Radio Disney - WRDZ, Plainfield (Indianapolis)

The Radio Disney sale is of interest, here, in Indianapolis. WRDZ (98.3 FM) is on a 3KW stick a few miles west of downtown. If the signal is sold, and not taken dark, there are only a few options, IMO, they could go:

1. CHR/Rhythmic - 96.3 WHHH "Hot 96.3" has dipped more than 2 shares since February and has no local terrestrial competition.
2. Urban AC - 106.7 WTLC has no local competition, but is extremely strong in the community and is, usually at or near the top of the Nielsen ratings. I hear WTLC in shops all over town.
3. Classic Hits - 104.5 WJJK is strong (with a rock-leaning playlist), but has only competition from heritage classic rocker 94.7 WFBQ.
4. Oldies - a hole in the market with only format options of late-night programming from rimshot 97.7 WCLS, another rimshot in 104.9 WERK and 98.1 WIBN (Earl Park, IN) at 86 miles from Monument Circle.

The market is already saturated with Country, CHR, Hot AC, Sports, News/Talk, CCM & Religious. Oldies, perhaps "Good Time Oldies" from WW1, might be the best option for the new owners.

If I'm overlooking something, I'd love to hear it.

We will see what happens in The Circle City.

Local coverage area is about half of Marion County which will further limit the options IMHO.

There's not much that can be done for a signal upgrade as WZZY - Winchester is protected to the east. I live on the edge of the "local" contour (north of Greenwood) and there is no signal degradation here (17 miles) while RDS always decodes. The metro will, still, be covered. It will be interesting to see what happens, because I think there's a 20% chance the station goes dark, at least, for a while.

I wonder if it would help Freedom 95 to have WRDZ join their simulcast. The shows they run get decent ratings elsewhere.

PTBoardOp94 said:

I wonder if it would help Freedom 95 to have WRDZ join their simulcast. The shows they run get decent ratings elsewhere.

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I'd be very interested to see how WFDM actually does in Indy ratings-wise, but Pilgrim does not subscribe to Nielsen. I should drive up to Carmel to see how their signal strength is there.

Well, today is, apparently, the last full day for Radio Disney as a terrestrial radio format. I'm wondering if it will go dark at midnight.

Did it go dark? In Detroit, WFDF, AM 910, appears to be operating on greatly reduced power still running Disney. I'll check again today.

Radio Disney is still on the air. Business as usual until a sale is finalized, from what I read.

Disney's lawyers decided it best for RD to keep the AMs on the air and not take them dark..(hard to justify a dark STA...though they did with WBYU in New Orleans...claimed a pending sale was in place...in a year, RD surrendered the license and the FCC deleted 1450 WBYU from the database.

I understand local staff in some areas have been let go...they are just letting the network feed run all the time with no local inserts.

Any one checked 98.3 lately? Are they still on the air?

Yes. They're still Radio Disney, but from the sound of it, they're no longer running any local spots.

That's correct. All the local sales people were let go. I'm glad the stations are still carrying the Disney content. My granddaughters love it.