What format would do well in Atlanta right now?

[Radio1360]

I've said it before on these posts and I'll say it again: All-News. Only this time a new station on a new frequency (AM of course) and not one owned by Clear Channel or Cumulus.

 

[cash]

how bout this 4 an idiotic idea...
top 40? OK, maybe expand to 50 currents and have recurrents and "wow" songs
that rotate quarterly through the year (so they don't burn)

 

[Windreader]

I've said it before on these posts and I'll say it again: All-News. Only this time a new station on a new frequency (AM of course) and not one owned by Clear Channel or Cumulus.

Can we just stop this nonsense? Every time I see one of these comments, I just shake my head and wonder if the poster has ever spent two minutes working in this business. All News DOESN'T WORK... it's the most expensive format on the planet; it eats through people and resources at an unbelievable rate and has practically no audience retention. Nearly every station that tried it found it necessary to convert to "news/talk" to remain solvent. A few attempted to do it on the cheap, with predictable results. All News is just not cost effective, and what could radio possibly deliver that CNN, Fox, etc. or the internet can't do better? Really, give it up.

 

[trusty]

All News DOESN'T WORK... it's the most expensive format on the planet; it eats through people and resources at an unbelievable rate and has practically no audience retention. Nearly every station that tried it found it necessary to convert to "news/talk" to remain solvent.

I'll take a wild guess that you're not consulting CBS Radio. ;D

 

[andyfrom88]

An eclectic mix of every possible kind of music from punk to Pavarotti with bird calls on the half hour and Al Franken in the afternoon.

Did someone call for AM1690? ;D

If I made a format it would be early rock and roll, rhythm & blues, and a bit of doo-wop. I'm thinking mid-40s to mid-60s. Not really a Fox 97 remake or a Sunny 100 ala Atlanta, but well let me give some examples. Howlin' Wolf, Lloyd Price, Big Mama Thornton, Link Wray, Carl Perkins, Wild Bill Moore, Billy Lee Riley, Jackie Brenston, etc. I'm trying to create a specialty show based around this music on 88.

Yeah, I really dig the classics. Sue me.

 

[Windreader]

All News DOESN'T WORK... it's the most expensive format on the planet; it eats through people and resources at an unbelievable rate and has practically no audience retention. Nearly every station that tried it found it necessary to convert to "news/talk" to remain solvent.

I'll take a wild guess that you're not consulting CBS Radio. ;D

They probably wouldn't listen anyway. : CBS seems to have a penchant for looking backwards, or out the window (uh... Katie Couric... cough, cough) Aside from WINS, which averages a 3.5 share and 7-9th in the largest market in the country (they could probably run 24/7 intestinal noises up there and make money), there isn't much happening in the way of radio "news" formats. And certainly there isn't a single executive in the Atlanta market willing to invest the kind of money it would take to pull off anything close, which was the original question posed in this thread. We all know what happened when WCNN tried to do it on a shoestring. More than likely it would end up news in AM drive and a bunch of yakkers in all the other day parts... and, mediocre or not, Whiz-bee pretty much has a lock on that puppy.
"All news" had its narrow window of opportunity before CNN and the internet. Technology has just come too far. Radio's immediacy advantage is gone. The TV news channels can get to breaking stories anywhere in the world just as fast AND with video. Just about everyone I know carries a Blackberry and they get news alerts just as fast as the radio stations in a lot of cases. OK, WBBM and KCBS are holding their own, WTOP (not CBS) is a perennial winner in news-rich DC, but KFWB and KNX are both pulling one and a half shares. The CBS news/sports station in Dallas is buried among the losers, they have nothing in Houston. The CBS properties in Philly are news/TALK. Ditto Detroit and Boston. Forget Miami. Outside of markets 1-3 and Washington, "newsradio" doesn't really exist. I just don't see any upside to reviving the idea in Atlanta.

Anyway, my free counseling service for CBS... enjoy it where you have it, but all news radio is not exactly sweeping the country.

 

[trusty]

All News DOESN'T WORK... it's the most expensive format on the planet; it eats through people and resources at an unbelievable rate and has practically no audience retention. Nearly every station that tried it found it necessary to convert to "news/talk" to remain solvent.

