WIZE

[pioneer71]

Since WSKW Kiss Country has left behind the Springfield market does anyone think C.C. is smart enough or care enough to tap into the Springfield market?

There is a lot of revenue for a local radio station that will service Clark and Champaign counties. WIZE could be part of the answer by offering some local news and picking up on the play by play of high school sports.

I know that WIZE is only a repeater of WONE but what a waste of a signal.
If you were in charge what format would you put on WIZE to service the area?

The market has proven it for years they will support a local radio station - doesn't it make sense to do something about it?

 

[Limp73]

I doubt it seriously. WIZE's track record has not been good since 1982 when it was "oversold" chasing away not only listeners but the Springfield buisiness community as well. (see Wikipedia)

A newer ownership in the 90s seemed to have saved it for a while but apperantly that was also short-lived.

It was bought by Jacor before its merger into Clear Channel supposedly to cover areas lost by WONE's directional signal.

If I had any management experience, I would love to buy the station but that venture would be an uphill battle. Keep in mind that should Clear Channel decide to sell it,it would beyond any doubt have a huge hefty price tag, though it's only a 1K job...and the Miracle Mile facility would need to be cleaned up and upgraded....lots of big bucks would be needed to do so along with promotion to restore its credibility in Springfield.

Previous posts on this station have documented this...still, there needs to be some local live radio presence in Springfield. I'll grant you that.

I wish WKSW's new owners would have thought twice about moving its studio out of Springfield....but Springfield's support of local radio has waned over the years. When WULM was owned by Urban Light, it too fought an uphill battle just to keep the lights on,though it's rock n' soul oldies format in my opinion seemingly did much better than the talk format and the switch to Springfield's Sunshine Station classic hits was beginning to bring in more advertisers but the bank was demanding its loan money paid back....plus renting the WIZE studio from Clear Channel and the Hot 102. 9 tower site from Radio One was the straw that was breaking its budget and back which was downright sad. Urban Light had to sell which was a hard thing to do...othewise,it too would have went down. Fortunately Urban Light Ministries is still an active community citizen after the sale of WULM to Radio Maria and is still reaching out to people in need in Springfield. I pray that Eli Williams will once again someday return to the airwaves on a fulltime basis...he is a good man and a sincere and compassionalte individual.

To make a long story short it would take an individual whose rich enough to pump much needed money into the station and will most likely at first take a huge loss in doing so, and then praying that over time WIZE can slowly restore its credibility in Springfield.

 

[pioneer71]

Limp73. Thank you for yor excellent breakdown of the situation. I agree it's real shame that Clark and Champaign county are without their own station. I got to believe that a well run local station can make money but if the asking price is too high and there are other issues in addtion to the sale I can see why it would not become a reaity.

I hate that the high school games will not be on the air. Perhaps the answer is for someone to build a website and offer some local sports coverage. They will have to leave the local news to the Springfield Sun. I would think the local business community. would support the broadcasts.

 

[nmoore6676]

Since WBLY didn't make it as a Springfield station I doubt that an independent WIZE could do so either. The WBLY-WULM experience and now the relocation of WKSW to Enon shows that there is no interest or support in Springfield for local radio. If a local owner with deep enough pockets had existed WBLY would still be on the air and broadcasting local sports and news. WIZE would be even more problematic if CC sees that the 1340 signal has a value for fill holes in their WONE 980 signal so they would ask far more than it would be worth in actual value. The 1600 frequency would have been more affordable had there been a local buyer.

As someone who grew up and lived as an adult for a time in the area I am truly saddened but just like the loss of the IH facility, now completely leveled, that was once the heart and soul of Springfield and Clark County there are no longer any voices for them either and that is just the way it is. Maybe the best icon for Springfield is the now empty and crumbling Crowell-Collier building on the edge of downtown. It shut down while I was still in grade school and has stood like a decaying corpse casting gloom over the city ever since.

 

[nmoore6676]

Limp73. Thank you for yor excellent breakdown of the situation. I agree it's real shame that Clark and Champaign county are without their own station. I got to believe that a well run local station can make money but if the asking price is too high and there are other issues in addtion to the sale I can see why it would not become a reaity.

I hate that the high school games will not be on the air. Perhaps the answer is for someone to build a website and offer some local sports coverage. They will have to leave the local news to the Springfield Sun. I would think the local business community. would support the broadcasts.

