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WHEN WILL ENTERCOM MAKE THE MOVE?

onair

onair

Last week Entercom Kansas City got rid of Soft Rock on 98.1 KUDL (after over 30 years) to simulcast their AM news/talker.
Just happened again today in Buffalo, getting rid of a Classic Rock station.

WHEN (not if) it happens in Boston - who will get displaced. ONE or BOTH of the WAAF's? (Probably not MIKE-FM)

And WHAT will they put on it? WEEI (To compete with 98.5?) OR WRKO to compete with WTKK?)

Thoughts?

More here:
http://www.radio-info.com/news/ente...-to-simulcast-am-talk-this-time-buffalos-lake
 
I have seen some speculating - but Entercom is blowing up successful / heritage stations in other parts of the country in order to migrate NewsTalk to FM... that is why I am asking now.
 
For the record, I could really see WAAF moving back to Asnebumskit Hill and maintaining its format, and 97.7 flipping to an FM simulcast of WEEI. WAAF always did alright with one frequency, WMKK makes some bank, you've got WEEI-FM in Westerly/Providence, WVEI-FM in Springfield, and WVEI-AM in Worcester to fill in the gaps. That's the move that makes sense on multiple fronts.

WRKO is a non-issue.
 
Take the WAAF simulcast to the woodshed. Give 97.7 to WEEI, and 107.3 to WRKO. Kill two AM-to-FM birds with one stone.
 
I was always told by AAF sales people that AAF was a profitable station with low overhead. With the exception of Gregg Hill all the salaries were low and I doubt he was making big money anyway. The question is if you moved RKO or EEI to the 107.3 AAF signal are you going to make up the revenue you would loose?

I always thought it made more sense to simulcast one of the AM's on 97.7.
 
If I'm remembering billing/ratings information correctly; historically, the addition of 97.7 FM to WAAF created no substantial increase to the station's listenership or ratings. With the growth in news/talk on FM, something has to give at some point, and I agree that's it's a "when" much more than an "if".

If you look at the situation in Buffalo, 107.7 looks like somewhat of a poor signal - Radio-Locator maps show it barely putting a 54 dbu signal into Niagara Falls. While I don't know the intricacies of the market, it seems like the simulcast is going to need the AM half of the operation to maintain strong coverage throughout the market.

Along those lines, could WAAF move to the prime (but small) signal of 97.7 FM, with the more suburban 107.3 becoming the news/talk simulcast?

(then again, when you look at it like that, and consider Kiss 108's 10 share, it suddenly seems appealing to focus on the present instead of the long-term needs, turn 107.3 into a bargain-basement CHR and watch the ratings and billing roll in.)
 
Well, the question is... what station could they make more $$$ with an FM WRKO or an FM WEEI? Then the other question, where is most of their listening coming from Boston proper or Metrowest?

This will dictate who stays, who goes.
 
97.7 doesn't help WEEI that much as most of their reach is already covered by 103.7.

If they are going to put WEEI on one of the FMs they already own my bet would be 93.7 or 107.3 who both fill in the north shore much better than 97.7

That said, they are billing 23mil/year with WEEI already being on AM and not putting any additional money into it, why make the switch unless they think that it'll really gain them millions more in billing.

I'd love to hear Sox/C's in FM but I don't think it happens til one of their FMs really suffer and from what I can tell they are all doing pretty well.

The real weak link in the cluster is 680 if you ask me. Time to just put the ESPN simulcast there and live sports whenever WEEI already has something.
 
thetheo said:
97.7 doesn't help WEEI that much as most of their reach is already covered by 103.7.
Click to expand...

Don't let the city of license being Brockton fool you. Since 97.7 moved to Great Blue Hill, the signal south of Boston is not very good at all, especially in areas like Taunton and Mansfield. I'd say that it's better north of the city now than it is south.
 
Oh, I didn't know it wasn't as good south anymore. I can only comment on the north, and I know it still sounds terrible in the Reading area.
 
Also....the Buffalo move was taking the #2 station in the market with between an 8.7 and 10.8 the past five books and putting it on the FM that used to have the 13th station in the market that hasn't gone above a 2.2 in the past 5 books.

When looking at their properties here, they are all a lot closer in ratings.....they really going to pull the plug on a station that got a 3.0 or a 3.2 to replace it with an AM that got a 3.5?

