What If.....

[John FL]

With the anti-climatic flip of 106.5 WBGB to simulcasting WOKV, it makes you wonder how the Jax market would have been shaken up if O & A were indeed brought here. Now mind you, my own personal feelings don't matter as I don't like them, but I'm not the demo they would be after anyway. From what I know, they do pretty well in most markets. I wonder how they would do against Lex & Terry? So much programming nowadays involves taking away from your closest competitor so I was thinking if Planet wound up loosing a couple of shares, the Cox stations, particularly Rock 105 wouldn't look like they were too far behind.

I guess I just remember the old rules but I thought AM & FM owned stations had to be programmed separately. Since that's not the case, I wonder too if CC would ever consider simulcasting The Fox on Rooster. I guess the same argument could be made that there are a lot of sports lovers who just don't tune into AM and this would be convenient and a nice economical way to introduce new listeners to a format that would be unique at least on FM.

Perhaps, way out of the box thinking, but would it possible Renda would consider bringing in O&A on 100.7 and just abandoning whatever it is they are doing there now? I guess that would be too radical for them but I'd be curious what y'all think.

I'm hearing a lot of buzz about Rhythmic AC or a Movin' format. I wonder too if there would be a place for that in Jax. If CC, for example, flipped Rooster to it, they would in effect have an even bigger monopoly on the urban audience. Something else to think about I suppose.

 

[radiosanchez]

With the anti-climatic flip of 106.5 WBGB to simulcasting WOKV

I was really surprised about Cox dumping the Promise....After they signed on a CCM station in (I think) Tulsa, and since they are toying with the CCM format right down the state on Tampa's 94.9 HD-2, I *really* thought they would let the Promise be in this, the most Christian of FL.markets.

 

[John FL]

Actually, when it was reported on this board that Cox Radio would be flipping the Promise to something else, my first reaction was "oh-oh" - they're going to have a big public relations problem.
But I think the real purpose behind the stunting thing they did was to let Promise listeners know that the station was just moving somewhere else. Given too that the Promise 106.5 frequency was replaced by a simulcast of WOKV and it's conservative talk line up would seem to not upset the apple cart for those listeners either. It wouldn't surprise me if the majority of 106.5 listeners who have their car radios preset with the frequency won't bother replacing it. Automatically, this gives 106.5 a base line. And as I mentioned in another post, it will make it convenient for the occasional OKV listener to tune in the station while they are already on the FM band.
This move buys Cox a lot of time to eventually replace the format with something else. Or this move can wind up being a very long run strategy. I meant to ask this before but is 106.5 using the WBGB calls or is it now WOKV - FM?

 

[Tibbs4]

I know time will tell, but I have not seen a huge combined rating boost when an FM side is added to the AM.
It basically takes two signals and creates a slight increase that whittles back to the original listenership. Even
if it's an added point or two, is it worth taking a 50kw signal for a 2.0 increase? Very few talkers are in the
top three. I know a share makes a lot of differerence, but...

Anyone have any thoughts otherwise? for this it's a $7M cost to create very little, but I guess you save on the expense
side. I certainly see the logic of FM talk, but when you have cities with two or three FM talkers, stations
duplicating similar formats (i.e. two country, two Urban, etc.) you are keeping potential formats off the
airwaves which is only putting a strain on longterm local radio listenership and giving Sirius another boost.

 

[smedge2006]

I think it's a smart LONG-TERM move to put format leaders like WOKV on FM.

Here's something people don't realize: The growth of conservative talk radio in the Limbaugh era didn't grow
AM radio shares vs. FM. It only slowed down the decline. Long term, audience continues to shift to FM vs. AM, a point at a time. It's easy to understand when, in Jax, all you have on the AM band is WOKV, then a halfway successful sports talker way down the list, and below that utter junk. Not to mention that if you
draw a line around age 40 or 45, people younger than that didn't grow up using AM and have no idea it's there. This percentage shift can only get worse, especially in the money demos. Within a decade, even though it may continue with high 12-plus shares, AM will be unsellable.

Another problem specific to WOKV is the amount of interference it has to put up with on AM at night and early in the morning (as late as 7:45 next march when DST kicks in). WOKV's nighttime interference free signal covers about half of the city of Jacksonville, even after a proposed boost to 25 kW. It is hemmed in by Canada, Cuba, New Orleans and Antigua. I think WOKV might have done well to spend the 7M on taking WIST (formerly WTIX) New Orleans dark, but
clearly Cox has another idea that may work as well or better.

WOKV is a good business in a decaying neighborhood (AM radio). That decay has been slowed by talk but not
stopped. Just as the department stores moved out of downtown to the suburbs, so WOKV must eventually move to FM to have any chance at survival.

Yes, you may cannibalize a few AM fans, short term, but long term you are introducing your product to audiences who would never sample it otherwise. You don't mention whether the "whittle back" number you cite is 12-plus or demos. I suspect that even if the 12-plus number reverts to the mean, the demo composition looks a lot better than the old AM-only demos did.

Four or five years ago a lack of certain music formats on FM might have mattered, but I think now the horse is out of the barn (Sirius, XM, IPod, etc.).