The other thing about The Breeze is it had a lot of expensive local talent. So it was not cost effective.
This statement is simply not true.
Afternoons were tracked by Smokey Rivers from Seattle and then by Race Taylor from New York.
Evenings were voicetracked by Sandy Kovach, a recognizable longtime Detroit personality, but she was not live.
The morning team, who were longtime personalities from the Tampa market, only were on mic for maybe ten minutes an hour. Based on the content of their show, utter lack of discussion of Detroit-centric items, and zero (to the best of my knowledge) appearances on local TV or on the streets to promote their show & the station in general, I believe it is probable they never relocated to Michigan.
The one definite live & local personality the station had was Kim Adams in middays. Her firing was a prominently displayed story on detroitnews.com for at least four weeks straight, for whatever reason.
Weekends were either jockless or voicetracked, depending on time of day.
So, while The Breeze spent more on air talent than the present-day Alt 98.7 (who spends zilch), it definitely did not feature "a lot of expensive local talent."
They're not failures at reaching older local audiences.
Indeed, WWJ and WOMC will always be very popular stations among geezers. Before David Eduardo reminds us that old adult audiences are generally not monetizable, these two stations are perennially among the top billers in the Detroit market (WWJ is often #1), even though WOMC is seldom among the top five stations in A25-54 (and sometimes isn't even top 10), and even though WWJ seldom appears in the Top 10 among A25-54 for the week.
Both stations have terrific relationships with a large number of local & regional advertisers.