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WONE "980 Homer" broadcasting Bob and Tom at 2:30 am?
- Thread starter jcs
- Start date
gr8oldies said:That's assuming people in Springfield would support it. Maybe they did in the 70s, but now they think of themselves as being just another part of Dayton.
The Springfield area had some cool FM stations much earlier than many
other parts of the country. Therefore, we made the switch to FM sooner.
Most kids of the 1974 Springfield North Class were FM listeners as early
as 1972.
If 102.9 had renamed a Springfield station, the community would have
supported it.
WIZE could live on it's own again if it had an FM translator.
So, let me get this straight? Clear Channel has 2 sports stations in the same cluster and neither is good? Why not combine the local talent and put them in the 2 drive time slots and then put syndication around it. DP, ROME, and whatever FSR offers at night when there is no pxp? Then make the other a full time espn affiliate?
How hard can that be?
How hard can that be?
alans613 said:It's sad to see what's happened to WIZE...a once proud Top 40 station that was extremely popular(Not to mention a one-time AT 40 affiliate!) and owned by Great Trails Broadcasting has diminished into a repeater for WONE.IMO CC should've just left WONE/WIZE Adult Standards and called it a day. Since they flipped to Sports back in '03 they haven't done any kind of ratings. I'd also like to know if anyone is selling anything on those signals since basically no one listens.
Leave it standards and "call it a day?" ?
That kind of creative thinking is exactly what caused the downward slide of these stations. Years ago, when I heard that Jerry Staggs had flipped WIZE to standards, I could only shake my head. It was probably something suggested by the great minds at Dan Vallie and Associates.
Programming aside, from my involvement with Great Trails, I can tell you that WIZE was the source of many headaches for the company. To this day, I cannot figure out what Clark Davis saw in Jerry Staggs. A foghorn-leghorn blowhard salesman from down south, with terrible people skills. Not surprising, but I heard that CC hired Jerry at one of their clusters in Florida... The PD at WIZE was a "yes man" who's office door was closed most of the time. The staff at that station was a constant revolving door of people, and largely dysfunctional. Many of the problems came from so many inter-office (cough cough) relationships. While the PD hid behind his closed door, the inmates were running the asylum. It was no secret that the "problem employees" at Great Trails were often exiled to WIZE. I was in the building one day when one such employee had what I can only describe as a complete mental breakdown. I observed the PD introducing a new hire to newsman Gerry Allen. Gerry told the new hire "You won't be here long - In 5 years, I've seen 100 people come and go through these doors" What a rude way to motivate a new employee, but Gerry was right. The new employee lasted about 60 days at WIZE before the insanity took it's toll.
WIZE could probably be relevant again with 3 or 4 employees and a contract engineer. It would have to be a fire sale price with no large bank note to pay. I'd be curious to know what WULM was billing when a similar attempt was made to be "local" again. Anyone???
My other concern would be the economic stability of Springfield. Save for the new hospital (it seems all economically challenged towns have new hospitals) and Wittenburg U, the place is a dump - Not unlike Anderson, IN or Danville, IL. Forbes has Springfield on a doomed list of 22 cities likely to experience a double-dip recession.
Hey, thanks for the shoutout to Danville, Illinois--my wretched hometown. I'm likewise a Great Trails alum, and I guess I could corroborate your take on WIZE--they basically treated it as a tagalong once the AM heyday was past. And by doing so, they allowed it to die.
Danville is a great parallel to Springfield, but on a smaller scale--the city is half the size of Springfield. Clark County's population is around 140,000 compared to Vermilion's 83,000. Danville has lost about 25 percent of its population since I was a kid there in the sixties. When GM pulled the plug, so did GE and similar auto-industry suppliers. The state of Illinois turned it into a Prison Town (the largest employer), making further economic development almost impossible. Half the population of Danville qualifies for Section 8 assistance, and they're always among the state's leaders in unemployment claims. Yeah, it is Springfield's twin in a lot of ways.
But the principle radio operator in Danville, Neuhoff, runs a great cluster and spins off significant profit. The AM--a class IV (or whatever they call them now--Class C?) just like WIZE, with 1-kw non-directional @ 1490--does a great job of local news, local events, high school sports and the like. I'll admit that their two FMs--a contemp and a classic rocker--bring in more revenue, but WDAN(AM) does pretty well for itself doing the full-service thing.
A smart operator could do the same--or better--with WIZE. Yes, there is more out-of-town competition for listeners in Springfield, but the market is considerable bigger than Danville, and so is the retail pool of advertising money available for a good broadcaster.
