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WSB-AM Debuts On FM Today at Noon

R

RoddyFreeman

I have just learned that 95.5 will simulcast WSB-AM starting today at noon.

The Beat will be relegated to one of the cluster's HD signals and an online stream.

This is obviously a huge story.
 
Cox obviously felt the need to do something quickly to stem WSB-AM's ratings losses and keep someone else from beating them to the punch with talk on FM.

Here's my question: Was that fact that WSB is on AM the main problem? Or was it a programming issue? After all, as recently as 6 months ago, the same people who left the station were listening on AM.
 
bnaivar said:
That was the slickest switch I've ever heard. ;)
Click to expand...

750am was interesting just before the switch... had a clip of boortz saying that in about 20 seconds, 95.5 would be a WSB simulcast... Kind of cute, I guess.
 
RoddyFreeman said:
Here's my question: Was that fact that WSB is on AM the main problem? Or was it a programming issue? After all, as recently as 6 months ago, the same people who left the station were listening on AM.
Click to expand...

I believe that being stuck on the AM dial was the "main" problem, as in "if you listed all of the problems and ranked them top to bottom, being on AM would rank #1". That's not to say that problems #2, #3, etc. weren't also part of the total situation.

There are two kinds of AM listeners. There are those who have stopped listening to AM, and there are those who will stop listening to AM. The one kind of listener that doesn't exist in large enough numbers to worry about are those who will start listening to AM. Any broadcasting company executive who wants to do more than simply slow down the rate of loss of listeners and instead wants to increase their audience can either move from AM to FM or he can fail. He's not going to increase his audience on AM enough to make it worth putting forth a major effort.
 
It was a slick switch, BUT how about the dramatics? What happened to saying that 95.5 the beat would be on a HD2 channel? I dont care about the beat, too old here to like that noise, and Im glad that WSB am 750 is on 95, but now what happens to 750 AM???? Any thoughts?
 
Simulcasting on FM is an excellent move. Now, when you are in your car flipping channels, you dont have to find that damn AM/FM band button. That's a big deal for many people.

Being on FM will immediately slightly lower the demographic -- maybe from 70 to 65, but it still lowers it. Plus they now have the potential to attract younger listeners. They could not do that before when they were only on AM. They will always be the big mother heritage news station, but i would watch for some tweaks after this. They will be slight each time, but very calculated.

Notice that most of Cox's AM/FM news/talk simulcasts are the main AM signal that covers the market well and an FM move-in that's not quite as good.

Curious, did they turn off the stereo pilot? Years ago, some FM recievers were built with a selector switch of AM/FM/FM Stereo and when you had the knob in the Stereo mode, it would not pick up mono stations. Most FM talkers back then (and there were a few) kept the stereo pilot on for that reason. But now, there is no point. Plus, the mono signal will travel further.

They might change the call letters, but they wont move the WSB-FM letters to 95.5. They will find something 'similar' like WWSB, WSBB, WSBF, etc.
 
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