I'll take a wild guess that you're not consulting CBS Radio. ;D

They probably wouldn't listen anyway. : CBS seems to have a penchant for looking backwards, or out the window (uh... Katie Couric... cough, cough) Aside from WINS, which averages a 3.5 share and 7-9th in the largest market in the country (they could probably run 24/7 intestinal noises up there and make money), there isn't much happening in the way of radio "news" formats. And certainly there isn't a single executive in the Atlanta market willing to invest the kind of money it would take to pull off anything close, which was the original question posed in this thread. We all know what happened when WCNN tried to do it on a shoestring. More than likely it would end up news in AM drive and a bunch of yakkers in all the other day parts... and, mediocre or not, Whiz-bee pretty much has a lock on that puppy.
"All news" had its narrow window of opportunity before CNN and the internet. Technology has just come too far. Radio's immediacy advantage is gone. The TV news channels can get to breaking stories anywhere in the world just as fast AND with video. Just about everyone I know carries a Blackberry and they get news alerts just as fast as the radio stations in a lot of cases. OK, WBBM and KCBS are holding their own, WTOP (not CBS) is a perennial winner in news-rich DC, but KFWB and KNX are both pulling one and a half shares. The CBS news/sports station in Dallas is buried among the losers, they have nothing in Houston. The CBS properties in Philly are news/TALK. Ditto Detroit and Boston. Forget Miami. Outside of markets 1-3 and Washington, "newsradio" doesn't really exist. I just don't see any upside to reviving the idea in Atlanta.

Anyway, my free counseling service for CBS... enjoy it where you have it, but all news radio is not exactly sweeping the country.

Very good points - especially the "shoestring" factor. But, newsradio is not about ratings; it's about providing a service while making money. Listen to the stream of KRLD/Dallas. You hear news done professionally, you figure they spend a lot to do it right; you hear the commercials, you figure they're not hurting.

http://bdcast-infinity-krld-am.wm.llnwd.net/bdcast...
(If the link doesn't work, go to radio-locator and click on the audio feed link.)

 

[mchatham103]

I don't know if it would work, but I'd try a true Triple-A station like "The Pig" in Memphis was before they went top-40. That was a station that was never really given enough time to take off and get its wings.

MC

 

[Windreader]

"Service".... I'd like to believe that word is still active in the vocabulary of a few radio executives.

 

[bnaivar]

An Oldies format would do well, as long as you can get some sales-weasels that are willing to sell outside the 285 loop.

 

[Radio1360]

I've said it before on these posts and I'll say it again: All-News. Only this time a new station on a new frequency (AM of course) and not one owned by Clear Channel or Cumulus.

Can we just stop this nonsense? Every time I see one of these comments, I just shake my head and wonder if the poster has ever spent two minutes working in this business. All News DOESN'T WORK... it's the most expensive format on the planet; it eats through people and resources at an unbelievable rate and has practically no audience retention. Nearly every station that tried it found it necessary to convert to "news/talk" to remain solvent. A few attempted to do it on the cheap, with predictable results. All News is just not cost effective, and what could radio possibly deliver that CNN, Fox, etc. or the internet can't do better? Really, give it up.

Okay, how about all-business, all day? And not just Bloomberg or WSJR (Wall Street Journal Report) until 10 a.m. That can't be expensive. Why? Because it's about money!!

 

[louisNatl]

Okay, how about all-business, all day? And not just Bloomberg or WSJR (Wall Street Journal Report) until 10 a.m. That can't be expensive. Why? Because it's about money!!

Business radio is already available on 1160 AM

 

[trusty]

"Service".... I'd like to believe that word is still active in the vocabulary of a few radio executives.

When I lived in Dallas, I knew I could tune in KRLD for the latest news (and it was NOT yellow journalism either - Amazing!). I can stream the station (sorry my link didn't work. need to get it off radio-locator.), and it sounds like the concept hasn't changed. It is a "service" to me.

They're spending money to make money. It's when the "greed" factor kicks in that makes it impossible to do ANY format that's not been pasturized to turn up some numbers. The greed factor lowers the standards, raises the excuses and increases the boredom. Bad radio - no matter what the format is.

 

[Radio1360]

Okay, how about all-business, all day? And not just Bloomberg or WSJR (Wall Street Journal Report) until 10 a.m. That can't be expensive. Why? Because it's about money!!

Business radio is already available on 1160 AM

Good, I heard it. And its programming is clock-formated, which I like (except for local business programs on weekends).

 

[tcsnrayp]

Maybe someone here should try the "we're actually sticking to our format" format.

 

[fortt3]

"... you have an auto flambe' on the downtown Connector at Courtland and the ubiquitous ladder in the road on the 285 flyover loop to 85 North. Stay tuned for more on WATR-AM 750, Atlanta's only ALL TRAFFIC RADIO!"

