And while I am not a connoisseur or expert of/on Spanish language radio and the possible flip that La Preciosa, it would seem a brokered outley similar to CC's Florida brokered stations would be an effective way to bill, seeing that rates could be low enough thanks to the signal to attract value-minded national shows like Roex, American Advisor, the financial shows, etc., whose only real weekday option now is the Polish stations. Plus, it would be a quick way to clear Fox News, Glenn Beck, and whatever other Premiere stuff WLS or WIND won't.
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Wrll up in Spring book. Why kill it?
- Thread starter wellander
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A
Anyacat
Guest
RealOldies, WRLL-1690, as killed by Earl Jones so that he could provide a venue for WVON. Jones did nothing to improve the situation, refusing to promote the station and certainly made no move to improve the signal (if Clear Channel wanted a better signal, don't you think the FCC would have given it to them). Furthermore, the demographic identified as a RealOldies listener is considered "worthless" by Jones and Clear Channel. I'm not sure why, but more than one programmer indicated that people who listen to oldies are not considered important. It is as if we don't buy cars and cloths or eat at restaurants or take vacations. However, I keenly miss the RealOldies programming, music and DJs and have been casting about looking for something comparable on the radio and onthe Web. We RealOldies listeners have banned together, for the moment anyway, and have a site www.realoldiesfans.com and plan to boycott all Clear Channel products. But understanding human nature, I doubt it will last long. In the end, Earl Jones and Clear Channel will have an audience, I won't be part of it, but that won't matter to them. Yes, I miss RealOldies big time.
No, the FCC would not give it to them. The absolute limit on extended band stations is 10 kw day and 1 kw night, except for stations on the Eastern and Western Seaboards where the night power can be 10 kw as well, as long as the power towards co-channel stations is limited to 1 kw.
What you said is like saying, "WGN should ask the FCC to give them 100,000 watts." Similarly, the clear channels are limited ot 50 kw, so there is no way this will happen, either.
Why? Because most advertisers inlarge markets do not want to spend any money on 55+ persons. This is true in Chicago or LA or Phoenix or St. Louis for ANY radio station. This is why oldies is disappearing except in smaller markets, where small, local advertisers do still like the format. Customers with ad agencies do not.
Mosly it is about ROI (Return on Investment). Older people take more advertising to create a buing change from existing patterns. The cost of creating the change is greater than the profit on the sale, so advertisers don't want older demos like 55+ and 65+.
If you are over 55, you are right: it does not matter to them. Why not get a satellite radio? The oldies options on XM are very attractive.
David, you originally predicted they would run a Spanish oldies format on WRLL.
I thought the Hispanic demographic listened to FM at a higher rate than non-Hispanics especially in markets like Chicago where there is lots of Spanish radio.
If you can't make money playing English oldies than why could you make more revenue playing Spanish oldies. Again, I thought Hispanic stations didn't bill as well as similar rated English stations.
I'm not arguing with you, just would like a logical explanation to my question.
I thought the Hispanic demographic listened to FM at a higher rate than non-Hispanics especially in markets like Chicago where there is lots of Spanish radio.
If you can't make money playing English oldies than why could you make more revenue playing Spanish oldies. Again, I thought Hispanic stations didn't bill as well as similar rated English stations.
I'm not arguing with you, just would like a logical explanation to my question.
briancraig said:
The management at the La Preciosa Adult Hits format operations center in Monterey did, in fact, announce that they were going to be programming WRLL. It was even published in several on-line Spanish langauge sites. In fact, I think it was reported in the Chicago papers that some kind of Spanish was coming. I was not predicting, by the way... I was reporting on what was being posted on other websites.
Obviously, Clear liked the ready cash of the LMA as opposed to trying to do music on an AM agianst the same format on FM, Adult Hit WPPN.
Hispanics do not listen to AM unless there is no choice. Clear has "La Preciosa" on 4 or 5 AMs in places where they either have no competiton (Sioux City or Austin, MN) or where there is nonthing much else to do (Riverside, CA). Maybe they did not realize at first that WPPN was in the same format... who knows.
Billing by Spanish stations depends on how well operators have run stations in the market in the past. In Houston, KLTN has a near 1.4 power ratio... 40% over the 1:1 stasndard. In Miami, the Spanish language stations have up to 2 ratios. WOJO has a 1 ratio, and is growing fast.
Since the proposed Preciosa format is not "oldies" in the sense of 50's and 60's but, rather, 70's through early 2000's, there is a difference in comparing the formats.
