When did WMMR start playing infomercials on Saturday morning?

[andygradel]

Tuned in this morning during the 8am hour and there was a home improvement infomercial of some kind that was just one guy and a mic. Zero production going into or out of breaks to provide any context as to what I was even listening to.

So, they're making more money airing THAT - while likely shedding listeners - than normal programming with 12 spots + mentions?

Is Beasley also running these on MGK, XTU and Ben?

Feels like another short-sighted move by someone in finance looking to eek out a couple extra bucks, at best, without any consideration for the brand.

 

[TheBigA]

Feels like another short-sighted move by someone in finance looking to eek out a couple extra bucks, at best, without any consideration for the brand.

Here's the context: Costs are going up. Right? We all know that. The staff expects raises every few years. Insurance gets more expensive. Etc.

Other radio companies are dealing with increased costs by firing staff. Beasley is trying to stay local.

Radio stations have one way to make money: advertising. So they can either add more spots or run a one-time infomercial.

Which do you prefer? They need to pay staff. How do they do it? Send listeners a bill? What other choice is there?

 

[Gregg.]

Well, you may have to run infomercials in this environment, but do you have to run them at 8 a.m. on Saturday?

I noticed that the Audacy music stations in Los Angeles have, for a few years now, run weekend infomercials. But they do it Sunday mornings, I believe from 4 to 8 a.m. In fact, Audacy's weekly public affairs show runs Saturdays at 6 a.m. so it's out of the way quickly and Sunday mornings can be all infomercials. But those infomercials are likely at a time when few regular listeners are tuned into Jack-FM, K-Earth or The Wave.

And I think Big A is straying again into snarky responses instead of thoughtful answers.

 

[TheBigA]

Well, you may have to run infomercials in this environment, but do you have to run them at 8 a.m. on Saturday?

Management knows when the fewest people listen. But the advertiser pays based on audience. So it's a compromise.

I like to sleep late on Saturday morning, so I didn't hear it.

I think Big A is straying again into snarky responses instead of thoughtful answers.

There really is no nice way to address the situation. People are listening less. Costs are going up. Ad prices are down.

Nobody who works in radio likes this situation. But the facts are the facts. People are getting fired.

People look at Nielsen share numbers and think everything's fine. They don't tell the whole story.

 

[CTListener]

And a station like WMMR, which was playing 50-year-old Led Zeppelin songs before the infomercial and 40-year-old Queen tracks afterward, is not the sort of station the agencies' dwindling roster of clients is looking to advertise on.

 

[TheBigA]

And a station like WMMR, which was playing 50-year-old Led Zeppelin songs before the infomercial and 40-year-old Queen tracks afterward, is not the sort of station the agencies' dwindling roster of clients is looking to advertise on.

Not to dwell on it, because we certainly don't want to be snarky, but then there's the issue of the spots themselves. At one time, you had lots of retail spots from department stores and car dealers. Now it's mainly erectile disfunction and various drug commercials. It's not just broadcasting because I'm hearing a lot of the same spots on streaming channels and cable TV.

So to escape the commercials, people subscribe to Spotify. But they're faced with rising costs as well, so they just increased their price.

 

[luperm]

Not to dwell on it, because we certainly don't want to be snarky, but then there's the issue of the spots themselves. At one time, you had lots of retail spots from department stores and car dealers. Now it's mainly erectile disfunction and various drug commercials. It's not just broadcasting because I'm hearing a lot of the same spots on streaming channels and cable TV.

That's the irony here. If not for the infomercials, the same people would be here complaining about the low quality and/or repetitive spots.

 

[AbrahamJSimpson]

And a station like WMMR, which was playing 50-year-old Led Zeppelin songs before the infomercial and 40-year-old Queen tracks afterward, is not the sort of station the agencies' dwindling roster of clients is looking to advertise on.

That’s a bit of an over generalization. MMR plays plenty of more current music than Queen and Zepplin. Maybe by random chance those songs end up bookending things, but it’s not indicative of their mix in totality.

