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WPHT shake up

HGN2001 said:
This shakeup has EVERYTHING to do with conveniencing Michael Smerconish. He's the one who likely initiated ALL of this, and probably brought Giordano along for the ride or at least gave him the impetus to demand a regular outlet instead of the Phillies-laden timeslot.

Look no further than Smerconishes ego.
Click to expand...

It's a business built on ego ("The great one," EIB, et al, anyone?). If he was able to leverage the power he built to get a more favorable working arrangement, more power to him. Where's the problem with getting the best deal one can from their employer?
 
imhomerjay said:
It's a business built on ego ("The great one," EIB, et al, anyone?).
Click to expand...
The difference, of course, is that Limbaugh is making fun of the fact that his is an ego-driven business with tongue-in-cheek pronouncements like the above and "half my brain tied behind my back just to make it fair." Smerconish takes this stuff seriously. I suspect if you asked him why he's such an insufferable egomaniac, he'd take offense.

If he was able to leverage the power he built to get a more favorable working arrangement, more power to him. Where's the problem with getting the best deal one can from their employer?
Click to expand...
When it takes the whole station down. But management is to blame for what's about to happen to 1210, not Smerconish. Smerconish merely grabbed the best deal he could get, and he can't be faulted for that. But that's not going to make it any more likely that I'd listen to him, nor that 1210's business outlook is going to improve.

Smerconish's numbers must be good enough that 1210 thinks it's better for business to go with him rather than Premiere's syndication fees.

We'll have to see how good new morning man Chris Stigall is. While it would be hard for him to be worse than post-Bush Smerconish and Imus, the station's future is going to be riding on him.
 
jmtillery said:
Nathan Obral said:
The protection issues with KFI also affect the 640 signal in Atlanta, where CC talker WGST is a powerful 50,000 watts in the daytime, but it's puny 1,000 watt night signal can't even cover half of the sprawling Atlanta metro area.
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I'm sure if Clear Channel wanted to invest the capital into a new transmitting plant with enough towers situation due West of Atlanta proper and beam every signal watt due East directly over Atlanta proper, WGST can get a nighttime power increase. The question, which only an AM directional RF engineer can answer, is how many towers will it take to get the job done? And at what cost?
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I doubt it could be done. Atlanta's such a sprawling metropolis, a nighttime signal needs to be very omnidirectional to hit all the various monied suburbs. A westerly located transmitter site would have to throw out a pretty big fat lobe to engulf the entire metro.
 
WWJZ had an unbuilt cp to move to Horsham with 50 kW-D, 39 kW-N, DA-2. Guess putting up 8 towers was too much for whatever ROI there'd be.
 
Nathan Obral said:
WHLO/640 Akron only operates with 500 watts nighttime. It covers the Akron/Canton region (and parts of neighboring Cleveland) rather decently
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Of course, that 500 watt signal didn't exist back in the mid-1970s, when, as noted here, WHLO signed off at California sunset. It pushed the evening local talk show on Susquehanna-owned "NewsTalk 64" off the air in the winter, and the host (now known as WKBN/570 Youngstown PM driver Ron Verb) was on until 11 in the summer.

Even WHLO's day signal these days (was 1 kW back in the day, now 5 kW) misses all but "the more fortunate suburbs of Cleveland", as syndicated/WPGB Pittsburgh host Jim Quinn puts it.

Back on topic, I wonder how much the Philly market 640 has to protect Toronto. Looking at their pattern on R-L, there's a definite null in that direction in both day and night patterns, and the day pattern very much looks like the typical coastal new high-power allocation that throws a lot of radiation at the fishes...
 
imhomerjay said:
HGN2001 said:
This shakeup has EVERYTHING to do with conveniencing Michael Smerconish. He's the one who likely initiated ALL of this, and probably brought Giordano along for the ride or at least gave him the impetus to demand a regular outlet instead of the Phillies-laden timeslot.

Look no further than Smerconishes ego.
Click to expand...

It's a business built on ego ("The great one," EIB, et al, anyone?). If he was able to leverage the power he built to get a more favorable working arrangement, more power to him. Where's the problem with getting the best deal one can from their employer?
Click to expand...

And Mark doesn't even call himself "the great one". Sean does. Hannity made up the nickname. Rush calls him F. Lee Levin.
 
Gotta agree with OMW. Both of WWJZ's patterns have a deep null toward Toronto to protect CFMJ. The main lobe appears to dump more power over So. Jersey than the Main Line suburbs. The patterns also appear to be a DA-1 dropping power at sunset.
 