10 years ago there were many AM stations in Chicago programming to the Spanish speaking population offering a variety of formats. 560 WIND was at one point the highest rated spanish language station in Chicago, even beating it's similarly formated fm sister WOJO. 1300 WTAQ was at one point the number 3 chicago station in terms of ratings among hispanic listeners. Offering a similar format to both WIND and WOJO, but focusing slightly on more traditional sounds. Then there was WLXX 1200, wich until 1995 or so was known as WOPA and as WOPA it was a spanish pop music station also offering some ocasional spanish rock and metal shows at night. It flipped to WLXX and tried to compete against the 3 stations I named above, it didn't do to0 well and decided to go in the direction of tropical music (salsa/merengue/bachata) to serve the underserved and considerably smaller puerto rican/colombian/dominican population, which only had programming offered to them on WONX 1590 and WCRW 1240, which was a shared time station. We all know that WTAQ became radio disney after it was sold off, there were a couple of suburban stations that tried spanish programming as well, targeting their programming to the Mexican American majority. When 107.9 became LA LEY it destoyed the competition and WIND had no choice but to abandon it's music programming and switched to spanish talk. After they were sold and switched back to an english talk format, they switched their format to 1200 and picked up the calls wrto. If there is programming for the spanish speaking population, they will go towards it, no matter what band they are on. In Mexico, music radio is alive and well on AM, even in Mexico city. Mexicans have been very slow to give up on the AM dial, unlike up here in Canada and the united states. In many latin american countries, AM is alive and well and Hispanics will tune there if they have something offered to them that they want. Just like non-hispanics. It's the programming that matters, not the band.
mimo said:
AM in Mexico City has a lower share than in large US cities. In fact, there are only three AM music stations in the market in the top 25 stations, one a nostalgia station playing 40's and 50's tunes, a salsa station which would not justify a full FM due to limited appeal, and an old ranchera music station which has only D-E class appeal and literally no sales.
Mexican AM is mostly talk in the large cities, or music with nearly no ratings but just enough that they can help the FMs when added in a cluster sale. There is vastly more rejection of AM across Latin America than in the US... in fact, many markets are losing AM stations. A good example was one-time #1 Radio Mineria in santiago, Chile, turned in the license for its 100 kw operation on 1060 and ceased operation. Places like Guatemala City, San Salvador, San José, Quito, Lima have fewer AMs than 10 or 20 years ago. In Puerto Rico, nearly all the AMs are losing money, and several go through cycles of being silent until another person buys them... in Quito, Ecuador, 3 of the AMs I built in the 60's are now silent and there are 10 fewer AMs than there were in 1965! The Dominican republic has lost 20 AMs in the last 5 years... just gone.
Oh, WIND was tlak before WLEY came on the air. I know. I was the PD.
I stand corrected. I wasn't sure when the switch to talk happened on WIND. I was under the belief that AM was much more successful in Mexico than it is. Even to this day some of the big signals in Mexico continue to play music, like Monterrey's XEG 1050 and Ciudad Juarez' Radio Cañon (XEROK 800) which admitedly is hurting for ratings. Many of the AM stations I have heard from Mexico were all music stations, and since many people I knew were listeners to these stations, I believed them to be very popular. I was definitely aware of AM's lack of popularity in Ecuador and Argentina. Here in Canada where I now reside, AM is pretty much being eliminated altogether, despite the awarding of 6 new AM licenses. Many AM'S here are moving to FM, In a city like Toronto, there is just no more ro0m on the FM dial so the CRTC has no choice but to award new licenses on AM. The city I live in now, Ottawa, has lost half of the AM stations it once had, 1 went silent completely, and the other 4 moved to FM. Now we have 3 english language AM stations and one french language AM station, which has been trying to move to FM for years, despite a large audience, it feels it cannot compete on the AM dial anymore.
So you were the pd at WIND, Let me thank you for some wonderful programming, The station was very helpful in my quest to learn spanish (which I did) I wish you lots of success in the future
So you were the pd at WIND, Let me thank you for some wonderful programming, The station was very helpful in my quest to learn spanish (which I did) I wish you lots of success in the future
mimo said:
Actually, you named the one exception to AM's rapid decline... Argentina. The #1 station in Buenos Aires is Radio 10, ann agressive news talker formerly owned by Emmis and sister to Mega 98.3. It has nearly a 20 share, and the AM band althoghether has something like 45 shares. One of the things is that there are quite a few high power AMs (Radio 10 is 100 kw and directional over Buenos Aires) with 50 kw each, and there is a very strong audience for political discussion as well as sports. Because Argentina is a much slower growth country, the average age is higher than anyplace else in Latin America, making boht AM and talk programming far more appealing to a large group. The fact that Bs. As. is a city of 17 million in the metro is also a help.