That all said, if they had the evidence some seem to suppose exists that running this program would be more detrimental overall than not airing it, it’s reasonable to hypothesize that the dreaded beam counters, as if they’re a problem, would choose the less-bad option. But if you want to maintain local in the more listened to timeslots on the largest possible number of stations, here in 2026 vs 1996, sometimes hard decisions are made to strike a balance.

Good, bad or indifferent, in a challenging environment, Beasley has generally done more to maintain local. Of course they can’t do it 24/7 on every station. Heck, they can’t do it 12 hours on every station and remain even close to viable. But if we’re being fair, they have not swung the axe in the same way iHeart has. And I’m not even picking which one is better, just trying to maintain perspective that they’re trying to do what they can.

Spending someone else’s imaginary money is super easy. When it’s your actual job on the line to manage that P&L statement, and you have to accept that money does not magically fall from above, it’s a different story.

 

[MarkW]

Tuned in this morning during the 8am hour and there was a home improvement infomercial of some kind that was just one guy and a mic. Zero production going into or out of breaks to provide any context as to what I was even listening to.

Wouldn't shock me if it's the same guy WRIF in Detroit airs. If so, he's Metro Detroit-based and has been bouncing from station to station here for close to a couple decades now. He disappears from the dial entirely on occasion. He began popping up on WRIF on Saturday mornings very recently.

 

[MarkW]

And a station like WMMR, which was playing 50-year-old Led Zeppelin songs before the infomercial and 40-year-old Queen tracks afterward, is not the sort of station the agencies' dwindling roster of clients is looking to advertise on.

Although WMMR is affected by the same headwinds as all other commercial radio stations (e.g. cume shrinkage and AQH listeners shrinkage over the past decade + fewer ad dollars to chase), it remains at or near the top of the pack in multiple important demo categories on a regular basis across a wide age range.

I'd be very surprised if it is not a top 5 revenue generator among all local radio stations.

 

[TheBigA]

I'd be very surprised if it is not a top 5 revenue generator among all local radio stations.

Could be. I think KYW and WIP are ahead of it. Maybe B101 too.

But what we don't know is how the market itself is doing. We saw what happened in San Francisco. It may not be that bad in Philadelphia yet. But the fact that BIA hasn't published a Top 10 list in a couple years makes me think that even the successful stations are down.

 

[ted chittenden]

I noticed that the Audacy music stations in Los Angeles have, for a few years now, run weekend infomercials. But they do it Sunday mornings, I believe from 4 to 8 a.m. In fact, Audacy's weekly public affairs show runs Saturdays at 6 a.m. so it's out of the way quickly and Sunday mornings can be all infomercials. But those infomercials are likely at a time when few regular listeners are tuned into Jack-FM, K-Earth or The Wave.

I'm guessing you must be fairly young. I say that because I, at 63 years old, well remember when both KRTH and KHJ had both public service and religious programming between 3am and 9am on Sunday mornings. In fact, before I left Tujunga for Phoenix in 1971, only Pasadena's KPPC-FM was playing music between 7a and 8a on Sunday mornings. And, when I returned to Los Angeles to go to college in the fall of 1981, the only two FM outlets that played music between 6a and 7a on Sunday mornings were KNX-FM and Redondo Beach's KFOX (the 93.5 frequency which is now KDAY). For now, if you don't like the public service programming, your best bet is to listen to Internet streams or whatever music you've purchased yourself.

 

[TheBigA]

For now, if you don't like the public service programming, your best bet is to listen to Internet streams or whatever music you've purchased yourself.

Infomercials have been a fact of life on AM radio for years. If you go to WPHT, it's non-stop infomercials all weekend. Maybe a break for Sounds of Sinatra., But other than that, it's ALL paid programming for the entire weekend. That's just how it is. Those shows basically pay the bills for the rest of the week.

But AM is dead, and we all know it. So do the advertisers. So it's no surprise to me that they're starting to show up on FM music stations. A day will come very soon when the weekends sound just like the AM stations. Beasley is investing that money in live & local talent on the weekdays. Sure the infomercials cause tune-out on the weekends. But the people come back for their favorite hosts on the weekdays. That's the tradeoff.

