WING... oh my!

[radiogeek07]

A couple of questions
1. Why in God's name... literally do they have a right-wing old preacher dude on at 5:30 in the morning with a voice that sounds like something is stuck up his nose... or something else all the time?
2. It seems like I have several times heard the station go without a top of the hour legal ID.
3. Can we get rid of those "Two Live" idiot that are on between 4 and 7 every day? I love the Dayton 60-second sports ticker and their coverage of local sports as well as NFL and Buckeye football/basketball. Does Radio I. even care about the AM stick?

 

[gr8oldies]

Terry McClain, Mr. Mid-Acts Dispensationalist KJV only for the Miami Valley, apparently pays a good buck for this slot. He also has LPFM applications over in Xenia, so folks there may be treated to 24/7 of him.

 

[KevinFodor]

Other things that have been heard on WING-AM:

2 day old (or older) news, sports and weathercasts.

Day old (or more) traffic reports.

Seems like, sometimes, the lights are on there, but no one's home.

Don't expect to lose the "2 Live Stews" in the afternoon, either. The program is owned by WING owner
Radio One, which syndicates the show nationally. They'll stay on at least until Radio One sells the station.
After that, who knows?

 

[radiogeek07]

Oooo. Sorry for you guys in Xenia!

nother strange thing about WING is, I actually picked them up in Steubenville in Eastern OH over Christmas break for about 2 minutes. I couldn't believe it when i did. It was the day the UD student was found. Any reason why that could've been?

 

[gr8oldies]

Depends what time of day or evening. The combination of WING, WPOP and KQV (whatever their call letters now) have gotten out quite well over the years. It's not easy to get WING or WONE in Springfield at night. I've heard these area stations while visiting Crossville, TN : WING, WONE (this after sunrise), WBOB (now WDJO), Homer when it was on 1360 as well as WLW and WSAI when it was on 1530.

 

[KevinFodor]

Praytell:

What does Xenia have to do with poor programming on a Dayton radio station?

 

[techie2]

Praytell:

What does Xenia have to do with poor programming on a Dayton radio station?

The preacher buying the time on WING had some LPFM applications in Xenia. (By the way, those were dismissed 8/2003, according to CDBS.)

 

[kirkiefan]

I stopped listening to WING when in 1990 it went to sattellite oldies,then CNN headline simulcast...then talk programs(G. Gordon Liddy I think)...not the same WING I remember from my childhood...and they still fade out at sunrise and again at sunset.

If we can't bring back WING to its former Top 40 glory..how about at least a rockin' tribute site? ... complete with the famous 1960s "airplane logo" ,PAMS and Drake jingles and pics and airchecks of Gene "By Golly" Barry,Kirkie,King & Dorsey,Lou Swanson and I could go on all day!

Here's one small tribute page going back to the days of "WING Island" and its studio at 128 West First St.downtown..mostly pics of the "lively guys" at personal apperances and a WAV file of "Unforgettable" constantly playing in the background:

http://www.homestead.com/wingradio/files/

Also:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/WING

"High Flying WING" lives on in my mind..and in our hearts.

 

[jefflaurence]

I remember the studio on first street (across from the bus station and frishes)..at night..the only building with lights on it at street level was WING..and all of the local "ladies of business" stood around the window so they could be seen..It was fun to watch..

They sold the ID!

THE HOME OF CHRYSLER AIRTEMP! THIS...IS W-I-N-G- DATON!

 

[Dirty_Harry]

I remember the studio on first street (across from the bus station and frishes)..at night..the only building with lights on it at street level was WING..and all of the local "ladies of business" stood around the window so they could be seen..It was fun to watch..

They sold the ID!

THE HOME OF CHRYSLER AIRTEMP! THIS...IS W-I-N-G- DATON!

Don't forget the tribute sites of their sister station, WCOL. There are a ton of cool pictures, and current alumni pictures, jingles and airchecks.

Great Trails was truly a great radio company!

http://www.1230wcol.com
http://www.mikeadams.org/wcol.html
http://www.columbusmusichistory.com/html/wcol.html

P.S. You do a great job as the WBNS-TV Announcer!

 

[KevinFodor]

Sadly, while airchecks of WING do exist, there are very few airchecks of Gene "By Golly" Barry swirling around.

If someone does have some, it would be nice if they would release them to, perhaps, the "reelradio" site,
or some other aircheck repository.

I kick myself periodically that we did not aircheck Gene in the 80's in what turned out to be his final stint at WING.

 

[radiogeek07]

Wow! High noon and they missed the legal again! I can understand late at night but not now! Sheesh!

 

[radioaj]

Nothing surprises me in Dayton radio any more. The hometown talk station has one local show that isn't very good, neither of the sports stations have anything worth listening to, both Top 40/CHR stations lack listenable morning shows. Kerrigan still sounds like he's stuck in the early 90's and just isn't very funny. And when is the last time you actually saw a station own the streets in this town? It doesn't happen. And as long as the Big 3 in Dayton own everything, it won't happen. "Let's just do enough to get by"

We can only hope that CC sells the two rumored stations (which ever two they may be) and an actual RADIO company buys them, not somebody looking for a tax write off, and they bring this lifeless boring Dayton medium back to life.

Off my soap box and back to work.

 

[LocalGuy]

We can only hope that CC sells the two rumored stations (which ever two they may be) and an actual RADIO company buys them, not somebody looking for a tax write off,...

