TigerHoya
Diamond Hoya (over 2500 posts)
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Post by TigerHoya on Jan 4, 2006 15:19:02 GMT -5
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Jack
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Post by Jack on Jan 4, 2006 15:34:08 GMT -5
Why is WTOP creating a second news-oriented station to compete with itself? Why can't someone bring back WHFS instead? Although now that the Junkies have replaced Stern in the morning, the world is a better place.
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EasyEd
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Post by EasyEd on Jan 4, 2006 16:37:16 GMT -5
That's all we need, a Washington Post radio station. I'm sure they will advertise as "fair and balanced" and they will actually believe it.
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DFW HOYA
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Post by DFW HOYA on Jan 4, 2006 20:25:38 GMT -5
Why is WTOP creating a second news-oriented station to compete with itself? Why can't someone bring back WHFS instead? The radio industry is somewhere between guarded pessimism and outright panic. They are losing listeners, but worse, advertisers. As the business model contracts, change follows. WTOP is moving because AM is a dead end for its now suburban-intensive audience. The Post (which used to own WTOP-AM and WTOP-TV, now WUSA-9) is getting back into the business to leverage its print reach and serve as a entre into national syndication. News/talk is a better sell for advertisers looking for the high income DC market than Z-104. And that's why WHFS isn't coming back. In an era of media consolidation, there's no money in free-form radio. "Jack FM" and the like cost nothing but a board op and a week's worth of songs. Although now that the Junkies have replaced Stern in the morning, the world is a better place. I disagree. Having listened to Stern since his DC-101 days, he's a marketing genius--you don't have to like the content but his impact upon how radio is produced today is undeniable. There are more radio personalities today than at any time since the 1940's--Limbaugh, Franken, Ingraham, O'Reilly, Leykis, Hannity, Imus, Dr. Laura, et al., and they all owe a piece of their sucess to Stern's ability to sell market-driven syndicated radio. His move will push more advertisers to consider satellite in general and erode Infinity's margins in specific. (Memo to Infinity: David Lee Roth is, well, awful.) Stern will be paid $100 million a year at Sirius and it's actually going to make Sirius money. How? Satellite only needs 643,000 extra subscribers at $12.00 a month to pay his salary. If only 10% of Stern's audience moved over, never mind fans in the cities he never reached, that's an extra two million right there. In the last year, Sirius has gone from 800,000 to nearly 3 million, and XM (thanks to better fleet deals with new GM cars) from 2.5 to 4 million. Which brings us back to WTOP. When you're paying $10 a month for commercial free satellite, do you really need to listen to AM radio? |
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Post by BurleithBeast on Jan 5, 2006 15:45:59 GMT -5
The move also had to do with the merits of WTOP's signals vs. the WGMS and Z104 signals. The old WTOP FM signal is lousy everywhere north of Alexandria (it's broadcast out of Warrenton), and the AM signal is spotty in Virginia and, well, pretty much everywhere else, because it's AM. The 103.5 signal on the other hand is centrally located in the region and much more powerful. Post's Marc Fisher has had the most informed analysis of all this so far... blog.washingtonpost.com/rawfisher/2006/01/radio_reelingthe_update_and_an.html#411 |
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TigerHoya
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Post by TigerHoya on Jan 5, 2006 15:52:58 GMT -5
I could get the old WTOP AM signal at spots in SC depending on the time of night and the weather.
I read the Post update as well as another story at WTOP and DCist. The thing I just noticed in one of those articles is that Bonneville is also starting two commercial free classical stations in HD Radio format.
I follow talk radio alot more than most people probably - been a junkie since staying up late to listen to WSB in Atlanta (750) when I was a kid and then discovered sports radio and Don & Mike (as well as Liddy, Stern and Greaseman) when I was at GU. I worked for a smaller talk station in SC off and on for a couple of years after that as a board operator during football, baseball and hoops as well as doing sales and some political analysis (including covering the 96 GOP convention in San Diego.) I also did some sales, production assistance (including call screening), political/news reporting and general gopher type stuff for a syndicated statewide talk show.
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Post by HoyaSinceBirth on Jan 11, 2006 17:58:05 GMT -5
As a residnet of DC I'm really Editeded about these eliminations of radio stations in the past year or so. First 99.1 and now 104.1 these were two of the best stations we had and now they're gone. I understand all the reasons behind such closures but that doesn't make it suck and less for radio listeners.
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