Danville is a great parallel to Springfield, but on a smaller scale--the city is half the size of Springfield. Clark County's population is around 140,000 compared to Vermilion's 83,000. Danville has lost about 25 percent of its population since I was a kid there in the sixties. When GM pulled the plug, so did GE and similar auto-industry suppliers. The state of Illinois turned it into a Prison Town (the largest employer), making further economic development almost impossible. Half the population of Danville qualifies for Section 8 assistance, and they're always among the state's leaders in unemployment claims. Yeah, it is Springfield's twin in a lot of ways.
But the principle radio operator in Danville, Neuhoff, runs a great cluster and spins off significant profit. The AM--a class IV (or whatever they call them now--Class C?) just like WIZE, with 1-kw non-directional @ 1490--does a great job of local news, local events, high school sports and the like. I'll admit that their two FMs--a contemp and a classic rocker--bring in more revenue, but WDAN(AM) does pretty well for itself doing the full-service thing.
A smart operator could do the same--or better--with WIZE. Yes, there is more out-of-town competition for listeners in Springfield, but the market is considerable bigger than Danville, and so is the retail pool of advertising money available for a good broadcaster.
I heard a couple of the Danville stations when I lived in the Lafayette, IN area . I don't know all the dynamics of Danville compared to the nearby Champaign-Urbana market; but Springfield pretty much is another suburb of Dayton for all practical purposes. Springfielders spend their money, dine out and get their entertainment out of the Greater Dayton area. They'll go to Fairfield Commons before they'll go to the Upper Valley Mall. Springfield's retail sector isn't that hot either (as far as mom and pop type businesses that might advertise on a local station...the chains are going where the audience is, and that's Dayton-based media). I'd be very pessimistic about a local AM operator being able to pry many ears away from K99.1, 99.9 Lite FM, WTUE, WMMX and other Dayton FMs. There are a few Springfield cheerleaders, but even they aren't willing to advertise on local radio.
I grew up in Clark County and I remember a lot about the so called "glory days" of radio for Springfield. When I was very young almost too young to recall ,Springfield had three AM radio stations: WWSO at 1210, WIZE at 1340, and WJEL at 1600. WJEL also had for a while an FM (WJEM) at 103.9. Some sources such as Wikipedia state that WJEL was licensed to Dayton but researching old radio logs I can never find any mention of that, it went on the air after the war. As best as I recall and can find they went on the air maybe 1946 or 47 in Springfield and the FM a year or so later. I can remember that transmitters were off Bechtel behind where they later built the Park Shopping Center.
WWSO went dark in the early fifties and WJEL might have followed but Bob Yontz got some local businessmen and community leaders to purchase it and relaunch as WBLY (the B,L,Y were the initials of their last names). The FM remained dark until 1957 or 58, resuming at 103.9 and later moving to 102.9. The transmitters were located on West First Street in the river flood plain. WWSO resumed in Dayton as WAVI.
As FM became the dominant force WBLY was better positioned to be successful than WIZE where the powers that be elected to remain AM only even though their sister station, WCOL in Columbus, had a very popular FM. Furthermore Bob Yontz was a devoted community booster and so long as he was at the helm WBLY and WAZU were community stations as well as moderately or better financial successes. While this was going on WIZE slipped into the drink.
Now the manufacturing base that once made Springfield a prosperous economy is gone and the community has become a Dayton appendage in all respects. Probably not too far in the future the "News-Sun" will be supplanted totally by the "Dayton Daily News". Either WIZE or WBLY might have fared better had Joe Mullins decided to add one of them to his little Classic Country network. But even if someone could have purchased one or both stations they would have been riding some kind of satellite delivered or out of town programming. Sad to say but that is just progress as they say.
Here in Ottumwa Iowa, much like Danville we are isolated enough from larger cities to have a more lively local radio scene. That being said the one cluster in town is mostly Satellite fed on three FMs and one AM. The other AM/FM combo is "local and live" but in fact mostly live assisted automation because most of the day one "DJ" is head on both AM and FM. But both groups actively cover local events and have a sort of rip out of the local paper live news presence during the day on weekdays. The larger group did do live on the scene coverage of the President's visit back in June I think it was. The smaller group went for a discussion of the visit the next day on their local issues show.
WWSO went dark in the early fifties and WJEL might have followed but Bob Yontz got some local businessmen and community leaders to purchase it and relaunch as WBLY (the B,L,Y were the initials of their last names). The FM remained dark until 1957 or 58, resuming at 103.9 and later moving to 102.9. The transmitters were located on West First Street in the river flood plain. WWSO resumed in Dayton as WAVI.