[spot for Mister Sparky read by one of our famous traffic reporter voices]

"It's five-forty-seven, back to Atlanta's only real-time, full-time traffic, with more surface street coverage than any other station in the A-T-L. Denise, how are the back roads in Gwinnett?"

 

[FloydB]

Maybe someone here should try the "we're actually sticking to our format" format.

Yeah, good point.

"... you have an auto flambe' on the downtown Connector at Courtland and the ubiquitous ladder in the road on the 285 flyover loop to 85 North. Stay tuned for more on WATR-AM 750, Atlanta's only ALL TRAFFIC RADIO!"

[spot for Mister Sparky read by one of our famous traffic reporter voices]

"It's five-forty-seven, back to Atlanta's only real-time, full-time traffic, with more surface street coverage than any other station in the A-T-L. Denise, how are the back roads in Gwinnett?"

You know, the poster that said that all news wouldn't work is also right. The above is similar to one of the complaints about 750 in another thread. They mentioned 750 breaking in with something that happened in Stockbridge, and they asked "what do I care?" when they lived in Snellville. That's another problem, especially with the coverage area. There's just too much ground to cover, and, just because one live in Smyrna, doesn't mean the world revolves around Smyrna. The answer to the big question is there is no real answer. There are too many of us radio geeks on this board that have a wide variety of tastes, so there's not one format that everyone would agree on. But, that's what makes radio great. Because we have so many stations, we should be able to have enough variety in the market that every one of us should find a station that we love and be dedicated to the station. Unfortunately, a lot of corporate suits see one format getting the big cheese, so they try to copy that instead of finding another niche that would work just as well. On the other hand, why haven't there been a huge hip-hop format boom, trying to take down V-103? They wanna say Cox tried with 97.1 before they flipped to the River, but that station was completely jockless, and they got extremely annoying with the "we caught V-103 playing one song and 240 hours of pointless talk and endless commercials" between every song. Actually, 97.1 did take a couple of stones off the V-103 mountain before they blew it up, so, in a since it did work. Sorry this is so long, but I REALLY wanted to make my points clear.

 

[lfuss]

Punk polka, it's the next big thing.

 

[Radio1360]

"All news" had its narrow window of opportunity before CNN and the internet. Technology has just come too far. Radio's immediacy advantage is gone. The TV news channels can get to breaking stories anywhere in the world just as fast AND with video. Just about everyone I know carries a Blackberry and they get news alerts just as fast as the radio stations in a lot of cases.

[/quote] That "narrow window of opportunity" was when we had the old NBC Radio News
Service back in mid 1970's. But many stations (including WSAV-AM 630 in ex-home of
Savannah which aired only 10 minutes of a morning newscast) wasn't interested. When
CNN lauched its second all-news service in 1982 (then CNN2), not only it was seen on
cable, but many radio stations carried the audio simulcast turning them (AM and believe or not, some FM stations) in any town (big, medium or small) into an all-news
station. Once when I was on a visit to Mrytle Beach, I saw a radio station (forgot the call letters and frequency seen on the window) that resemble an old-fashion newspaper office. No doubt it (briefly) had an all-news format. WCQN-AM 1450 (Again in my ex-home of Savannah) carried it from 1982 to 1984 before it made a bad decision to switch from all-news to news-talk for which, Savannah wasn't quite ready for yet. Today that station is extinct. Another station carried it from 1992 to 1994 before it went dark. Another service that did an all-news format was AP Radio (aka The News Station) which ran from 1994-2005. I lean from posters on this Radio-Info Board this past June (2006) that it folded, a victim of (no doubt) demographics and expense. Sure it's easy with all the formats: News-Talk, Sports-Talk (Which there are far too many stations), Religion, and Pre-teen (Radio Disney). I guess only the all-news you'll find these days are in the bigger cities like New York (WCBS, WINS, WBBR), Chicago (WBBM), Dallas (KRLD), Los Angeles (KNX and KFWB), and San Francisco (KCBS), as well as XM, Sirrus, or by just programming your local I-pod. It plays more just music.

 

[AMiable]

If someone at 790 would look beyond strip clubs and bar tabs and tinker with what they've got there, they could make a move. Add a news voice to morning and afternoon drive and - please - drop the 20-20 sports updates during midday. If you don't know the Hawks score by 11:20am, you can pretty much assume they lost.