quite the same as Buffalo dispite the close proximity.

From over here on the other side of the Great Wall of Genesee County, I quite agree.

To this Rochester native, anyway, the city has always felt something like a cross between New England and the upper Midwest. The cultural legacy of George Eastman is still felt very strongly here, and the presence of the U of R and RIT make this area more of a college town than many outsiders appreciate. The blue-collar, manufacturing segment of the economy here is far less significant than it is in Buffalo, and we've weathered the decline of Kodak pretty well for a "company town."

Because this was never a top-50 media market in the TV era, the way Buffalo was, there's always been more of a farm-team mentality in the Rochester media world than in Buffalo. Perhaps if WHAM had used its huge signal for top-40 back in the day, that might have been different, but for the most part we've never generated the kind of national media talents that Buffalo did. With the exception of a few lifers, this tends to be more of a pass-through kind of a market, and I think we're the worse for it. (We're also just distant enough from Toronto that our radio and TV don't suffer from comparison to that big city's offerings, which I think have set a bar in recent years for Buffalo radio, especially.)

Nobody's touched very much on Syracuse here. I don't spend as much time there as I do in Buffalo, but my impression is that it's even more of a transient media town than Rochester, thanks to the churn of communications graduates out of SU. Without the university, Syracuse would pretty much be Utica - "a nice place to be from," in the words of one Utica native friend of mine. There's really not much there there these days.

 

[SirRoxalot]

The 'Cuse

Despite the presence of SU and their communications programs, Syracuse may not even compare well with other medium broadcast markets. In the past, there were some bright spots. WHEN was a great AM music station "way back when", but radio there now is largely awful. Syracuse sports some of the worst audio processing I've ever heard for music. Maybe it has something to do with Clear Channel being a major player, and the lack of competition from Citadel and Galaxy.

TV there isn't much better, and Clear Channel's sale of WSYR to Newport doesn't portend better things for the 'Cuse. I have to say that I've been largely unimpressed with the graduates of the Newhouse school that I've run across over the years.

Utica/Rome once was a pretty good little radio market. Those days are long past. The fact that Clear Channel sold their Utica holdings for pocket change should tell you all you need to know.

Albany is a different animal altogether. There's a lot more influence from downstate there, and there's some pretty good radio to be found.

 

[Bob1370]

Here's one man's opinion, based on having spent time in all three of the largest upstate markets (can't say anything about Albany, never worked in the market or spent more than a few days there on business at any one time).

Rochester as a media market, and as a community, is a lot like the town where its baseball team's parent club plays, namely Minneapolis. A lot of high tech value-added employment; universities and colleges almost everywhere you turn; the heritage of a major longtime employer (Kodak for Rochester, 3M for the Twin Cities) that's still around but less of a force than it was 30 years ago; heavy winter weather; even the fact that both communities started out as grain mill towns and became value-added manufacturing towns, high tech incubators and educational centers. And Rochester's media sounds and looks at least a little bigger-market than you'd expect from a town that's always been at the doorstep of the top 50 but still outside looking in. As a market, it's a place where some folks plant roots because they have a good situation and the town is a pleasant place to raise a family, while others regard it as a way station on the road to better things. You have a mix here of lifers who could move on but stay because they like where they are, and transients who do move on because they can. Always have, probably always will

Syracuse in the 70s USED to have a true major market flavor, with stations like WHEN pioneering the full-service AC format for the whole country along with WGR in Buffalo and WGAR in Cleveland, WSYR having a sound a lot like WOR, and WNDR and WOLF able to hold their own with larger market top-40 stations (no surprise that one of the most prominent Syracuse CHR personalities of the day, Bobby Shannon, is now a fixture at WCBS-FM in New York, the premiere American classic-hits station). Syracuse used to be a mix of lifers and transients like Rochester is now, but once the old guard of the generation of Rod Wood walk away from the game, it'll be more a pure stop on the career road to somewhere else. The pay just isn't that good anymore.

Buffalo radio and TV was truly big-market in sound and look long after it fell out of the top 25 in the early 1980s. When you think of what WKBW was to CHR, WGR was to AC, 97 Rock was to album rock, and WBEN was to full-service adult radio in the late 1970s and early 1980s, you recall some of the best stations of their era in all of North America, competitive in quality with anything you'd have found in Toronto, Detroit, Chicago or even New York. It was home to some of the best personalities in the business, and paid well enough that for many years, really from the early 1920s to the late 1980s, it was largely a destination market for a career in broadcasting rather than a market you passed through on the way to somewhere else. It hasn't TOTALLY lost that yet, because it's still got major-league sports and major cultural institutions, but a lot more people are short-timers with ambitions to land in Chicago or Toronto, and a lot fewer are lifers now than in the 70s and 80s.