I doubt that a web only experience would be accessed by enough people to be viable. The News-Sun is now essentially a local edition of the Dayton Daily News so it has no real roots in Springfield either. Maybe if someone would get a LPFM up and on the air it could, along with a streaming broadcast, become a local voice. Someone could even go to WEEC and perhaps lease an HD channel from them. I am sure they could use the revenue stream. Then there is also the old WBLY-FM at 102.9 (WDHT) which I believe to have no HD channels at present so they might be approached for that possibility.

CC might then be amenable to a local operation using their building at the WIZE site for studios again. I don't know if they can remove the existing building as it was mandated by the zoning authorities when they moved from downtown to that area way back when. So someone using the facility again might keep it from vandalism and natural decay and get them some rent income as well.

 

[stereolane]

I doubt it seriously. WIZE's track record has not been good since 1982 when it was "oversold" chasing away not only listeners but the Springfield buisiness community as well. (see Wikipedia)

A newer ownership in the 90s seemed to have saved it for a while but apperantly that was also short-lived.

Thanks. I'll be rolling on the floor laughing about this post for the rest of the night. The "newer ownership" you're speaking of consisted of three completely clueless twits: Jerry Staggs, Clark Davis' buddy from Great Trails. Jerry was from Alabama originally.... a combination of Foghorn Leghorn and J.R. Ewing. His PD, was a nerdy, meek lapdog of sorts who lived in fear (of both the STAFF and Jerry) and kept his office door closed most of the time. The consultant was Dan Vallie. Strike 1, 2, and THREE. The dysfunctional staff had issues all it's own. It was widely known that if Great Trails wanted to get rid of you, they sent you over to WIZE. There was a lot of (cough cough) "fraternizing" going on at WIZE as well. The sales people were either old fossils who had been there for years, or youngsters, who had no earthly idea what they were doing. One of the older AE's was a local lady, who drove a GMC conversion van. She narrowly missed me one day, laying rubber all the way down the driveway after a heated argument with Jerry Staggs. I was there another time when a female member of the air staff (formerly of Z-93) had a complete mental meltdown. I honestly believe she came close to having a nervous breakdown. I would "name names" but a few of you who were around Great Trails probably already know who I am referring to. I once overheard Gerry Allen telling a new hire: "You won't be here long. In the last 3 years, I've seen 100 people go through this place".

Yep, that newer ownership really "saved it"! To this day, when anyone mentions WIZE, I get an uncontrollable facial tick. :

God bless Clark Davis.

 

[pioneer71]

With all due respect to mmore6676 you are off a bit on your comments. Kiss Country was not a failure from a revenue point nor from an audience point of view for Main Line. I suspect one of the reasons it took Main Line so long to act on te move is te revenue that Kiss made. All you had to do was listen to their ballgames to know tey made a large hunk of change from those games.

Their website showed how active they were in the large volume of commercial remotes they did each year. There is no question to anyone who knows about the business side of rado that the Clark and Champaign business community really supported the station.

As all the trades said Radio One sold the Dayton and Louisville markets not because they were failing but because they needed cash and needed it fast.

Main Line was not ready to take on 10 stations all at one time. They made a lot of mistakes. I am not familar with the new format but there are several reporting this format has a short life span.

The thing that would have made the most sense, also taking it the fact the REBEL is now history, to offer Country and give K99 a bit of run for their money. I reaize the ballgames would have gone away but the loyal audience Kiss had for years would not have fet that got a real kick in the gut.

I am surprised how many people feel they cannot make money in a smaller market. It can be done but you have to have the right people in place to make it happen. If someone has a station and is not making money I know who to hook you up with for help. I have several friends doing very well.

There is support for a local radio station but it is sad they don't have one. But don't believe that the business commnty will not support a local radio station because they proved it for years with their support of Kiss Country.

 

[stereolane]

One of the big problems with WIZE (20 years ago) was collections. Another was quickly evaporating agency money.

If WKSW was really raking it in with local sports, it would seem to me that some enterprising young staffer at Clear Channel would approach management about doing local sports on WIZE... assuming, of course, that there is still anyone like that in the CC building in Dayton. How tough would it be to "flip a switch" at WIZE at the top of the hour, and separate WIZE from WONE to run local games? That's also assuming that Jeff Littlejohn's long established pattern of "deferred maintenance" hasn't taken over, and a family of raccoons haven't moved into the studio...

This would certainly go along with WIZE's 24/7 sports format.

