• 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

WNED to sell AM station to Crawford Broadcasting

SirRoxalot said:
I don't mind the Beeb overnight, but why aren't we getting NPR until midnight?
Click to expand...

There's nothing produced "live" by NPR News after All Things Considered ends, so the choices involve an assortment of NPR/PRI/APM documentary or feature style programming -- not of a time-sensitive nature -- that would work in the evenings.

CBC's As It Happens, which WBFO carries at 9 PM, is a great show. Has been for decades.

There's also "The World", which might be a bit stale by 10 PM.

You could look around at the schedules of the major "think radio" stations in the country - WNYC, WAMU, WHYY, KQED, WBEZ, WBUR, KUOW come immediately to mind - and see what they offer in the evenings to get some ideas.

Richard in Allentown, PA (ex-East Aurora)
 
SirRoxalot said:
I was talking about newscasts, rd. I thought that NPR had live TOH casts on WBFO.
Click to expand...

Ah. WHYY in Philadelphia inserts NPR news in all the program "holes" - even the BBC - that incorporate news holes from :01 to :06.

Stations are restricted from airing some of the BBC programming on a delay unless they insert current news into the hole.

AFAIK NPR offers hourly news around the clock 24/7.

Richard in Allentown (the one in PA)
 
rdcuffpa1 said:
AFAIK NPR offers hourly news around the clock 24/7.

Richard in Allentown (the one in PA)
Click to expand...

It does indeed offer hourly newscasts 24/7, which is a surprisingly recent development. IIRC, it's only been an around-the-clock service for a decade or so, part of the push toward a more robust breaking-news operation after 9/11.

NPR also offers bottom-of-the-hour newscasts in morning and afternoon drive (5:30-11:30 AM ET and 4:30-8:30 PM ET) to fit within Morning Edition and All Things Considered.
 
Scott Fybush said:
It does indeed offer hourly newscasts 24/7, which is a surprisingly recent development. IIRC, it's only been an around-the-clock service for a decade or so, part of the push toward a more robust breaking-news operation after 9/11.

NPR also offers bottom-of-the-hour newscasts in morning and afternoon drive (5:30-11:30 AM ET and 4:30-8:30 PM ET) to fit within Morning Edition and All Things Considered.
Click to expand...

I know when the World Radio Network began its partnership with NPR, and BBC began its own push towards overnight packages, stations either used NPR or BBC news.

The "WRN on NPR" service is no longer offered, though stations could still use WRN programming but this programming would not have the :01-:06 news hole.

Interestingly, the relationship that the BBC developed with PRI to get its programming on public radio in the USA is probably what catalyzed the BBC's own programming cycle to change -- the news used to begin at the TOH following the GMT pips, and run for 5 minutes.

Nowadays the TOH pips are followed by a one-minute billboard (just like NPR) and news runs from :01 to :06.

Richard in the other Allentown
 
Format observation: On air mentions of "AM 970" have been substantially scaled back. News stories are locked out only with "WBFO."
 
rdcuffpa1 said:
Interestingly, the relationship that the BBC developed with PRI to get its programming on public radio in the USA is probably what catalyzed the BBC's own programming cycle to change -- the news used to begin at the TOH following the GMT pips, and run for 5 minutes.

Nowadays the TOH pips are followed by a one-minute billboard (just like NPR) and news runs from :01 to :06.
Click to expand...

And the other change being now that the BBC TOH newscasts incorporate voicers and actualities. Even while the shortwave coverage was being cut, the newscasts still were all announcer-reads with reports for correspondents credited as "The BBC [location] correspondent reports that..." The old opening was "[time], Greenwich Mean Time. BBC World Service. The news, read by [name]." It's now "BBC News with [name]..." Now, there's aslo the :04 cutaway and the ending "this is BBC News" instead of "...and that is the end of the news from London." In Chicago at WBEZ, during one pledge drive (the midday "Worldview" show airs the BBC at the top of their show instead of NPR) the pitcher once decided to use the signoff as a guilt inspirer--"And when the BBC announcer says 'that is the end of the news,' you know that you have heard everything important going on around the world right now--and it is thanks to the many Chicagoans who support WBEZ that you only hear BBC News on WBEZ...", blah blah blah.

