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What happens to WCBS 880 now?

Weiserguy said:
What is your source? (For this as well as who founded Shadow.) Wikipedia, your memory, or another reference?
Click to expand...

There was a copyright trial in the 90s over the use of the name Shadow Traffic. The history of the company is covered on the first page:

Metro Traffic Control v. Shadow Network, 104 F.3d 336 | Casetext Search + Citator

Read Metro Traffic Control v. Shadow Network, 104 F.3d 336, see flags on bad law, and search Casetext’s comprehensive legal database
casetext.com

The story begins in Philadelphia in 1976, when Michael Lenet founded a radio and television traffic reporting business. Mr. Lenet incorporated his traffic reporting business as Shadow Network, Inc., a Pennsylvania corporation (SNI-PA). SNI-PA used the "SHADOW TRAFFIC" mark to identify its traffic reporting services throughout the Philadelphia area. In 1979, Mr. Lenet and Mark Goldman, the head of a New York media marketing company, embarked on a joint venture to establish a "SHADOW TRAFFIC" traffic reporting service in the New York area.
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Fred Feldman was GM of Shadow for a time, but he wasn't the founder.
 
fybush said:
My Subaru, like most modern cars, has Android Auto (and Apple CarPlay, but I'm Android).

When I start up the car, it automatically connects to the phone. The Google Maps app automatically comes up on the screen. If I haven't already punched in a destination, I can use voice commands to tell it where I'm going, and it will give me what it thinks is the best route and the ETA. As I'm driving, it will offer me alternatives if traffic changes, warn me of speed traps ahead, etc.

If I have driven the same route or searched for the same destination over the last few days, it will even guess where it thinks I'm heading and offer that as a suggested destination. One tap of the screen and I can confirm or dismiss that.

That's the 2024 driving experience, if you want to avail yourself of the tools that are available these days.

When I'm in NYC, where my usual route takes me from Rockland over the GWB into Harlem, I will sometimes hit up 92.3 (the 1010 signal is awful up there) or 880 for traffic reports, but only as a backstop to what's already on my screen, especially to clarify which level of the bridge I want to be on for the fastest trip across.
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I second this. Traffic on the 5s or whatever have always been unnecessary programming interruptions as far as I'm concerned.

Most people my age that I know wouldn't find those traffic reports of much use anyway because they can't get around much at all without being tethered to a GPS device.

Even in a car without CarPlay connectivity, anyone with an iPhone can ask it for directions to any address and it will do the rest. You can even program it to choose to exclude highways or toll roads when possible, etc.
 
TheBigA said:
Once again, you're the one doing the work. Some people are cheap and lazy.
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Really, it's not much more work than punching a preset button and waiting around for a newscast would be. Actually, I'd say asking my phone for directions is less work if anything. I press one button and ask a question. It routes me, reroutes me as needed, gives me an ETA... It does it all.

In most new cars, you'd have to flip through presets (if you're already listening to the radio - otherwise you'd have to flip through a function menu, too), wait for the traffic report, and then interpret the information in it. You're the one that then has to do the work to decide whether or not to take a detour (which you have to come up with if you decide to take another route) or stay the course - and make that decision with what is often very limited info.

I'm sure there are people who don't have phones with GPS capability. I'd also venture to guess that those same folks are not exactly in the target demo of most advertisers. I don't know any young people who get their traffic reports from the radio at all. Because unless that's what you're accustomed to... there's no reason to.
 
AMRadioGuy said:
Really, it's not much more work than punching a preset button and waiting around for a newscast would be. Actually, I'd say asking my phone for directions is less work if anything. I press one button and ask a question. It routes me, reroutes me as needed, gives me an ETA... It does it all.
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As I said, it's user activated. Push vs. Pull. What we find statistically is that people use both. If you're sitting there, and the information comes on the radio, people listen and it can be helpful. On the other hand, if you want to seek out the information, its available. Just like food. You can go to the kitchen and make it, or have it made by someone else. Both ways are available. No reason to shut down restaurants because people have kitchens. Radio is not going to stop doing traffic reports because of GPS. What WCBS has done is integrate what they do with online traffic services. Same with Total Traffic. Its not one or the other. Its both.
 
sjs1959 said:
With their numbers at an all time low (I don't know what they are billing) and with WINS-FM being the third highest biller in the country, according to info found in another post, what does Audacy do? Should they find a FM for 880 or just say WINS is it and switch to brokered programming? Your thoughts?
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I now think of it this way. After The Assassination attempt On Donald Trumps Life. WINS was Airing a Press conference concerning the matter. WCBS 880 was running an interview with Doctor Fashion. Who told their audience what the best Tuxedo is to wear to a Wedding 💒. In other words Audacy Doesn’t care About them.
 