This idea would probably be derailed when the GM was told that 3 people would be needed. 2 at the game, 1 at the WIZE studio. To run with this, somebody had better show the GM some meaningful numbers (meaning DOLLARS)

 

[nmoore6676]

With all due respect to mmore6676 you are off a bit on your comments. Kiss Country was not a failure from a revenue point nor from an audience point of view for Main Line. I suspect one of the reasons it took Main Line so long to act on te move is te revenue that Kiss made. All you had to do was listen to their ballgames to know tey made a large hunk of change from those games.

Their website showed how active they were in the large volume of commercial remotes they did each year. There is no question to anyone who knows about the business side of rado that the Clark and Champaign business community really supported the station.

As all the trades said Radio One sold the Dayton and Louisville markets not because they were failing but because they needed cash and needed it fast.

Main Line was not ready to take on 10 stations all at one time. They made a lot of mistakes. I am not familar with the new format but there are several reporting this format has a short life span.

The thing that would have made the most sense, also taking it the fact the REBEL is now history, to offer Country and give K99 a bit of run for their money. I reaize the ballgames would have gone away but the loyal audience Kiss had for years would not have fet that got a real kick in the gut.

I am surprised how many people feel they cannot make money in a smaller market. It can be done but you have to have the right people in place to make it happen. If someone has a station and is not making money I know who to hook you up with for help. I have several friends doing very well.

There is support for a local radio station but it is sad they don't have one. But don't believe that the business commnty will not support a local radio station because they proved it for years with their support of Kiss Country.

I never said that WKSW was a failure, nor for that matter WBLY. WIZE over the years apparently had some management miss steps but my comments were to the point that in order for Springfield to have a local station would require either local ownership or owners that had roots or ties to the area. That would not be the mega corps like Clear Channel or even the smaller groups like Main Line who only want to generate the maximum revenues.

Here in my new home in Iowa we have some stations locally owned and some a mixture of out of town ownership with local stockholders as well involved. But Springfield being so tied to Dayton means that there is not sufficient interest in local content (i.e. sports and commentary on local issues) or WBLY would have made it and someone other that Urban Light Ministries who had some broadcast savvy might have bought it from Ray Yontz. Then while KISS-Country may have had local advertising support it must not have been enough to keep it as an Urbana-Springfield Station and I am certain that WDHT is not getting a lot of revenue off their new COL. It is the Dayton Dollars that drive the train which is why the old WAZU (WBLY-FM) moved up onto the hilltop to get Dayton listeners.

 

[KFodor]

I do believe that local programming can work in Springfield. (It especially worked in the first years of Kiss Country...and for many after that.) But, it becomes a question of reality...AM vs. FM. Stick value in Springfield vs. stick value in Dayton.

If a local owner, even one with some money to burn got control of WIZE, it would be a very uphill slog for a few years at least.
Why? This ain't 1970. And only about 30% of the listening audience bothers to tune in to AM. Many don't even know, or care, that AM exists. WULM most recently proved playing music doesn't work, especially when you aren't targeted with your musical approach. So, you'd have to find something unique (can't do classic country, WBZI's got that...maybe some type of modified adult standards...not beautiful music, but something that would have the crooners, but also modern adult music that wasn't always based in rock.)

Given WIZE's heritage, it's also possible that oldies might be OK, but it would need to be playing the hits, not experimenting with 3,000 or more songs. (BTW: I'm not saying 400 either...)

But, if it were me...hiring fulltime "jocks" wouldn't be the priority. A morning show...yes. But, I would spend money staffing a newsroom with two or 3 people who could do news in the manner of being "info hosts". A 3-4 hour airshift playing music and doing news and info from 9 am to 6 pm, then hitting the streets for info. Nights would have recorded news and features with the computer playing the music.

High School Sports? Assuming it would pay its bills, yes. But, in many communities, it's a draw only to students, and family. Only rarely do these broadcasts bring big listenership during the regular season. If it did...the WING's, WONE's and WHIO's of the world would be clammoring for those bucks.

Oh yeah...don't say the words "Clark Davis" to me...it makes me break out in hives.

And whoever says Cox doesn't really have a presence in Springfield...I would assume you've seen the Springfield News-Sun building which also now sports a studio for WHIO Radio, from which Darryl Bauer records, produces and sends his reports...