Of the three, Rochester has changed far less in its character as a city and a media market than the other two--despite all the changes the local economy has gone through and all the ways the area's become more diverse.

 

[dustintv]

Buffalo in my opinion is comparable of course to Pittsburgh, Cleveland, and somewhat less so to Detroit...perhaps Flint Michigan instead? All declining industrial cities in the same region. Though I've never been, Milwaukee would probably be different, as I understand it's more akin to Chicago, St. Louis etc.

Rochester? We're more of a secondary city, important, but somewhat of an afterthought. I'd compare Rochester to Akron Ohio, Toledo, and Grand Rapids Michigan. As far as Syracuse goes, I can't determine a good comparable city...Youngstown/Warren perhaps? I think Utica and Binghamton are comparable to Erie.

I was born and lived in Ithaca until I was 15, granted I love the town and enjoy chatting to all the intellects there, but my problem is that many Ithacans live in a bubble, and if someone was to ever burst that bubble, all those Cornell intellects would be jumping out of three story windows. When I was 15 we moved to Albany. It's a nice city, but it's bustling, and largely suburbia these days. After that I went to SUNY in Buffalo then somehow ended up living with a couple of friends in Brockport...don't ask. Enough of my life though.

As media markets, Buffalo, Rochester, Albany, and Syracuse all have similairites. They all have major AM news/talk stations in WBEN, WHAM, WSYR, and WGY(though not as good as the former three). And, until the last decade, had one television outlet that did better than the rest in WKBW, WOKR, WTVH, and WRGB. In the cases of WKBW and WTVH, they are last place these days, while WHAM and WRGB are now struggling to keep a hold on first place.

 

[scooterodell]

And Rochester's media sounds and looks at least a little bigger-market than you'd expect from a town that's always been at the doorstep of the top 50 but still outside looking in.

I've been in lots of medium size markets where the local TV news is more on par with Elmira than Rochester. I can't speak for Buffalo or Syracuse TV, but I'm pretty proud of the local news put out by WHAM and WHEC, and even WROC and R-News are better than a lot of what you will find in markets of similar size.

 

[aaronread]

Speaking as someone with limited history here, and thus objective to the point of inaccuracy I would think one of the biggest differences between Buffalo and Rochester is Buffalo's proximity to Canada and the audience in St.Catharine's, et al. Similarly, Buffalo has the advantage of an internationally-known tourist destination in Niagara Falls. I believe that extra audience is part of the reason why Buffalo can justify having an NFL team and Rochester cannot, correct?

On the other hand, while it still sucks pretty hard, I think Rochester's winters are noticeably less severe than Buffalo's or Syracuse's.

FWIW, one thing my wife has often commented on is how incredibly rich and diverse the arts & music scene is in Rochester (we live near 12 Corners in Brighton) considering the relatively "small" population. It's not NYC, of course...but coming here after 13 years in Boston, I don't feel like I've left all that much behind. At least not in the arts & culture department, damned if I don't miss the seafood and Mexican food, though. ;D

 

[SirRoxalot]

Just trying to help a new resident...

What, you haven't come to appreciate the delicate taste of Great Lakes lamprey, goby, ruffe, and zebra mussels?

I got scrod in Boston once. It was expensive as I recall.

Sorry, but I can't help you with Mexican in Rochester. In Buffalo, we have Gramma Mora's.

 

[Element9]

"You simply must sup at Dinosaur," as residents of Brighton might intone. I always viewed Rochester as Buffalo's Bee-yotch. We have the Sabres. They have the Amerks. We've got the Bills... yeah, that's right. Last I checked, the team was called the BUFFALO Bills... not the Rochester Bills. Sure, toney St. John Fisher gets the Bills for training camp, but the team plays at The Ralph! At leats for 7 out of 8 regular season home games. And, it just may be a matter of time before the team is know as the Toronto Continentals or some other bi-municipal name.

Crude. Sorry about the noise and bad manners. Just thought that Buffalo-talk-show-host tactic to stir the pot. Heh.

Actually, I think Rochester's quite a lovely city... as long as you stay clear of The Crescent on Friday and Saturday night. Ooops. Sorry. Another stereotype. I simply must get out of Bob Lonsberry mode.

