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WNSC Jazz format flush

Mike Sheridan

Mike Sheridan

WNSC has gone NPR News/Talk. The question is haven't these people heard of WFAE?
 
I thought they originally went jazz so they would not duplicate WFAE.

It sucks, now Charlotte is one the few big cities without a jazz station. I guess I'll have to switch to WDAV for my clock radio so I don't have some morning show scaring me out of bed.
 
What a bummer that we have lost Jazz in Charlotte. I suppose now though we can hear a duplicate NPR source when we are tired of looking at the same 90.7 freq on my radio display. :mad: What a stupid decision as WFAE's signal largely duplicates much of WNSC's signal area in the metro. They must be banking on serving up some local flavor. Otherwise, why bother listening to a weaker station of the same thing? Guess having a main Jazz station in Charlotte was just too good to be true.
 
Not that it matters but we were keeping WNSC on in the background in my grandaughter's room so she would have some sound in the room. It also masks some of the noise in the rest of the house. We had it on 24/7. WDAV doesn't work as well since some of those classical pieces can get a little intense. When my own kids were little there was a Beautiful Music station to do the job (first WEZC-104.7 then WRLX 102.9). Good luck finding one of those now days. So it looks like we'll turn to the Escape Channel on XM radio.

I think I know the reason for the change. I read somewhere the NPR N/T stations get more $$$ from listeners at pledge time. Just a thought!
 
Plus it has to be cheaper to put WNSC on the statewide radio network so that SCETV only has one radio format to program.
 
Actually, ETV has two formats.

They have one which is full-time news-talk, except for Marian McPartland's jazz show at 8pm Saturday nights, airing on most of the network.

They also have a classical/NPR news format that airs on 89.3 in Charleston, 91.3 in Columbia, and 90.1 in the Upstate. It has a different schedule than the news-talk/NPR. That format also has Morning Edition, but they cut it off at 8am so that they can Dick Estell's Radio Reader, which they have aired forever. While the news format plays the BBC World Service, the classical format has Echoes, which is a PRI syndicated show filled with interviews and lots of interesting music.
 
gymbeaux120 said:
Yet another reason to go to satellite radio.
Click to expand...
I'm not going to take that route. I decided to get my own computer so I'll have plenty of expenses. However, for various reasons I won't take advantage of Internet radio. Chances are at the price I'll be paying for "high-speed" access it'll seem like dial-up. There's no other way they could make it so affordable. And radio sould slow it down. Plus there may be a limit on what you can do each month. I read some services were doing that because of all the music and video downloading.

Amazingly, I made that decision because it would be cheaper than driving. Yeah, once the computer itself is already paid for. ::)

This is the dumbest move in the history of Charlotte radio. I forgot that we could turn to jazz to take the place of standards, and then when I remembered, it was gone.
 
WNSC, while in a roundabout way is (was) geared toward Charlotte, is a Rock Hill/ Northern SC ETV radio station, supported by the taxpayers of SC, for the residents of SC. That seems to be forgotten here.

The decision to do what was done was not a ratings issue, or an advirtiser issue, as it is a public radio station.

G
 
upstate29651 said:
WNSC, while in a roundabout way is (was) geared toward Charlotte, is a Rock Hill/ Northern SC ETV radio station, supported by the taxpayers of SC, for the residents of SC. That seems to be forgotten here.

The decision to do what was done was not a ratings issue, or an advirtiser issue, as it is a public radio station.

G
Click to expand...

I think we are all well aware this is a Rock Hill station. However WNSC is in the Charlotte, Gastonia, Rock Hill market. While not a ratings issue It could be an advertiser issue. Public radio does indeed have sponsors and pledge drives. That has got to affect the programming on WNSC. It always comes down to money. Taxpayer funding for public radio and TV has been shrinking for years now.

Case in point Buffalo public TV station WNED 17 is licensed to Buffalo, NY and identifies as Buffalo-Toronto (Canada). Toronto is good for some pledge money and not only is it out of state but out of the country!
 