Always interest said:
I now think of it this way. After The Assassination attempt On Donald Trumps Life. WINS was Airing a Press conference concerning the matter. WCBS 880 was running an interview with Doctor Fashion. Who told their audience what the best Tuxedo is to wear to a Wedding 💒. In other words Audacy Doesn’t care About them.
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An actual doctor would be giving useful info on ear wounds.
 
Always interest said:
In other words Audacy Doesn’t care About them.
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It depends. I'm going to a wedding tomorrow, and I'd love some fashion advice. We've talked about this several times in this thread: When you have two stations in the same format, you don't do the same thing with both of them. That applies to Cumulus, who own two country stations in Dallas. One of them plays currents, the other plays classics. So in New York, WINS is the 24/7 news station. WCBS does a combination of news, sports, and information. This is nothing new. There's no need to simulcast a press conference on both stations. Especially if it's not happening in New York.
 
And as KYW in Philly was simulcasting CBS news national coverage for much of the evening, it would have been nice to have a 2nd news station to turn to for local news. WCBS may have been fulfilling that role.
 
TheBigA said:
It depends. I'm going to a wedding tomorrow, and I'd love some fashion advice. We've talked about this several times in this thread: When you have two stations in the same format, you don't do the same thing with both of them. That applies to Cumulus, who own two country stations in Dallas. One of them plays currents, the other plays classics. So in New York, WINS is the 24/7 news station. WCBS does a combination of news, sports, and information. This is nothing new. There's no need to simulcast a press conference on both stations. Especially if it's not happening in New York.
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Yes there’s no reason. But, the fact is CBS/Audacy DID the same format on the two stations for decades. It’s inexcusable why your news format, buried on AM or not, shouldn’t be airing that press conference as well. It’s a bad look regardless. When Kobe passed away, several Audacy FMs simulcast the local tv news feed.
 
Loverofradio said:
Yes there’s no reason. But, the fact is CBS/Audacy DID the same format on the two stations for decades.
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Not anymore. The past is over. Audacy has a new agreement with the unions, and things are different.

The press conference was a waste of time. They didn't say anything because they weren't ready, and nobody from the Secret Service was there.
 
AMRadioGuy said:
Really, it's not much more work than punching a preset button and waiting around for a newscast would be. Actually, I'd say asking my phone for directions is less work if anything. I press one button and ask a question. It routes me, reroutes me as needed, gives me an ETA... It does it all.

In most new cars, you'd have to flip through presets (if you're already listening to the radio - otherwise you'd have to flip through a function menu, too), wait for the traffic report, and then interpret the information in it. You're the one that then has to do the work to decide whether or not to take a detour (which you have to come up with if you decide to take another route) or stay the course - and make that decision with what is often very limited info.

I'm sure there are people who don't have phones with GPS capability. I'd also venture to guess that those same folks are not exactly in the target demo of most advertisers. I don't know any young people who get their traffic reports from the radio at all. Because unless that's what you're accustomed to... there's no reason to.
Click to expand...

Most of us drive with no assistance from our phones or GPS. A trip you take day after day, you don't program into your phone. Then as you're driving, you start to see delays. If you're a listener to a station with frequent traffic reports, you'd know the problem before you run into it.

If it's someplace you rarely go, you might program Waze or Google Maps before you start driving. But human nature is not going to have you do it with a frequent route.

Maybe someday, you can ask your device why you are hitting traffic and it will know an alternate route. But that's not today, not if you didn't program your route ahead of time. And once you see delays ahead, you SHOULDN'T be fumbling with your device while driving.
 
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