Could you please define "a tax write-off" and then explain in detail how Clear Channel, Cox, and Radio One, all profit-seeking and profitable companies, are "looking for a tax write-off" and how their Dayton stations might fit your definition and description. Please include the GAAP accounting methods that would result in that and - why not? - the actual numbers from each of those clusters that are able to somehow become a "tax write-off."

Next, could you please tell us at what point or market size stations become "tax write-offs" and why they become "tax write-offs" at that point. If Dayton stations are "tax write-offs," then are our Cincinnati stations "tax write-offs?" If so, how? If not, why not?

Clear Channel, Cox, and Radio One all also operate in Louisville, a market between Cincinnati and Dayton in size. Are the Louisville stations "tax write-offs?" If so, how? If not, why not? All three also compete in Atlanta, Miami, Houston, and Richmond, VA; which ones of those are "tax write-offs" and which are not? Please provide your source - names and/or numbers - for each answer.

Or, RadioAJ, if you're unable to answer those questions, would you prefer to admit that you really have no idea what you're saying about accounting and business in general and radio in particular and that you typed it because you saw it on the net somewhere and thought repeating it made you look smart?

 

[radioaj]

My apologies for not being clear with that statement. I do not think that Cox, Radio One or CC are using these stations as write offs, I was stating that I hoped whoever bought the rumored stations from CC would not use them as a tax write off like many small radio owners do. I deserved your wrath for not being clear.

 

[LocalGuy]

My apologies for not being clear with that statement. I do not think that Cox, Radio One or CC are using these stations as write offs, I was stating that I hoped whoever bought the rumored stations from CC would not use them as a tax write off like many small radio owners do.

That, too, is false and is nothing more than something you've read somewhere on the internet that, in real life, makes no sense.

 

[Dirty_Harry]

That, too, is false and is nothing more than something you've read somewhere on the internet that, in real life, makes no sense.

I agree ... nobody invests capital to lose money and nobody would pay $20 million for a station for it to lose millions. What's going on here is that the same disease that infected General Motors is currently infecting Clear Channel. You have bean counters looking at things strictly in terms of numbers. Numbers are ultimately the most important thing, but you have to watch it when you're tinkering with a creative business.

Right now what you see is Clear Channel turning their stations into Cadillac Cimmarons which are basically Chevy Cavaliers with different grilles and Cadillac Devilles which are basically Olds 98's with different grills. And Clear Channel will face the same end result that General Motors did. The only thing in their favor is their monopoly on good signals in their markets, but that won't last.

 

[KevinFodor]

I'll have to agree with what's been said above. The purchase price of any Dayton radio station these
days would be way too high for a "smaller" broadcaster to want to do anything but make money with it.

However, I must admit...I have heard in the past of some radio stations that were (or may have been)
run at a loss (or nearly a loss), allegedly for tax purposes. One case in point (though I don't know this
as absolute fact) was WKFI in Wilmington, Ohio back in the 1970's. They were owned by the Gannett
Newspaper chain and always...always...had more people who were making higher salaries than typically in that city...had state of the art major market equipment for the day. (Imagine...an all cart station on an AM daytimer in a town of barely 10,000 in the mid-70's.) I've always wondered if Gannett was intentionally running them at a loss.

 

[gr8oldies]

You may have found that to be more typical then. Think of the big owners (by the standard of the 1970s). Nationwide Insurance. RKO General (tires), Avco (financial services, farm equipment and you name it.). My understanding is that Great Trails (or if not them, one of their predessors) main business was parking lots and garages. That was when you had stations with large staffs, and the money seemingly not mattering. I wasn't aware of WKFI being owned by Gannett, but I visited them in the mid 70s and for that time it looked nice. They went Beautiful Music after 3 for those who "liked Beautiful Music but didn't have an FM radio". Wilmington was a two-station town, 102.3 was separately owned as WDHK (I think).

 

[KevinFodor]

Correct.

WDHK was my first radio home (in 1974). They, basically, went virtually bankrupt through a combination of poor management and their startup money being tied up in lawyer fees by Gannett's lobbying to the FCC to prevent the establishment of an FM license in Wilmington.

I should know. I was "acting manager" of the station (for about 2 weeks) awaiting the arrival of the new owner. It was bad enough I had to collect on the few accounts we had on the air in order to make payroll. Then, on a Friday, the FCC showed up to inspect. I discovered the original owner had not taken a transmitter reading in about 3 years! We did not have any remote monitoring equipment at the studio location. All of us peon-types were told "the owner and his family live at the transmitter site (which was true)...they are all licensed and take the readings there." Yeah. Right.

Anyway, I must have said the right things. The inspector did not shut us down. The new owner (Dick Jones)
came in the following Monday. He not only recussitated WDHK financially, but he eventually bought WKFI.

He was a gruff man, and could be abrasive at times. But, I learned a lot from him...especially about radio sales. How did he bring the station back? Well, he knew he couldn't sell "ratings". So, he priced the commercials solely in package rates initially, selling largely :30's and :15's. But, he made sure the client got a minimum of 5 spots a day. The client got frequency, and even though the station didn't have much of an audience in the beginning, the client still got results. The listeners came later.

I can remember a morning drive hour running about 35 spots. Ooops. I shouldn't have said that. It might give some big companies ideas. But...it did work for us 30 years ago.