DG02816 said:
Gotta agree with OMW. Both of WWJZ's patterns have a deep null toward Toronto to protect CFMJ. The main lobe appears to dump more power over So. Jersey than the Main Line suburbs. The patterns also appear to be a DA-1 dropping power at sunset.
Click to expand...

Legacy DA-1's get to keep that designation--until they make some change in their facilities. But no new ones are licensed. Even if they are in fact DA-1, the FCC insists on calling them DA-2. And sometimes, there really are differences in addition to power, especially the little understood (at least by me) Q-factor.
 
There's one other decently powered AM that could go into the mix, and that's WNWR. Were Clear Channel to buy it, they could upgrade it to full time, much like they did with upgrading 1200 Boston to 50 kW. WNWR's 50 kW is rather robust, and seems to cover this area well.
 
If Clear Channel acquired WNWR, it could finally get some ratings outside of the Saturday 3 PM timeslot - and even then, it's been years since they've got any listeners in that timeslot... ::)
 
DToTheJ said:
If Clear Channel acquired WNWR, it could finally get some ratings outside of the Saturday 3 PM timeslot - and even then, it's been years since they've got any listeners in that timeslot... ::)
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What are you talking about?
 
I'll leave it to the experts, but based on the For Entertainment Only R-L maps...

It looks like 1540 would have to produce the standard coastal "bathe the fishes in RF" pattern to get any night service, and probably miss a good chunk of the market doing so from the current site.

I don't see CC interested in buying/remodeling such an operation. This isn't Boston a few years ago, it's 2010. If they mount "Rush Radio" in Philly, it'll be on an FM.
 
1540 as WPGR under Jerry Blavat tried to operate under their post sunset power for a few months years back & couldn't be heard in the nearby suburbs. I am surprised how far/clear the signals of WNPV & WISP (the old WBUX) carry in the northern suburbs at night since they shed their daytime-only schedules 20+ years ago. Both were very cluttered when they first went to night power but whatever adjustments worked.
 
Not sure what 1540 ran at night under Blavat, but they were boxed in by KXEL and WPTR. I imagine now you have to factor in CHIN in Toronto too. KXEL and the now-WDCD both run 50 kW at night while CHIN runs 30 kW. WISP, running 900 watts at night, protects the 10 kW 1570 near Montreal and another on Long Island. WNPV's 500 watts protects a 1440 in Ohio.
 
DG02816 said:
Not sure what 1540 ran at night under Blavat, but they were boxed in by KXEL and WPTR. I imagine now you have to factor in CHIN in Toronto too. KXEL and the now-WDCD both run 50 kW at night while CHIN runs 30 kW. WISP, running 900 watts at night, protects the 10 kW 1570 near Montreal and another on Long Island. WNPV's 500 watts protects a 1440 in Ohio.
Click to expand...

That'd be WHKZ/1440 Warren, the former WRRO.

And there's a 1540 and 1570 in the same market...the 1540 does indeed have to deal with Iowa, Albany and Toronto, and neither 1540 there or in Cleveland has nighttime service (aside from a flea-powered PSRA in Cleveland). At night, it's mostly Iowa here on 1540, with an occasional dash of Toronto (oooh, Midwestern college sports mixed with Chinese music!).

1570 in the Youngstown market (now co-owned with 1540) has had 116 watts night for decades.
 
musichead1029 said:
imhomerjay said:
It's a business built on ego ("The great one," EIB, et al, anyone?).
Click to expand...
The difference, of course, is that Limbaugh is making fun of the fact that his is an ego-driven business with tongue-in-cheek pronouncements like the above and "half my brain tied behind my back just to make it fair." Smerconish takes this stuff seriously. I suspect if you asked him why he's such an insufferable egomaniac, he'd take offense.
Click to expand...

And Rush has done the whole EIB gimmick since his earliest days in radio, as a Top 40 gimmick. It was and is purely tounge-in-cheek, although Rush has recently been able to capitalize on "EIB" through merchandising. Almost all of his regular sayings - "one half of my brain tied behind my back, just to make it fair," "a man, a legend, a way of life," "greetings, conversationalists all across the fruited plain" - have been used verbatim since the early 1970s.
 
There are airchecks online of "El Rushbo" as "Jeff Christie" doing a nighttime music show in Pittsburgh, and hearing those very same catch phrases is a weird experience for a modern talk radio listener...
 
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