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Yet Another FM Talk simulcast is ended

F

flybynight

This time it's WBAP/Dallas.

According to the GM, the simulcast wasn't adding to their ratings at all, so they decided to end it.

Why in the world does radio management think that simulcasting the same uptight, angry white guy rhetoric on FM is going to get more (read: younger) listeners? "Wait a minute, our ratings are slipping...let's go on FM! Surely the reason the ratings are down is because people are on FM, not because we're increasingly out of touch with more and more of the population every year!"
 
I just heard Ben Ferguson (WBAP) state that they are upgrading to HD FM and moving the frequency. He said they are doing this because the newer cars have HD radio. They are moving to 99.5

FYI
 
mohawk82 said:
I just heard Ben Ferguson (WBAP) state that they are upgrading to HD FM and moving the frequency. He said they are doing this because the newer cars have HD radio. They are moving to 99.5

FYI
Click to expand...

They didn't get ratings on the FM simulcast because there was no HD?

That must be it.
 
So what is the advice from all the "grandstand quarterbacks".

If you have a "heritage" AM that has been surviving by moving to Talk Radio, and it begins to look like the incoming tide may be washing the sand foundation out from under your big AM, you start simulcasting. And when that seems to get you nowhere, what is your next step. Do you hang in there, and keep on hanging, and keep on hanging for do you split up the programming.

And does the Talk Radio stay with the AM, or with the FM? How long is long enough to hang with the simulcast? 6 months? 6 years? And once you decide which signal stays with Talk Radio.... what do you put on the other signal?
 
GRcowboy said:
So what is the advice from all the "grandstand quarterbacks".

If you have a "heritage" AM that has been surviving by moving to Talk Radio, and it begins to look like the incoming tide may be washing the sand foundation out from under your big AM, you start simulcasting. And when that seems to get you nowhere, what is your next step. Do you hang in there, and keep on hanging, and keep on hanging for do you split up the programming.

And does the Talk Radio stay with the AM, or with the FM? How long is long enough to hang with the simulcast? 6 months? 6 years? And once you decide which signal stays with Talk Radio.... what do you put on the other signal?
Click to expand...

It really is hopeless, to be honest.

There was a time years ago when programmers understood the need to be more relatable to younger people, predicting the ratings troubles we're now seeing come to fruition. The problem was they never had the patience or upper management support to make and/or sustain needed changes to their station's content. Since then, they have systematically catered more and more to a faction that is disappearing faster than any other: older conservative white guys.

People who weren't dedicated to some ideology have always listened to talkradio, but many of those listeners, myself included, have been driven away in the last 10-15 years by this dead-end niching that has taken place.

AM talkradio has created it's own fast track to the junkyard.
 
There appears to be hope for talk-based programming on FM. However, it probably isn't what many AM talk stations are currently airing.

Sports talk has been successful on FM. NPR news/talk is successful on FM. CBS has had success with simulcasting its already successful AM all-news stations in Chicago and San Francisco on FM. WDBO in Orlando also seems to be doing well after the switch to FM. And of course there's WTOP in Washington and New Jersey 101.5.

I don't have the exact answers. You can assume some from the collection of talk-based stations that are doing well on FM. If station owners are serious about preserving talk formats on the radio, they need to look at the stations that are succeeding and figure out, not how to exactly duplicate those stations, but how to take lessons from what those stations have done and apply them in their own local markets.
 
http://www.wbap.com/common/page.php...and+stay+with+us+at+820AM!&id=20913&is_corp=0

http://www.dallasnews.com/sports/mo...-replace-wbap-on-96.7-fm-starting-oct.-21.ece

Puts the Ticket on a better FM than the one they are divesting/returning to the FCC (remembering that 1310 has signal challenges that 820 does not), and tries to put a happy face on WBAP on FM going to an HD2. If WBAP on FM was drawing rather few listeners, this is obviously smart.

And perhaps radiophiler has something. With the exception of New Jersey 101.5, those spoken-word successes on FM he mentions are not openly politically ideological -- though I do concede NPR caters to a left-of-US-center audience on average -- and the ones on New Jersey 101.5 are right-but-not-too-far-right *and* are combined with substantial local news, unique NJ traffic reports, and other programming on weekends.
 
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DougBroda said:
And perhaps radiophiler has something. With the exception of New Jersey 101.5, those spoken-word successes on FM he mentions are not openly politically ideological -- though I do concede NPR caters to a left-of-US-center audience on average --
Click to expand...

Why is it impossible for people to actually say: NPR caters to a center audience and in the process gathers some left of center folks also.

The propaganda line is: The only people listening to NPR are all lefties.
 
GRcowboy said:


Why is it impossible for people to actually say: NPR caters to a center audience and in the process gathers some left of center folks also.

The propaganda line is: The only people listening to NPR are all lefties.
Click to expand...

You know it's because that better fits the CEC echo chamber narrative: "The only people who listen to non-conservatives are libs"
 
GRcowboy said:


Why is it impossible for people to actually say: NPR caters to a center audience and in the process gathers some left of center folks also.

The propaganda line is: The only people listening to NPR are all lefties.
Click to expand...

I am a left-of-center NPR listener, and I think NPR does -- on average, as I said -- have a left-of-center average listener compared to the average US listener to radio (who is older than the average US resident, I suspect). Of course there are persons to the right of that who listen to NPR, just as there are people to the left of the median who listen to conservative talkers (including the morning show I wake up to, in fact). And radio does inevitably program to its audience (or fail).
 
The actual audience breakdowns for NPR are around 30-something percent between Democrats, Republicans and Independents. It doesn't seem to have a majority audience consisting of one party.
 
stevensonair said:
The actual audience breakdowns for NPR are around 30-something percent between Democrats, Republicans and Independents. It doesn't seem to have a majority audience consisting of one party.
Click to expand...

And the average age is in the mid-50s.
 
mohawk82 said:
You said WBAP dropped their FM broadcast. I simply let you know that they did not drop their FM signal. They upgraded it.
Click to expand...

from Allaccess:
>>>>CUMULUS is splitting the simulcast of Talk WBAP-A-F/DALLAS and flipping the FM side (96.7 FM) to a simulcast of sister Sports KTCK-A (SPORTSRADIO 1310 THE TICKET), reports the FORT WORTH STAR-TELEGRAM's ROBERT PHILPOT. WBAP will stream on the HD-2 channel of Country KPLX (99.5 THE WOLF).

VP/Market Manager DAN BENNETT told PHILPOT that WBAP has "have seen no ratings increase since adding the FM." <<<<<

Banishing to HD obscurity is not exactly upgrading, now is it?
 
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I don't know about you folks, but if a station broadcasts in a market in both AM and FM, I'll almost always choose the FM. Hey, I grew up on AM. I want Amplitude Modulation to continue decades into the future. But FM has better sound quality, even if it's just for spoken word programming. In NYC, WNYC most of the day simulcasts NPR and local programming on both bands. During those times they split the two stations, if the show I prefer is on 820, I switch from 93.9. For instance, Tell Me More and Diane Rehm are only on the AM.

It's clear Cumulus needs an FM simulcast for KTCK, a Sports station that brings in some good revenue. The AM runs 25,000 watts by day but only 5000 by night. That would be fine lower on the dial, but it's up at 1310. In a market as spread out as Dallas-Fort Worth, you need that FM simulcast, especially for younger sports fans who aren't going to put up with a so-so AM signal. As pointed out above, Cumulus is losing KTCK's 104.1 simulcast, so it's logical to take 96.7 away from 50,000 watt non-directional 820 WBAP and give it to 1310 WTCK.
 
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