 

[K.M. Richards]

Without quoting, let me chime in here on the post by @Gregg. and @ted chittenden ...

Sunday mornings have always been a haven for public affairs and paid programming, and I can cite personal experience going back to 1975.

When I went full-time at the station I had been working a Saturday night shift at starting with my senior year in high school, part of my new responsibilities was being designated the public affairs director ... which primarily consisted of my making sure the network PA shows were recorded and ready for air, board-opping the Sunday morning shift, and writing summaries of all the programs for the Public File.

Here is the Sunday morning schedule, permanently etched into my memory:
6:00 AP Radio News
6:05 Portfolio (APR, political coverage and commentary)
6:30 Special Assignment (five segments, largely focusing on topics that would be on the affiliates' local concerns list, plus a five-minute "week in review" news segment
7:00 AP Radio News
7:05 Commonwealth Club of California (recordings of their weekly meetings/Q&A sessions ... very popular with stations in the state at the time)
7:55 Local/California News (live from board)
8:00 AP Radio News
8:05 Kaleidoscope (local PA program, repeat of previous week's show)
8:30 Paid religious program by local Southern Baptist church, pre-recorded
9:00 AP Radio News
9:30 Mormon Tabernacle Choir
10:00 Paid live carriage of local Catholic Mass
11:00 Paid live carriage of local Baptist Church service
12:00 AP Radio News
12:05 Local News (if any, otherwise skipped over)
12:07 Music -- my whole two hours of same in an eight-hour shift

So ... the complaint is not having the regular format on before 8:00am? Piffle.

 

[CTListener]

Without quoting, let me chime in here on the post by @Gregg. and @ted chittenden ...

Sunday mornings have always been a haven for public affairs and paid programming, and I can cite personal experience going back to 1975.

When I went full-time at the station I had been working a Saturday night shift at starting with my senior year in high school, part of my new responsibilities was being designated the public affairs director ... which primarily consisted of my making sure the network PA shows were recorded and ready for air, board-opping the Sunday morning shift, and writing summaries of all the programs for the Public File.

Here is the Sunday morning schedule, permanently etched into my memory:
6:00 AP Radio News
6:05 Portfolio (APR, political coverage and commentary)
6:30 Special Assignment (five segments, largely focusing on topics that would be on the affiliates' local concerns list, plus a five-minute "week in review" news segment
7:00 AP Radio News
7:05 Commonwealth Club of California (recordings of their weekly meetings/Q&A sessions ... very popular with stations in the state at the time)
7:55 Local/California News (live from board)
8:00 AP Radio News
8:05 Kaleidoscope (local PA program, repeat of previous week's show)
8:30 Paid religious program by local Southern Baptist church, pre-recorded
9:00 AP Radio News
9:30 Mormon Tabernacle Choir
10:00 Paid live carriage of local Catholic Mass
11:00 Paid live carriage of local Baptist Church service
12:00 AP Radio News
12:05 Local News (if any, otherwise skipped over)
12:07 Music -- my whole two hours of same in an eight-hour shift

So ... the complaint is not having the regular format on before 8:00am? Piffle.

Ummmm ... Today is Saturday.

 

[MarcB]

103.9 when it still was owned by Radio One and its sister station 100.3 had a show where listeners can call in and talk to a lawyer on Saturday Mornings. Does that count as an infomercial?

 

[K.M. Richards]

Ummmm ... Today is Saturday.

Nitpick. Same premise.

When I was still doing mornings at a station the listener request lines were dead on Saturday mornings until after 8:00 or 9:00. I mean dead as in "not one call for the early hours of my shift".

In 1989.

And one year earlier, I had been doing afternoons at another station that replayed the previous weekend's American Top 40 from 6:00 to 10:00am on Saturday because we perceived there wasn't enough audience to even have a part-timer doing a jock shift.

It is now 37 years later, and I can easily see why Saturday mornings are now a target for infomercials or public affairs programming, especially if it prevents going too late on Sunday mornings as a result.