WSAR, still looking...

[Oldbones]

For me the incentive would be just to shock Fall River with something new and amazing.
.....
It would actually be a goal of mine to pull away measurable audiences from Providence and New Bedford Stations. I know that back in the 1980's WNBC New York dominated in such a way. Between Imus, Soupy Sales and Stern there is no doubt that people from 100 and even 200 miles away would tune away from their local stations and tune into WNBC. That is the same kind of station that I would turn WSAR into. A station where other broadcasting outlets would say, Hold on a minute. What station is suddenly pulling away a good chunk of our listeners? I realize that it would take some amazing programming to do this. I also realize that it would take some incredible promotion to even get people to notice us. But I would be up to that challenge just to prove that it can be done. WSAR has a signal that reaches from Boston to Southern parts of Rhode Island. Trust me... With the right type of programming, that station could do well.

There's a big difference between the kind of talent you can attract to New York vs Fall River. You failed to mention that the WNBC line-up you mention was 20+ years ago, a lot has changed since then. Old media like radio (especially AM) are less relevant than they once were. It's one thing to imagine some fantasy station that people go out of their way to find & listen to, something else to actually make it happen...especially on some station that's been a dog for years.

Back when 1480 WSAR and 1400 WALE each had seperate ownership, there was a lively competition between the two, and it kept each station on its toes. Once WSAR's ownership took over 1400...the ball game was over, and WSAR didn't really have to try anymore, since its primary 'competition' no longer programmed in English.

True words. I have seen it happen in other small markets as well. When stations compete for audience and advertising bucks the listeners all benefit. It was the same for newspapers back in the days when cities even as large as Providence might have two dailies. Kept the heat on government, too.

Through the 1950's and early 1960's WSAR and WALE (1400) competed but WALE played hardball with far better news coverage and owned the audience despite its' (then) 250-Watt flea-power. At that time WSAR was owned by The Fall River Herald-News and had a one-man "news department" headquartered in the newspaper office while the studios were at the old transmitter site in Somerset....the original 4-tower (square cross-section, top-loaded) site alongside The Taunton River. The site that was torn down to make way for a nuclear power plant that was never built. Anybody else remember Joe Welch and Chris Barnes...and for which station each worked?

You're talking 50+ years ago!! People who were small children then are demographically irrelevant today. Believe it or not, times have changed.

Last I looked newspapers aren't exactly thriving these days either.

 

[Skynet74]

I think my point is that with the right amount of creativity, you could still pull in lots of listeners. I'm talking about "MAJOR CREATIVITY". I know that it's a different world today, but it's not like people started throwing away their radios. Everybody still has one.