• Get involved.
    We want your input!
    Apply for Membership and join the conversations about everything related to broadcasting.

    After we receive your registration, a moderator will review it. After your registration is approved, you will be permitted to post.
    If you use a disposable or false email address, your registration will be rejected.

    After your membership is approved, please take a minute to tell us a little bit about yourself.
    https://www.radiodiscussions.com/forums/introduce-yourself.1088/

    Thanks in advance and have fun!
    RadioDiscussions Administrators

Why didn't WAMO just put a more commercially acceptable format on the FM?

T

thefalcon

They had 107.1..Why not make it a format that would have made money in westmoreland county.
They decided to sell. The formats always had to be an african american format. when mr leonard walk owned the stations in the past. he even tried country on whod for a while and they sold spots. many years ago there was a am/fm combo( urban) in columbus I read about. They took the fm soft ac and made money.
Just to keep the urban format on one station and keep the company making money in the other. brother love..the original album oriented rock jock played cream and our acid rock favorites of 1969 on 105.9 fm WAMO. I think its so unfair that a minority owner is always expected to make all of his or her stations urban formats. exception.. the original wjas.. music of your life format owner was african american and made it big band. that logic would make an irish american owner play all irish music and and italian american owner play all italian music.. it just did not make sense. I'll miss the music format on 860 and bev smith..too.
 
Because they were dead flat broke in this market. Davenport had no cash flow and had to get out before WAMO pulled the rest of his holdings under with it.

Welcome to the new economy. There is no money in radio right now. Forget what people did with signals more than 18 months ago. It doesn't work that way anymore.
 
thefalcon said:
I think its so unfair that a minority owner is always expected to make all of his or her stations urban formats. exception.. the original wjas.. music of your life format owner was african american and made it big band. that logic would make an irish american owner play all irish music and and italian american owner play all italian music..
Click to expand...

So very true!!
 
It's also not usually good business for a company that has specialized in one format forever to suddenly try and change direction. It's not as simple as just changing formats. Let's say, as an example that they decided that Alternative was the hole in the market. Let's send WAMO's sales force out to talk to WAMO's clients about it. How successful do you think that would be?

Yes, maybe you could rebuild it in time, but a check for $9 mil right now probably solves a lot more problems.
 
Parttimer said:
Yes, maybe you could rebuild it in time, but a check for $9 mil right now probably solves a lot more problems.
Click to expand...

so true...in the media analysis of this whole thing, I don't see much being written on the last time the Davenports cashed out....they cashed the Clear Channel check for 105.9, making it hard for considerable segments to hear the station...
 
What hole could they have filled? Spanish? Smooth jazz? Very Soft AC from the 70's and 80's, 50 oldies, liberal talk, eclectic? I know those concepts wouldn't work, so what would have? Maybe a true sports outlet on an FM signal?
 
knowtheledge said:
Parttimer said:
Yes, maybe you could rebuild it in time, but a check for $9 mil right now probably solves a lot more problems.
Click to expand...

so true...in the media analysis of this whole thing, I don't see much being written on the last time the Davenports cashed out....they cashed the Clear Channel check for 105.9, making it hard for considerable segments to hear the station...
Click to expand...

An article in the Courier brought up that exact point...that was the real death, the funeral is just being held now.
 
knowtheledge said:
so true...in the media analysis of this whole thing, I don't see much being written on the last time the Davenports cashed out....they cashed the Clear Channel check for 105.9, making it hard for considerable segments to hear the station...
Click to expand...

...and those segments were some of the most important segments to the format.
I lived and worked downtown for about five years and couldn't pick up WAMO anywhere but in my car. At home and work there was too much static and drifting to enjoy it.
 
MsMusicRadio said:
What hole could they have filled? Spanish? Smooth jazz? Very Soft AC from the 70's and 80's, 50 oldies, liberal talk, eclectic? I know those concepts wouldn't work, so what would have? Maybe a true sports outlet on an FM signal?
Click to expand...

They were stuck. I really think that if they held onto the station and changed formats that there would have been a far greater outcry from their current audience than there is under these circumstances.
 
thefalcon said:
They had 107.1..Why not make it a format that would have made money in westmoreland county.
They decided to sell. The formats always had to be an african american format. when mr leonard walk owned the stations in the past. he even tried country on whod for a while and they sold spots. many years ago there was a am/fm combo( urban) in columbus I read about. They took the fm soft ac and made money.
Just to keep the urban format on one station and keep the company making money in the other. brother love..the original album oriented rock jock played cream and our acid rock favorites of 1969 on 105.9 fm WAMO. I think its so unfair that a minority owner is always expected to make all of his or her stations urban formats. exception.. the original wjas.. music of your life format owner was african american and made it big band. that logic would make an irish american owner play all irish music and and italian american owner play all italian music.. it just did not make sense. I'll miss the music format on 860 and bev smith..too.
Click to expand...