Canada is an interesting place, as there is an official policy between Industry Canada and the CRTC to convert AMs to FMs except int he largest markets. PEI will have no AM at all come end of Summer, and it's expected that half of all AMs will move to FM by the time they are through. Of course, the total radio revenue in canada is less than the radio revenue in los Angeles CA, alone. So there is a different economy and scale of operation.
In Mexico City, the #1 FM has a 17.4 share (XEQR-FM) and the #1 AM, a talker, has a 3.6. All 31 AMs have a 21 share, while the FMs have a 79 share. Most telling is that XEW, the legendary 250,000 watt AM that was the cornerstone of the Televisa empire, now is 24th in ranking with less than a 1 share. From the 30's through the 60's, this station often had 25 to 30 shares, but never recovered when it put off going to a music format, and then was too late going to talk in the 80's and 90's.
WIND was fun... I was doing 11 AMs for Hispanic Broadcasting at the time, and was in Chicago a lot then.
I have another question about a foreign land to which I have never been: When I looked at the situation about 30 years ago, I noticed that there were 30 AMs licensed to Mexico City with no FMs at all! The stations at the middle and top of the dial were 30khz apart but at the bottom were only 20khz apart. They usually had 2 high power stations with a 1kw station squeezed between. This must have been and probably still is a technical nightmare! Any thoughts on this?
semoochie said:
Well, most FMs in Mexico City, as in Latin America, started as studio transmitter links. In 1970, I was offered the programming of 5 FMs in Mexico City when they were about to move to 180,000 watts each from the Torre Latinoamericana, the highest building in the valley. Even before that, stations like XHM, "Un Oasis en FM" and XELA (Buena Música en México" had separate FM formats and a couple had started to do OK.
In 1975, 30 years ago, the allocation was the same on AM as today. 560, 590, 620, 660, 690, 710, 730, 760, 790, 830, 860, 900, 940, 970, 1000, 1040, 1060, 1110, 1150, 1180, 1220, 1260, 1290, 1320, 1350, 1380, 1410, 1440, 1470, 1500, 1530, 1560, 1590. No change, except nearly all are much higher power today.
For example, 690 is 100kw, 710 is now 10 kw, and 730 is 100 kw. 760 is 75 kw, 790 is 50 kw, 830 is 50, 860 is 50, 900 is 250 kw, 940 is 50, as are 970, 1000, 1030, 1060, 1110 and 1150. 1220 is 100, 1260 is 50 as is 1290 and 1320. 1350 is reported 10 kw, 1380 is 50, 1410 is 20.
I owned HCRM1 and HCSP1 in the same market, Quito, Ecuador, in the 60's. One was 570, and the other 590. No problems at all, not even near the transmitter sites.
To address the David E. thing....
IMO he DOES present himself as the all knowing messiah....so what you show your name? BFD!
I see him posting the same dribble on boards all over the place....(he is the messiah of Alb new mexico radio as weel) I admit I post my thoughts and opinions often....but I hope I never come off like David E. does
IMO he DOES present himself as the all knowing messiah....so what you show your name? BFD!
I see him posting the same dribble on boards all over the place....(he is the messiah of Alb new mexico radio as weel) I admit I post my thoughts and opinions often....but I hope I never come off like David E. does
A
Anyacat
Guest
I guess I have it figured on now. I could have the radio I wanted if I were an Hispanic male between the ages of 17 and 35. Meanwhile, I will search the airwaves for something entertaining. I kinda like a station out of New Mexico that I listen to online.
Anyacat said:
In truth, there are plenty of missing formats for Hispanic 18-34 males. There are only 2 offered in Chicago. How many choices in English do 18-34 makes have?
It's the economics of the market that determine how many formats are viable economically, not the language.
semoochie said:
The issue is spacing and the ñprotection of contours from second adjacents. Mexico, and much of the rest of the world, believes that you can space local stations every 20 or 30 kHz with no problem at all.
As I mentioned, I owned two stations in Ecuador in the same market, one on 590 and the other on 570. The transmitters were nearly 30 miles apart, at opposite ends of the city, and yet within a few blocks of each transmitter, you could hear the other station.
The USA developed its allocations plan and protection requirements at a time when, perhaps, receivers were less selective and technology was less advanced. I have seen very close allocations "up close" in a dozen or more nations, and could detect no significant degredation of the signals of such adjacent signals. In fact, there were even some bizarre plans, like Costa Rica, where they were 25 kHz apart in the same market.
Maybe, it's the ground conductivity. Where I live, there's a directional 50kw on 1520 that's been that way for decades. Recently, on the other side of town a former 1kw daytimer on 1550 went to 50kw nondirectional during the day. The latter station just barely clears the 25mv/m contour of the former. You have to go a few miles from either station before the other is really clean and that's just for 25mv/m. Are you saying that these stations are virtually on top of each other to the point that the signal from one station is overloading at the other?
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