What could SAVE WEMP

[Kevin TRC]

I had to drive up to New York this week and got the opportunity to listen to 101.9, something I haven't done in a while. I have to admit they do sound better than they did about 4 months ago. However, to me the station's strength is their traffic reports (both the morning and afternoon guys are extremely good and entertaining). I heard some very off time checks which led me to believe they were doing some kind of recorded news cast (that and I heard the woman anchor promote something coming up, and that played over again).

Maybe they should consider doing talk with their news like the old days of Rambling with Gambling when they also had news reporters too.

Another thing they did I really liked, I called into their traffic line to tell them about a delay I was in, and the traffic reporter in the afternoon actually answered the phone. It was very cool to talk to him. If the rest of their news product could be as good as their traffic, they'd have a great chance of succeeding.

 

[RadioMan203]

I tuned in again today just to see if the time check thing was a fluke. Well, the recorded weather kept playing under commercials but it sounded like the three major breaks at 00, 20 and 40 were actually live as there was a little playful banter between Alice Stockton Rossini and their weather guy. If their entire shift sounded live it may actually keep people interested. Hearing the same "you're in the middle of 10 minutes of non stop news" with the same inflection day in and day out begins to wear on you - they could have recorded a dozen or so liners each with slightly different inflections to at least make it sound less sterile.

I find it annoying when their automation clips news stories and you hear the reverb get clipped off. Sort of like getting poked in the eye with a stick!

Maybe if they went News/Talk they would actually do their ENTIRE newscast live instead of automated. Also, I wonder if their product in Chicago is as bad?

 

[Barry]

an alternative rock station programmed specifically for Nyc would be nice or a country station again programmed correctly for nyc would be nice plus we have that type of music basically covered by ktu and now and power

Key word you said about "KTU"......BASICALLY. Not enough though. Not to the audience an EDM station would want to seek. Think younger.

92.3 Now? I know they're CHR and they're perhaps the closest that play dance in that brand but I also know that's as far as they can go because they ARE CHR.

And where did you get Power from? They're R&B/hip-hop. Unless artists represented there have a dance remix, they would NOT appear on an EDM station with their radio version of their track.

Though I will say this, if an alternative rock station were to happen in the future, then dubstep has to have a place there.

There is a brand new station in Colorado City, CO called Power 103.3. According to the description in RadioInsight, "The station is dayparted with a mix of Rhythmic pop, dance, and R&B during the day and a more current intensive Dance at night. The evening block from 7pm to 12am is branded as 'Radio Planeta' focusing on current Dance and club hits in English and Spanish."
Dance at night seems to be an interesting concept. I could imagine that being tried on a relatively low rated station such as WPAT FM. Many people that like dance music still may not want to have it pounding continuously during the day while they are at work.

Power 103.3 Stream: http://power1033.com/

 

[davideduardo]

Unfortunately, while WCBS-FM is doing well in the 6+ ratings, and even some important demos, word has it that it is not doing correspondingly well in what really matters most....billing.

CBS-FM is probably unique in all US major markets in having doubled billings between 2006 and 2011, a period during which the average station and market lost 30% to 40% of its revenue.

CBS-FM was 7th in billing in 2011, and in a close "clump" with WKTU and WAXQ, two other very successful stations.

In fact, only two music stations bill better: WLTW and WHTZ.

 

[Bob1370]

"Unfortunately, while WCBS-FM is doing well in the 6+ ratings, and even some important demos, word has it that it is not doing correspondingly well in what really matters most....billing."

Word is they're profitable and more lucrative than in their Jack days, creeping back into the top 10 in market revenue, but have yet to recover all the billing lost when they went from oldies to Jack back in '05.

Admittedly some of this is a reaction to the times--all the upper-tier stations are billing somewhat lower than they did a half dozen years ago before the recession.

But if the ratings are strong enough for healthier billing, but the money isn't coming in quite as fast as it should, that's really an indictment of the station's sales management and sales staff and not the fault of the programming. If this has been going on for a while, perhaps it's time for a new and more agressive sales manager and a new team of people hitting the street to sell the time. Messing with a popular format and personality lineup just because the sales force isn't doing a good enough job is the LAST thing they should think of.

 

[davideduardo]

Word is they're (CBS-FM) profitable and more lucrative than in their Jack days, creeping back into the top 10 in market revenue, but have yet to recover all the billing lost when they went from oldies to Jack back in '05.

Admittedly some of this is a reaction to the times--all the upper-tier stations are billing somewhat lower than they did a half dozen years ago before the recession.

The New York market is about 25% below the peak pre-recession years, while CBS FM is less than 10% below that level.

Considering that, at worst, CBS-FM had lost 60% of it's pre-recession billing under the Jack format, one can hardly say that they have "crept" back to the top 10. They leaped, almost miraculously, into 7th in billings in the market, virtually doubling billing from 2009 to 2010.