Because for many locally based minority owners, its more than just a business to them. It's a pleasurable mission to the communities that they grew up in.

The Davenports had a passion for serving Black radio listeners in Pittsburgh, and they made plenty of money doing it over the years. Doing good by the community was literally good for business. Going forward, no corporation is going to have that same passion--they just want the ad dollars.
 
I will miss Lynn Cullen again terribly. That is all. IMHO, the rest of the programming (the FM/both AMs) was garbage and couldn't be disposed of soon enough in my estimation.
 
At one point WSGN in Birmingham Ala. did not see the Beatles as acceptable programming.
 
knowtheledge said:
I will miss Lynn Cullen again terribly. That is all. IMHO, the rest of the programming (the FM/both AMs) was garbage and couldn't be disposed of soon enough in my estimation.
Click to expand...

You think Marvin Gaye and Aretha Franklin are garbage? Seriously?
 
I started this posting.. as a former WAMO/WYJZ employee. I knew the potential of 72,000 watts. I saw the placement of the station in the arbitron in the 1979-1980 period ( it rocked shall I say it disco-ed). I got to work with some of the very best there was. starting with the very classy Mr Walter Jones. He Knew sales and He knew how to communicate with people. He always said" we have to sell the sizzle" Programming nothing but the best, Del King, Eddie Edwards, John Anthony, the big G Frank Greenley, When Jackie Johnson.. just started an idea like who's Minding their business day. everybody in pittsburgh tuned in. J.C. Floyd knew music.
we had three turntables spinning to mix la freak by shiek live on the air... when it came to news, Kevin Clark
knew more about three mile island and reporting about it than any station in pittsburgh. and there were more like Kevin Trower and FM 10 sex, boss man Porky Chedwick, Gloria Inez Briskey, Hudak kept the engineering
tight. Great sales people like Cathy Wysong, Herm Mosley, and when guskey came in he could sell. I had a great boss in Toni Jones. So my point is you have a generation of people who grew up with everything from Slim Harpo to Cheryl Lynn. What did they play on the am and the FM in the past 10 years? 92.9 had the saturday night disco show generations of women loved. WAMO did not respond to their heritage.(Like DVE)
FM 106 for dance music (disco 96 could not hold a candle to 105.9 and yet..the am's play list was not very broad..I would have had 1510 on doo wop, 860...personality, sly jock..del king.. 60's , 70's and 80's.
and yea if the money was not rolling in on the fm. album rock.. take on DVE head to head with rocking ron chavis.. and the old WYDD crew. You would have made the beer money and there were a ton of people I know who gave up when channel 97 went away. So the fm would have made money. and by the way..107.1.. would havemade a very nice westmoreland county radio station with local programming and high school football and basketball.. just like renda broadcasting is doing right now. sure it was an uphill climb. but some of that programming I heard on 860 was very informative like that man who ran for mayor who did a saturday morning show and esther bush.. I learned things.. things I could not learn on the other stations.. and I will miss that. Bev Smith is the only voice of truth we had for the past 8 years...
I think if we asked August Wilson.. in heaven.. Mr Wilson.. what would you rather have in pittsburgh.
a building.. cultural center named after you.. or a black radio station like 860 to serve all of Greater Pittsburgh.
If I may be so bold.. I believe he knows the benefits of WAMO and would select that. I happen to be catholic.
I don't need a radio station to run catholic programming 24 seven. Another point no one mentioned is that these are AFTRA union jobs that have been lost. and these station might not be union again.. The Dean and his family have done what they can do to survive. I think hundreds of letters to the FCC to question the sale and silencing of our only minority voice is a start. Hey PNC you are involved in helping institutions like the Pirates. How about floating some people to at least keep 860 to serve Greater Pittsburgh? And don't tell me about the economy.. I am involved in advertising..if people would just shut up on the radio things would be better faster. Stewart Hoffman PNC Economist says our market should start rolling by October.. that's just a few months...Bev Smith always talked about people working together and getting things done. So think about it and get off you chair.
 
Status
This thread has been closed due to inactivity. You can create a new thread to discuss this topic.


Back
Top Bottom