 

[KFodor]

With all due respect to mmore6676 you are off a bit on your comments. Kiss Country was not a failure from a revenue point nor from an audience point of view for Main Line. I suspect one of the reasons it took Main Line so long to act on te move is te revenue that Kiss made. All you had to do was listen to their ballgames to know tey made a large hunk of change from those games.

Their website showed how active they were in the large volume of commercial remotes they did each year. There is no question to anyone who knows about the business side of rado that the Clark and Champaign business community really supported the station.

As all the trades said Radio One sold the Dayton and Louisville markets not because they were failing but because they needed cash and needed it fast.

Main Line was not ready to take on 10 stations all at one time. They made a lot of mistakes. I am not familar with the new format but there are several reporting this format has a short life span.

The thing that would have made the most sense, also taking it the fact the REBEL is now history, to offer Country and give K99 a bit of run for their money. I reaize the ballgames would have gone away but the loyal audience Kiss had for years would not have fet that got a real kick in the gut.

I am surprised how many people feel they cannot make money in a smaller market. It can be done but you have to have the right people in place to make it happen. If someone has a station and is not making money I know who to hook you up with for help. I have several friends doing very well.

There is support for a local radio station but it is sad they don't have one. But don't believe that the business commnty will not support a local radio station because they proved it for years with their support of Kiss Country.

I surely do not profess to know Mainline's intentions, but a format with a short life span is OK if it accomplishes a goal...like, say...bringing Mix down a share point or two in order to raise Mainline's "stick value" in Dayton...

 

[pioneer71]

Jason.. I have been told by friends, who have had successful high school coverage, bring in $125,000 to $175,000 a year for a small to medium market station. I know these figures are correct.As to the old comment that only the parents and grand folks care about the games is dead wrong. Why do the TV stations devote extended coverage on Friday nights to high school sports if there was not a great deal of interest?.

WHIO AM could reach out to the community with high school coverage. The FM can stay with the talk. They used to do it but drop it. Bad decision. WHBC does an excellent job with high school sports.

It is a real crime that neither WCKY or 1360 Fox Sports covered the state tourney games in FB, Basketball and baseball. There were two Cincinnati basketball teams that won the state title last week and no Cincy station did ther game.

There are ways to make some real revenue on high school sports and draw interest from the audience.However there are drawbacks. Most the sales reps at the major groups cannot sell high school sports to agencies. They have to have a passion for it and unerderstand how to sell it.
I would bet it would be tought to find more tha one or two sales reps in Cincy or Dayton C.C. who could sell it.

The major market groups always look down on the small market stations. What they fail to understand or care is that there are small market operators who can make money on high school sports.

 

[alans613]

Let me first state that I do NOT work for Main Line or Click in any way whatsoever. I wanted to get that out of the way. So far i've seen a few comments on here about how this format has "a short life span". Uh, okay...didn't KLCK just launch in November, 2010? WKSW/Click 101.5/Enon just launched on March 25, 2011. Four months for one station and a week and three days does not a failure make. Right now, this format can't be classified in the same category as the MOViN format. We certainly have some Click haters on this board do we not?

 

[KFodor]

Regarding high school sports: Pioneer, your numbers came very close to mine when I worked them up...so I can agree that, at least assuming that there were sufficient sponsors interested in buying the programs that it would make sense for a WIZE to locally broadcast the games. However, I still believe that the real interest on the part of listeners are people who have kids in the schools involved...who can't attend the games and that number of listeners can be small. But, if a sponsor looked at it from a community involvement angle...

You mention WHIO...let me tell you we aired high school games a few years ago. We didn't make a whole ton of money on it, as I recall. But, a smaller town station might actually be better...a local selling point to hang your hat on, so to speak...

But the reason WHIO does not split the stations for separate programming is simple. Arbitron's rules state, in order to combo your AM/FM numbers as a simulcast, you MUST simulcast 100% of the time...split it even once, and you can't combo the numbers. Keeping the combo numbers and our higher ranking makes us more money than we would get from splitting the two channels to air "specialty" programming on one. This is also why we don't split for U.D. Basketball, should the Flyers play a game on a weekday, to have a channel to air Rush Limbaugh on....

 

[stereolane]

Jason.. I have been told by friends, who have had successful high school coverage, bring in $125,000 to $175,000 a year for a small to medium market station. I know these figures are correct.

And from what year / decade are those figures coming from? Who was President back then?

If you can buy a run of :60's on the evening shift for $15 on most stations, I can't possibly see how this could be true.