Not impossible....but the past examples are much more "no brainers" on paper I bet.
 
http://www.kansascity.com/2011/04/04/2776002/can-am-radio-survive-by-serving.html#ixzz1IcQVicMq

>>“We’re going to have access to an all-new audience,” said Merrill, a father of three school-age kids. “Most of the Gen-X and millennials aren’t used to AM. That’s Dad’s station.”..Scanning the amplitude modulation band, it is easy to conclude that radio’s senior circuit has devolved into a staticky mess of weak signals aimed at micro-sized constituencies. Spanish-language stations. Religious broadcasters. Timeshares

"AM radio, what's that?"...
No room for AM in phones, mp3 players...
Your grandpa's part of the radio dial--and now aging talk demos are finding their way to FM with
some stations moving or simulcasting. And perhaps younger audiences will discover talk too.

Will it happen here w/ the sports and talk stations? AM will still have some music (WJIB), religion
(some of it in foreign language), ethnic, kiddie stuff like Radio Di$ney, but will people migrate
to FM to hear RKO, EEI, or even BZ...?
 
Also quoted in the above article was one Scott Fybush...

“Not only are the radios less sensitive than they were, nowadays the noise floor is so high,” said Scott Fybush, a broadcasting enthusiast who edits NorthEast Radio Watch online. “That LED traffic light at the end of your block is emitting noise, completely unregulated. You need a lot more raw AM power to get over that...”

But the biggest threat to AM’s future may simply be this: “For a significant portion of the population,” Fybush said, “there’s nothing happening on AM.”
 
ON AIR said:
I have seen some speculating - but Entercom is blowing up successful / heritage stations in other parts of the country in order to migrate NewsTalk to FM... that is why I am asking now.
Click to expand...

Neither of the stations Entercom "blew up" were successful. They were low-rated and/or low-billing and therefore expendable.

"Heritage" means absolutely nothing to anyone except radio geeks, who usually aren't the ones filling in diaries or carrying PPM's. Nostalgia doesn't pay salaries or expenses.
 
"Thetheo" speculation seems very clear. In Revere and Salem, Ma area, 97.7 does not come in good in those areas, especially in Salem, Ma area (this is listenning by a walkman and listenning at home to two different radio CD Boombox in my family room, and a Clock radio in my room) Listenning within the city Copley Square area, Comm Ave area, Northeastern University Area, Kenmore Square, Brookline, Ma (until you past Resevoure Train Station-going towards Newton) Allston, Brighton, South Boston, Chinatown, Dudley Square, Roxbury, parts of and Dorchester. Most of these areas can not get 97.7 nor 93.7, especially listenning on a walkman (any walkman, new and old) I recently brought a Speaker AM/FM Radioshak Walkman with an Antanna, luckly I can get both 93.7 and 97.7 in most of those areas and at home in Salem, Ma and at my Uncles in Revere. The average listenner won't know this). On a regular walkman and I assume listenning at home or work, in those areas inside Boston as I mentioned, you can't get both 93.7 and 97.7. Yes both comes in pretty well from North Station area until Government Center area. Other than that, anywhere inside the city you can not get both stations unless you have a good radio. The average listenner will not know that.
You can't also get 94.5, 98.5, 101.7, and 103.3 inside most of Boston in those areas.
Once you get outside the city, you can pretty much get all those stations, except 97.7. Although 97.7 signal is ok, it's not the best outside the city, but it's ok.
If any change, it would be a smart move to change 93.7, like some of you think, as well as myself, Sports Talk would be great on there.
 
another idea, I had was if they were to simulcast WRKO on FM, perhaps they can put the national stuff on FM, my idea stand like this
For starters
-Week-
Midnight-1am Rusty Replay
1am-5am Red Eye Radio
5am-5:30am Wall Street Journal
5:30am-9am Tom and Todd
9am-Noon Laura Ingrham
Noon-1 Lunch Money
1pm-3pm Michelle Mcphee
3pm-6pm Howie Carr
6pm-9pm Michael Savage=This is the correct live time in this area on weeknights
9pm-Midnight Rusty Humphries=This is the correct live time in this area on weeknights

So from 1am-6pm Simulcast WRKO, then 6pm-5am put the National stuff. On weekends simulcast WRKO, but put "Money Talks" live 4pm-7pm on Sundays. That's the correct time it is on live on Sundays. This is how they should do.
That's just my idea
 
Whatever happened to that old late 1960's FCC rule that stated one could not simulcast an AM station onto and FM station? That was meant to encourage diversity of formats on FM and to help FM "arrive". Must have been repealed. Now, it needs to be re-instated to help AM "arrive back".
 
I was wondering what happened to the rules on simulcasting on different stations that cover the same area AM or FM. I thought it wasn't allowed.
 
If they simulcast either WRKO or WEEI wouldn't they be stuck with two redundant 50,000 watt AM stations? What would they do with them?
 
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