Seriously. Rochester is a beautiful city. Wonderful arts community, good if not great colleges and universities and until recently, a corporate structure that stood strong. High number of rsidents with college degrees per capita. Impressive.

Big Yellow Box has had a rough go of it the last five years and Xerox has taken a few punches to the solar plexis, but the city of Rochester sustains itself.

Quite like Buffalo. I'd say.

Buffalo gets a bad rap: "Rust Bowl." "Blue Collar." "Shot an' a Beer Town." Hell, as long as I'm on a roll, letm me throw in "Wide Right" and "Foot In Crease." Toss in "Jimmy Griffin" and "Tony 'Yo Adrienne' Masiello" into the fray as well. Deez, demz, doze and duhz.

Buffalo's ethnicity ("ethnic-city," get it?) shines through much greater than Rochester's. Buffalo gets short shift as a college town and center for the arts, compenents that deserve far more visibility and promotion.

The Albright Knox? The Buffalo Philharmonic? University at Buffalo and it's Schools of Biotechnology, Medicine and Law? Buffalo State College, Canisius College? Daemen, Hilbert, Medaille, Trocaire and D'Youville colleges? We'll claim Niagara University as well. SUNYGeneseo is condeded to Rochester as long as SUNY Fredonia falls to Buffalo. And we'll concede Genesee Community College to Rochester but claim three campuses (campi for Rox, who's killin' us with the Latin) of Erie Community College as well as Niagara Community College, often refered to as "N-Trip."

Buffalo is a college town! Has been for years but sadly, it seems to be unable to pronounce those words and say them with pride... but there will come a day, very soon.

Other posters have made great points about Buffalo as a radio market WKBW, WBEN, WGR, 97 Rock and I'd throw in WYSL AM & FM in the McLendon years as well as WPHD. WEBR? Superb station as The Sound Of The City. WWOL as a country station? How 'bout it?! And think of all the NPR people who've passed through WNED and WBFO.

Both Rochester and Buffalo shared the plague of Gordon Brown with WNIA and WSAY, so there's another point in common. But heck, more than a few great people came through those rat holes.

Rochester, what I know of it, impresses me a city that knows what it wants to be, while Buffalo impresses me as a city that knows what it is. Warts and all.

 

[fybush]

Rochester, what I know of it, impresses me a city that knows what it wants to be, while Buffalo impresses me as a city that knows what it is. Warts and all.

Sadly, Rochester has lost the "Smugtown" confidence that it enjoyed in my parents' (and grandparents', and great-grandparents') day. There's a cynicism that's settled in recently, manifested most deeply in the sewer pit that is the Democrat and Chronicle's op-ed page - a sense that the city lacks the ability to succeed in today's world. We saw it come out in droves during the Fast Ferry adventure a few years back, as the "it'll never work, who would ever want to come visit us" letters filled the page day after day. Those who actually rode the ferry loved it, but they were drowned out by the naysayers. I suspect many of them have never traveled widely enough to know just how good we have it here, and in Buffalo, for that matter.

(I can claim roots in the Queen City, too, incidentally; one great-great-grandpa settled there way back in 1860 and one grandfather was born there, for whatever that's worth.)

As for Aaron's point about Buffalo's border proximity, I've always found Buffalo's relationship with Canada fascinating. As a radio geek, I'm always punching among the St. Kitts and Toronto signals when I'm in Buffalo. I doubt the average Buffalonian spends much time these days with CHTZ or CHRE or even CHUM-FM. Nor, I suspect, do the folks in Thorold or Welland keep WTSS or WYRK on their presets. With the dollar at parity, gas at ridiculous levels and border hassles at a new high, I know I think twice about making jaunts to Canada that would once have been automatic. I suspect the same is true for my Buffalo brethren. To me, the remarkable thing about Buffalo media is the way it has steadfastly resisted the siren song of those millions of potential viewers and listeners across the border and remained focused on Buffalo and vicinity. (Except for WNED-TV "Buffalo/Toronto," of course, but even it is far less visible in the crowded Toronto mediascape than it once was.)

I echo E9's observation about Buffalo knowing what it is. Russert was a great exemplar of that truth. So, at least to my eyes, is the Buffalo News. I find it to be a far better reflection of the city it serves than the D&C is of its hometown. I'm sure Buffalonians find plenty of fault with it, though.