 

[pioneer71]

To Jason..Thank you for your comments. I can see why WHIO would not do high school sports.
I do think that a sports station as Wcy in Cincinnati and WING should be doing high school sports.
I don't work for Main Line but still I can't understand why they don't do more with the station than they do but that is another topic.

To Stereolane.. The year (s) of station making the kind of money I spoke of on high school sports would be 2005, 2006,2007, 2008, 2009 and 2010. There are a lot of markets small and medium size doing very well with high school sports. I know of several stations that do girls basketball games in addition to the boys games.

I have heard of stations grossing over $3,000 on football Friday nights alone. You add the various weekly coaches shows and find your billing hitting $40,000 on a ten game schedule alone. Perhaps Stereolane is thinking of getting revenue from the game broadcast only. There are a number of stations making money off the pre game and post game programming.Then you
add post season play and the basketball season and so on. Plus you can throw in as part of that base what stations are making off their websites with high school sports coverage.

There are stations in northern Ohio that does very well covering wrestling. As I mentioned not every station can simply sa they will do high school sports and make money. You have the right people in place for it to work.

 

[alans613]

To Jason..Thank you for your comments. I can see why WHIO would not do high school sports.
I do think that a sports station as Wcy in Cincinnati and WING should be doing high school sports.
I don't work for Main Line but still I can't understand why they don't do more with the station than they do but that is another topic.

To Stereolane.. The year (s) of station making the kind of money I spoke of on high school sports would be 2005, 2006,2007, 2008, 2009 and 2010. There are a lot of markets small and medium size doing very well with high school sports. I know of several stations that do girls basketball games in addition to the boys games.

I have heard of stations grossing over $3,000 on football Friday nights alone. You add the various weekly coaches shows and find your billing hitting $40,000 on a ten game schedule alone. Perhaps Stereolane is thinking of getting revenue from the game broadcast only. There are a number of stations making money off the pre game and post game programming.Then you
add post season play and the basketball season and so on. Plus you can throw in as part of that base what stations are making off their websites with high school sports coverage.

There are stations in northern Ohio that does very well covering wrestling. As I mentioned not every station can simply sa they will do high school sports and make money. You have the right people in place for it to work.

WCY? I wasn't aware the FCC was still issuing three letter call signs.

 

[techie2]

WCY? I wasn't aware the FCC was still issuing three letter call signs.

If WCKY was what was intended, running high school games on a 50kW AM may be a bit overboard. (Then again, the last Wayne/Centerville game was nationally televised on ESPNU...)

Sister sports station 1360 was airing St. X football games last fall due to a time-buy by rich boosters.

 

[Cincinnati Kid]

For decades, I have questioned why a local radio station has failed to do high school sports of the teams in the Cincinnati area. From what I have seen, it has come down to no one was willing to commit to doing it. Doing high school sports begins with a management who is solid behind it and by putting together a staff who can deliver it. Any breakdown in the series beginning with management and going through announcers, sales, engineering, and publicity can present real difficulties.

I have personally seen problems at each of those levels. This includes: management who have no clue about the area high school sports scene and fail to listen to those who do; announcers who are unable to do play-by-play; sales people who could care less about sports and even openly talk it down; remote equipment that is faulty or is not properly set up to provide a good sound of an athletic event to the listener; failure to publicize the game broadcasts in the newspaper, promote them on the air or in the communtiy that is involved.

At the same time, you need to have interest and co-operation from the high schools you wish to broadcast the games of. For some, this may be hard to believe, but there are some persons in high schoool athletic programs who do not wish their games to be broadcast. Reasons given have included: having the games on radio keeps people away; having people from the radio station at games causes overcrowding of the facilities; or just failuing to get back to you for the go-ahead. At the same time, there are schools who will do all they can to assist in getting their games on radio. I, personally, have dealt with both.

It seems to come down to being able to have a group who work well together and are united on one goal. Any break in that chain usually hampers the product and ultimately stops the process.

 

[Elephant]

Cincinnati Kid, where have you been? Going back as far as 1990 and continuing now, you could hear high school football during various seasons on 740, 910, 1050, 1160, 1230, 1320, 1360, 1450, 1480 and on FM 97.7, 99.5, 106.7, and 107.5. And let's not forget the old 100.9 WHKK and the LPFMs in NKY. Usually the station is paid by another party, like Prep Sports Radio Network. That was the attraction, but other stations like WMOH and WPFB would produce it themsselves, as far as I know.

Anybody with more insight please speak up!