If it was (is) an advertising issue, then I don't think the format would have been changed.

G
 
I read a report that the NPR news/talk fans are much more responsive at pledge drive time. I have to think that could be a factor.

We had a nice balance of public radio stations for awhile.
 
I still don't really understand this move with the economy tightening up. Much of WNSC's anticipated NPR audience will be shared with 90.7, as their two signals largely overlap with one another except for due south, which is largely rural with little population. They will be needing to compete for pledges and sponsors with 90.7 in almost any of the more populated areas. You would think that having Jazz alone in a large market would be a better situation than sharing a low percentage of NPR ratings.
 
The new WNSC talk/news format is completely devoid of any local info. At least WFAE provides traffic, weather, and some news for York and Lancaster Counties. What a joke! As a SC resident, I will continue to be a faithful WFAE listener. SCETV flipped WNSC because it was easy--not because they wanted to serve the community.
 
That is the sad thing: ETV basically runs all of their programming for their eight stations, except with two different feeds.

There is no local progamming at all on most of their stations, as it is all run out from George Rogers Blvd in Columbia.

Down in Charleston, they used to have a studio at the USS Yorktown, but they closed it several years back because of money.

Their TV stations are the same thing. Except for maybe three or four shows on their Spartanburg station, a couple on WNSC-TV, and a newscast in Beaufort, it is all run by satellite, as DirecTV gets the WRLK signal and re-distributes it throughout the state and the Charlotte market, for example, instead of getting the local stations.

Also, ETV wants its relevant public affairs programming on in York and Lancaster Counties, stuff like "The Big Picture" that are all about SC.

People up in this area are lucky to get three local public TV stations, and a choice of public radio, not with the ETV monopoly like it is in the rest of the state.

Here is the link to their explanation of the events:

http://www.scetv.org/radio/
 
Most of that is no different than NC. UNC-TV doesn't even locally produce legal IDs anymore, much less feed local programming. The only difference we have is that most NC markets had their own public radio stations before WUNC decided to expand. They don't produce anything local that I'm aware of either.
 
w00t said:
Most of that is no different than NC. UNC-TV doesn't even locally produce legal IDs anymore, much less feed local programming. The only difference we have is that most NC markets had their own public radio stations before WUNC decided to expand. They don't produce anything local that I'm aware of either.
Click to expand...
Most major NC markets DO HAVE local public/NPR stations--in addition to WUNC-FM (as well as several others) in the Triangle, there are local NPR affils in the Triad, Charlotte, New Bern-Greenville, Wilmington, Asheville, and others. WUNC-FM certainly does provide excellent local programing to the Triangle, and yes, they do have two satelite transmitters in areas (Rocky Mount and Nags Head) which would most likely have no local public radio signal otherwise. And, UNC-TV provides an outstanding public TV service throughout NC, and areas of VA and SC as well. I know as a resident of SC, I prefer UNC-TV to SCETV, and I am definately a PBS fan.
 
Yes I mentioned that most NC markets have their own public radio. WUNC wants to expand throughout the state though... that's a no brainer.

My overall point was that UNC-TV does nothing that isn't statewide... it's all run out of RTP... just like ETV programs everything from the building next to the Willy B. I haven't watched enough ETV to comment on them vs. UNC otherwise.
 
WUNC has been very aggressive - they kind of remind me of Clear Channel. They want to take over all markets throughout the state - not good in my opinion. They want to broadcast the same thing throughout. That will begin to homogenize public radio formats the same way CC has done throughout the country. I'm sure WUNC plans to consolidate jobs in the same way. There are some markets that have Rock public radio! Imagine how good that might be. The Louisville market has a 4 public radio station cluster with News/Talk, Rock, Classical, and I think Jazz. How cool is that? The WUNC march is striking fear in the hearts of the other public radio stations. I don't think it's a good thing.
 
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