 

[SirRoxalot]

Buffalo Snooze

I echo E9's observation about Buffalo knowing what it is. Russert was a great exemplar of that truth. So, at least to my eyes, is the Buffalo News. I find it to be a far better reflection of the city it serves than the D&C is of its hometown. I'm sure Buffalonians find plenty of fault with it, though.

I miss being a two newspaper town, but anybody who thinks the Buffalo News sucks need only pick up any of the local rags from Rochester, Syracuse, Utica, or Binghamton. D&C may be the perfect description of Gannett's Rochester paper...

 

[umtrr-author]

The D&C?

True story: First class on first day in B-school, which is how I came to live in Rochester, the professor referred to it as "the Demogogue and Comical"... and that was in 1989.

I've found little evidence to the contrary since then. While there is the occassional reasonably good writing, the degree of slant, bias and butchery in their pages can be breathtaking. And it may not be in any particular direction except the Lowest Common Denominator. "Liberty making a big hair statement" was the way an early silver dollar was described.

One need only spend a moment or two perusing the comment boards to understand their current target market. I usually feel dumber having read these boards (the postings on the latest Lonsberry flap being a prime example). Certainly any moderation system that allows a screen name of "Joeisanidiot" directly insulting another (equally anonymous) poster "Joe" needs to its license to populate the Internet seriously reconsidered. But give the people what they want, right? I guess, to quote Lena Lamont in "Singin' In The Rain," "I ain't people!"

But I digress. I'm in violent agreement with Mr. Fybush on the point that the more one travels, the better both Buffalo and Rochester look upon coming home. I've personally gone from asking upon my arrival from Joisey in 1989, "Why do you people have traffic reports?" to knowing that either city would be a great place to raise kids given some reasonable choices and that there is Not Enough Money In Circulation to get me to return to a Great Big City (like NYC) to live.

To answer the original question, my comparisons to Buffalo do tend to be more toward cities to the west than to the east. They may differ in population size and/or scope, but I think that conceptually the similarity is there. Similarly, I have referred to Rochester as "the easternmost city in the Midwest," and that is not meant to be an insult.

 

[scooterodell]

But give the people what they want, right? I guess, to quote Lena Lamont in "Singin' In The Rain," "I ain't people!"

I wonder how many people know what you're referencing?

"I am a 'shimmering, glowing star in the cinema firmament.' Says so. Right there."

 

[Inventor989]

Having spent four years of my life in WNY (Rochester), a couple years in Albany and Utica, another six in Pittsburgh, another four in Toledo, with a lot of time spent in Cleveland, Detroit and Columbus/Dayton/Cincinnati, here's my 2 cents worth. The one thing Rochester and Buffalo have in common is good people. I still have many friends in both places, and every time I visit, I am always able to strike up a conversation with a total stranger as if we knew each other for years. Otherwise, I'd say Buffalo, Pittsburgh and Cleveland are close in character, although I would not rank Pittsburghers and Clevelanders as being particularly friendly when compared to the people of Buffalo (and Rochester).

Rochester and Toledo both have a similar character in that there is a media (newspaper) elitism that is overbearing. The D&C and The Blade are both reviled by a large chunk of the local populace because of this. Both have a fairly strong past with regard to the arts (Toledo Museum of Art, Eastman School of Music), and, of course, both have the Great Lakes, although Toledo's lake presence is dirtier and more industrial. Both are overshadowed by their neighbors (Buffalo, Detroit), yet both have a feeling that their cities are culturally stronger than their bigger neighbors.

Only Buffalo has Ted's Hot Dogs. As such, all others in the Rust Belt must bow to the superiority of "The Friendly City".

 

[SirRoxalot]

Don't Give Me THAT Baloney...

In Buffalo, we really know how to "put on the dog" - either Ted's or the original Louie's at Sheridan Park.

 

[aaronread]

I got scrod in Boston once. It was expensive as I recall.

Everyone who lives in Boston gets "scrod" all right...the rents are ridiculous!

 

[fybush]

Only Buffalo has Ted's Hot Dogs. As such, all others in the Rust Belt must bow to the superiority of "The Friendly City".

I bow to nobody in my respect for Ted's (mmm...now I'm getting hungry), but since you spent some time in Toledo, surely a few words about Tony Packo's are in order here, too?

(Both are frequent stops on the all-too-often trip from Rochester to Fort Wayne to see the in-laws...)

And as good as both Ted's and Tony Packo's are, you can't get a white hot or a garbage plate at either one, last time I checked.