"Fox Oldies" and WEOK/WALL - Zero Ratings

As you know, yesterday was the released of the Poughkeepsie and HV ratings book. Before I can go any further, I've checked that WPDH did very well, it beats out WBWZ's "Rock 93.3", but thanks to the loss of Hartford, CT's WDRC-FM for taking over the classic hits format and becomes a more classic rock leaning station since Connoisseur took over from Buckley over the last week and a half, and WDRC-FM sounds a lot like WPDH and "Rock 93.3".

The rest of the overall numbers including WRWD, it did very well and continues to beat "The Wolf", but "The Wolf" is still in the lower numbers, but I love CJ doing mornings on the station. He did a great job doing mornings as well, but I hope he should give credit for that. As for WCZX's "Mix 97.7", it does fine, and so does WRNQ's "Lite 92.1" but thanks to the loss of WFAS-FM since it flipped from AC to urban AC as of July 4th. They brought in half of its former WFAS-FM listeners to either "Mix 97.7" or "Lite 92.1" and let's not forget, WHUD, they also did very well in the HV ratings, but thanks also to WFAS-FM for pulling the plug. Fans of the former WFAS-FM might find other AC stations to have a much better music either AC or hot AC.

And now, for two of the biggest losers that seems to go nowhere in the ratings. WGNY-FM's "Fox Oldies" and WEOK/WALL. And as you know, the station both has a BIG FAT ZERO! Both stations are going nowhere, but thanks to WROW's "Magic 590" up in Albany, they did an incredible job with the oldies format since I'm still a longtime former WCBS-FM listener since the station went "Jack" 19 years ago, but next year it will be 10 years since WCBS-FM lost its oldies station to "Jack" in NYC. Here is the problem with "Fox Oldies", it's sounds bad. Van Ritshie sounds terrible in mornings, and so does Bob O and so does Buffalo Bob Cornsino and Joe Manglass. I hate all of the DJ's, it sucks! The "Fox Oldies" PAMS jingles sucks, thanks to "Magic 590" for putting the jingles which it sounds better and sounded a lot similar to WCBS-FM when they used the whole "Do It Again" and "Home of the Hits" jingle packages that JAM produced it. Thank God for that. And of course, Jay & Ben did an excellent job with their morning show and so does Bob Green, Bob Johnson Richie Norris and John Gabriel, they are a lot better than Buffalo Bob, Bob O, Van Ritshie and Joe Manglass. I hope that maybe soon, Sunrise should go out of business and Connoisseur will take over WGNY & WJGK, but as you know in the HV ratings book, WJGK, one of the only Sunrise stations that it did very poorly. But here what I say, Connoisseur, please take over all of the Sunrise stations, I hope that either "The Fox", ESPN, "Drive FX" and "Fox Oldies" should all be changing formats for something else, or stays the same and maybe ESPN Radio will be on 98.9 and still on 1220 AM and sports fan will be happy with it if "Fox Oldies" dies.

Like I said many times, I don't listened to "Fox Oldies" anymore, I'm officially done listening to this station, because it sounds terrible. If you want a better than "Fox Oldies", listen to WROW's "Magic 590". I listened to it via stream and it was good, and I'm not going to listen to "Fox Oldies" ever again.

And also on the other hand, another station which is Townsquare's WEOK & WALL. Now that Scott Shannon's TOC is officially no more, and it sticks with the format and plays nothing but oldies commercial free where they promoting "13,900 songs in a row". The station is still commercial free, but I wish the station should be going to "Good Time Oldies" after the whole commercial free music is done by the end of July or August or maybe in the fall. I hope WEOK & WALL needs local DJ's. I'll tell you what, if Van Ritshie, Buffalo Bob and Joe Manglass are still available, why not all leave "Fox Oldies" to go to WEOK & WALL, and keep Mark West in mornings. Bob O will remain with WJGK's "The Fox" along with Laurie G and he will not be staying middays on "Fox Oldies" anymore in the future. Here's my suggestion with WEOK & WALL:

1. Mark West remains with the morning, put Van Ritshie on middays like he hasn't done on "Fox Oldies" since mid to late March since he did a terrible show on middays. Rich Stevens is going to return to the station in afternoon drive since he did an incredible job last year for two special shows. I remember seeing Rich Stevens when I visit WEOK a long time ago when he did the "Sunday Morning Trading Post", and I hope he will bring back the "Trading Post" on Sunday mornings, and then Buffalo Bob Corsino will do weekends on the station, and all as been said, the station will now be carrying the "Good Time Oldies" network from WW1. This is what you need to do.

As for the two sites, WEOK & WALL needs to update the site and its Facebook page. I check the main site that it still says "True Oldies 1390 & 1340" and the DJ is still listed as "Scott Shannon", and like I said, Scott is now doing mornings on WCBS-FM and he is not doing TOC anymore.

I hope these two stations like WEOK & WALL needs to fix it. Townsquare, please bring in local DJ's. This is what we need.

The thing about the Hudson Valley book is that, given the new metro area for the market, the ratings almost totally meaningless. The market, as defined, is now so physically large that a great many of the stations in the area don't even come close to covering the entire market. WALL is a good example. The station JUST BARELY covers all of Orange County and parts of Sullivan and Ulster Counties. Forget Rockland, Westchester, and Putnam. Likewise, some full Class A FM stations would have substantial difficulty in covering enough of the market to make a dent in the ratings. The "Hudson Valley" market should have remained separate markets.

The other problem with trying to determine what's what is that Nielsen only publishes the results of stations that buy the book. You could have stations that are, in reality, doing tremendously in the ratings - better, in fact, than those that show in the book, but the public would never know because Nielsen does not publicly release the results of nonsubscribers.

While I Could not agree more in theory,the only way these Station Owners are going to spend more personnel is if the FCC were to suddenly mandate "All RADIO STATIONS IN THE U.S. AM and FM MUST HAVE A LICENSED OPERATOR IN THE BROADCAST STUDIO DURING OPERATING HOURS" otherwise it's business as usual. The Owner does not care what the Music is played as long as something sale able and the light bill is paid on these AM Stations. Hudson Valley or Poughkeepsie is not unique it's that way everywhere.


Now that said Personally as a Programmer Radio needs to get back to live & local because the way I see it without a Farm System there are no replacements for personalities like Don Imus or Rush Limbaugh,Scott Shannon or anyone else for that matter.Radio needs to develop a Farm System. It's only 2014 and we are already running dangerously low on qualified individuals to fill these positions.