As FM became the dominant force WBLY was better positioned to be successful than WIZE where the powers that be elected to remain AM only even though their sister station, WCOL in Columbus, had a very popular FM. Furthermore Bob Yontz was a devoted community booster and so long as he was at the helm WBLY and WAZU were community stations as well as moderately or better financial successes. While this was going on WIZE slipped into the drink.
Now the manufacturing base that once made Springfield a prosperous economy is gone and the community has become a Dayton appendage in all respects. Probably not too far in the future the "News-Sun" will be supplanted totally by the "Dayton Daily News". Either WIZE or WBLY might have fared better had Joe Mullins decided to add one of them to his little Classic Country network. But even if someone could have purchased one or both stations they would have been riding some kind of satellite delivered or out of town programming. Sad to say but that is just progress as they say.
Here in Ottumwa Iowa, much like Danville we are isolated enough from larger cities to have a more lively local radio scene. That being said the one cluster in town is mostly Satellite fed on three FMs and one AM. The other AM/FM combo is "local and live" but in fact mostly live assisted automation because most of the day one "DJ" is head on both AM and FM. But both groups actively cover local events and have a sort of rip out of the local paper live news presence during the day on weekdays. The larger group did do live on the scene coverage of the President's visit back in June I think it was. The smaller group went for a discussion of the visit the next day on their local issues show.
Hey stereolane, you mentioned Clark Davis! That should be enough to get you banned from the board for at least 3 months! ;D I remember when he went on one of his great "purges" and accidentally fired everyone in the traffic department on the same day without realizing what he had done. Next morning, no spot logs for WING. The place looked like a Chinese fire drill trying to get that repaired. Okay, apologies to any Chinese board readers here, I'm just insanely politically incorrect. Clark called one of the ladies he had so rudely fired the day before and asked her to come back to work. She told him to kiss her ******* ass! I honestly believe he was one of the little core of management people that took WING from the top of the heap to the bottom of the sea. Any other ex-WING people remember Clark as the Captain of the Titanic?
TANKSBACK said:Hey stereolane, you mentioned Clark Davis! That should be enough to get you banned from the board for at least 3 months! ;D I remember when he went on one of his great "purges" and accidentally fired everyone in the traffic department on the same day without realizing what he had done. Next morning, no spot logs for WING. The place looked like a Chinese fire drill trying to get that repaired. Okay, apologies to any Chinese board readers here, I'm just insanely politically incorrect. Clark called one of the ladies he had so rudely fired the day before and asked her to come back to work. She told him to kiss her ******* ass! I honestly believe he was one of the little core of management people that took WING from the top of the heap to the bottom of the sea. Any other ex-WING people remember Clark as the Captain of the Titanic?
Yes, I remember that incident! as i recall, the traffic dept at WIZE was hit the very same day. I remember Jerry Staggs telling everyone about the traffic director's dismissal... "Yessir, she was a good accountant, but we can't afford to pay her"... Everything was in total disarray for weeks after that, as Jerry's secretary tried to fill the traffic director's shoes (her exact title was "Business Manager" IIRC) To be fair, this firing was direct from corporate. It was not Jerry's idea. Visits from Dayton became more frequent to straighten huge problems that would have been just day-to-day things for a traffic director.
Clark Davis had a young, nerdy, 20-something hair-gelled kid who worked for him, can't recall his name, but I believe his title was "comptroller"... He visited the GT stations every 60 days or so, and staff was instructed to give him full cooperation. He rarely (if ever) smiled. Oddly enough, during these visits, he worked out of the traffic director's office. One day, he called ME into the office and asked me about my salary. "You make $XX,XXX per year, correct?" When I nearly rolled on the floor laughing, and told him NO, the number was much, much HIGHER than that, he said with raised eyebrows, "Really? Thanks, that's all I needed"... After that, I knew it was time to ramp up my search for a better job.
Clark Davis must have been great in television. His skills at running a group of radio stations left a lot to be desired. I also have to wonder if Jerry Staggs wasn't one of the many "sent in exile" to WIZE. Who in the hell moves from sales manager at a TV station to GM at a crappy standalone AM? Makes you wonder.
My mention of Danville, IL was probably not a good comparison. Anderson, IN is more similar, as it sits in the shadow of Indianapolis. If I had to choose between Anderson and Springfield (both terrible places) I would probably pick Springfield.
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