(For the record, BEZ's current evening schedule is "The World" at 7 [which I believe is the last time PRI allows stations to take it, since it must be taken as a live feed], "Q" from the CBC at 8, a rerun of Terry Gross at 9, a checkerboard at 10 ["Conversations from the World Cafe"/"Commonwealth Club"/locally-produced "RE:Sound"/"Vinyl Cafe"] and "Ideas" from the CBC at 11 before the Beeb at midnight. On Fridays, it's the live feed of "This American Life" at 7, "Sound Opinions" at 8, a local world music show at 9 [which some complain is more interview and commentary than music] and the local "Filmspotting" movie review show at 11. For the record, they tried "As it Happens" at 7 some years ago and the stick-up-rear-end people who still make up so much of the public radio audience objected to the snark and the "so-many miles from Reading" references--and the Canadian-ness of it--and it was taken off after a year.)
 
According to on-air announcements, the sale of WNED-AM will close this Friday when WNED-AM will cease simulcasting WBFO at midnight and become a Crawford property. Knowledgeable sources report Crawford will allow AM 970 to go dark for an unspecified period.
 
Knowledgeable sources report Crawford will allow AM 970 to go dark for an unspecified period.

Similar like they did with WPTR in Albany? That's quite a game plan.
 
When I visited Buffalo a few years ago the AM 970 signal seemed really thin, It just didn't come in very well east of Abbott Road. I don't remember it being that bad when I was young but then my world was a lot smaller and I didn't have the car keys yet!
 
With the reduction of bandwidth, and poor maintenance, almost all AM sounds "really thin". Add IBOC hash, and you've got the quality of a bad MP3. Bring back C-QUAM AM Stereo!
 
WNED-AM 970 (formerly WEBR) had a rich signal in the city of Buffalo, the north towns and Niagara county http://radio-locator.com/cgi-bin/pat?call=WNED&service=AM&status=L&hours=U where the signal and audio sounded not all that bad. Living in those areas, you'd be in the WNED-AM power lobe. A directional pattern that employed five in line towers pulled the signal away from Pittsburgh and Ashtabula, Ohio and created serious issues in the south towns. WDCZ-AM, eh. "Z-970!"
 
"How long can they keep WDCZ silent?"

According to the rules published in fcc.gov, a station can remain silent for 10 days without even reporting anything to the FCC. Beyond that, they have to report it to the commission if they're going to be off for up to 30 days. They then have to apply for an STA (Special Temporary Authorization) if they plan to stay silent for more than 30 days. These STAs are usually a formality and last up to 180 days, and can be renewed if the situation warrants. for up to 12 months. If they're ready to resume broadcasting before their STA expires they can then power up once again like nothing had happened, unless a motion's made to revoke its license in the meantime for some other reason. Since that situation presumably won't apply here (AFAIK neither WNED nor Crawford has offended the Feds in any material way), if the proper paperwork is filed on time Crawford could have until the beginning of December 2013 to power things up and resume a normal schedule before their license is presumed abandoned and deleted from the records.

Usually a station that's changing hands and wants to make a total break with its past to re-brand itself and change its image will go dark for a shorter period of time (anywhere from 10 to 90 days) and then relaunch like it's a new station. In mid-June of 1984 Rochester's AM 1370, which had been WSAY and then WRTK, went dark for two weeks after being sold by the predecessor of today's Cumulus Media to the WXXI Public Broadcasting Council. It then powered up as WXXI-AM on July 2 of that year and has been in continuous operation ever since. Before then, at the beginning of the summer of 1930 Buffalo's WMAK (AM 900) was shut down by the Buffalo Broadcasting Company, which also controlled WGR and WKBW at the time, and sold to the Buffalo Evening News. 90 days later the News' new studio facilities in the Statler were ready and the transmitter was refurbished, so on September 8, 1930 WBEN made its debut as a new station and hasn't missed a day since.

Will Crawford's relaunch of AM 970 enjoy as much success as those two stations? Only time will tell.
 
Are the land and towers on Cloverbank road part of the deal?
I didn't see a reply on this question. If the Hamburg site is part of the deal, the condition of the ground radial system may be a factor in the selling price as an upgrade may be needed. The condition of the rest of the transmission system could come into play as well...

It's been noted that the signal into Niagara County is really good. [/sarcasm] Perhaps the new owners could take advantage of this and try to obtain the calls WNIA...[sarcasm]
Click to expand...
 
Indeed from what I have read on the Crawford site it will be WDCZ-970. It will also contribute IBOC hash to the Buffalo airwaves. The HD transmitter is already in place. WDCZ-970 is set to simulcast WDCX-99.5. WDCX has a hard time now serving their Canadian audience due to the move in of class A FM's around 99.5 in Canada. No airdate was given.
 
Status
This thread has been closed due to inactivity. You can create a new thread to discuss this topic.


Back
Top Bottom