Is it possible that WPHT is going to try something different in Talk.

With the announcement that Dick Morris is leaving WPHT is it possible that WPHT is going to try something different in terms of a Talk format?

According to the short article, that appeared on Insider Radio, Walter Sabo filled in doing a talk show on WPHT on Friday evening using the name of Walter Sterling. He apparently avoided politics, but instead discussed: Fifty ways, if you're over 50, to get a new job; The dumb things men do with their dates; and finally a topic all America wants to know - why Starbucks misspells their customers’ names - real compelling radio.

http://www.insideradio.com/article.asp?id=2841756&spid=32061#.VEmVkiLF_Kj

That's closer to what they used to do at his client NJ101.5. It worked there for years.

So long as they don't use him again as the host. I heard some of that Walter Sterling show and it may have been the worst, most unlistenable, painful program...well, since Dick Morris.

They've already got "Casey" as a quasi regular fill in, so there's someone with some experience, though he quickly took to the standard-issue political approach. But, really, this only opens up one slot. What do you do with the recently re-acquired Rush, the crypt keeper's grandfather holding down the 9-noon slot, and the predictable talking point reader in the morning? Revamp the whole shebang? Seems unlikely.

TheBigA said:

That's closer to what they used to do at his client NJ101.5. It worked there for years.

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And has worked nowhere else. NJ 101.5 is a unique station that has been copied numerous times with no success.

I'm not saying there isn't a huge market for a NJ 101.5-style Talk station here-- but anyone who thinks it has even a remote chance of succeeding on an AM like 1210 is fooling himself.

AM radio, now well into its second century, is in the autumn of its autumn. It's about as relevant now as shortwave radio was in 1990. Now, even the legacy shortwave broadcasters worldwide have turned off the big transmitters and replaced their services with Internet streams. And pretty soon, both AM and SW will feature pretty much the same programming. Brokered, foreign-language, and religion.

At this point, CBS is wisely doing with 1210 what I'm doing to my 1997 Mercury-- driving it until it dies, milking it for all I can while it's still around.

I wouldn't even attempt "Lifestyle Talk" in 2014 unless it were on a full-market FM.

I see a frequently-mentioned notion on these boards that NJ 101.5 does as well as it does mainly because its talk hosts stay away from political topics and their accompanying agendas. This is such a load of bull.

First, the station's shows over the years have gotten PLENTY political. Some shows more than others yes, but anyone who says the station's all about fluffy topics is clearly not listening. Sure, much of the politics are state-centric as opposed to federal-, but the topics still evoke passionate opinions from listeners just like your typical Clear Channel-owned Beck-Rush-Hannity machine.

Secondly, NJ 101.5 enjoys a very unique situation. When the format launched almost 25 years ago, listeners in a hefty chunk of the signal's footprint really had no "go-to" broadcast news source. Some states have strong identities (NJ, Delaware, Texas). Some don't (Pennsylvania). With no mainstream commercial TV presence-- and no big heritage AM signals-- New Jersey was fertile ground for something like a NJ 101.5. Suddenly these new listeners had a voice for their state, and weren't stuck with the scraps from Philly and NY. (Just like conservatives in the late '80s/early '90s felt about the Limbaugh show.) NJ 101.5 has offered solid broadcast news service for a quarter-century now. It is much of New Jersey's "KYW."

But Philadelphia doesn't need a second KYW. (Just ask anyone who worked at WCAU from 1975-78.) In fact, with each passing day, Philadelphia is demonstrating it doesn't even need *one* KYW.

I can't speak much to the only other place I know of the "Sabo format" really working, Orlando. That city obviously is its own TV market, and had no shortage of broadcast news and talk when WTKS debuted-- so I don't know. I was only in Orlando once, in 1993. "Real Radio" was relatively new then, and I was very impressed. I have no idea how it sounds now, 20 years later. Maybe the hosts there are just *that* good.

NJ 101.5 will go down in modern radio history as one of America's last, great Full-Service radio stations. It truly is mass appeal. But it works so well because of the whole package. News, traffic, weather, personalities, and even weekend music. Plus the almost-total lack of TV news competition keeps both New Jersey listeners and ad dollars in the state and on the radio side of broadcasting.

Just having a struggling station suddenly talking about fluff instead of politics isn't going make it successful like NJ 101.5. And on AM, it's downright foolhardy.

I too am confused by folks saying New Jersey 101.5 isn't political. I didn't even know NJ 101.5 was a thing until Press bought Atlantic City's 97.3 FM from Beasley in late 1995 and flipped it to a simulcast. As much as I wanted to hate the station, I couldn't. They won me over and I loved it. I became a hard-core listener for years. In my mid- and late-20's, I was losing touch with popular music because when I was near a radio, I was listening to 101.5.

Then quite suddenly, right around the time Press sold the station to Millennium, most of the shows started invoking ideological BS--a lot. I loved the station, the format, and the hosts. Listening had become a regular part of my life--and it was a part I had looked forward to every day. So I kept trying to listen but as the station became more and more politically motivated, I would inevitably end up angry. Actually angry!

Talk radio is such a different animal. When you're that big a fan, you feel a bond with the hosts. To have them suddenly forcing a political agenda down my throat felt almost like a betrayal. Compounding matters was that I don't believe all the hosts necessarily agreed with the politics they were espousing. I think they were following orders...which of course just came across as disingenuous. It all happened so suddenly, it was pretty obvious that word had come from up on high that the hosts were expected to start pushing an agenda. I finally gave up. And to this day, I have never listened again.

Brusstar is correct:

Sabo launched NJ101.5 almost a quarter of a century ago.
The station has changed hands twice and it's not the station it was. The current bunch (Townsquare) are screwing up what once was a winning formula. Current numbers reflect this.
NJ also has the NJ 12 cable channel. Philly may have KYW (yawn!) but nothing like NJ12 (or NY1). The primary appeal of NJ101.5 was never news, it was the unique brand of water-cooler talk (which as Brusstar points out has become more Rush-like).

Funny thing, NJ101.5 launched about the same time CBS killed WCAU (for the second time).
1210 is on AM. NJ101.5 is FM.
The music that comes out to play on NJ101.5 is mostly 80s classic hits.
The music that comes out to plan on 1210 is Sinatra.
Whatever Sabo may try to do, 1210 will still be your grandfathers' talk station.

Funny thing, the Daily News seems to think 1210 will put Sabo on the air. If they do hire Sabo, more likely he'll just drag out Michelle Jerson yet again. The weakness of consultants is they get lucky once and they keep doing that thing over and over again, hoping lightning will strike just one more time.

I don't expect CBS to do the smart thing but that would be to put Hannity back in PM drive, Beck in late morning, go all syndicated, all the time, run the station as cheaply as possible, and maybe show some black ink for another few years - until CBS unloads the radio station division.

Fred so what you're essentially saying it to do basically what WILM did after Clear Channel took over 1450. Run a AM drive news/talk/info show [5:30am - 9pm], 9am Beck, 12noon Rush, 3pm Hannity, etc, from the bird until the next AM drive. KYW anchors could record similar 60 sec. news updates similar to what WILM uses getting WDOV/WDSD Phil Feliciangeli to prerecord. WPHT could air CBS hourly news and the bottom of the hour CBS updates [vs the Fox News Radio stuff WILM uses]. So other than AM drive WPHT would be all from the bird.

Of course 1210 could also continue to simulcast the Phillies so those who can not get 94.1 can still listen, same with the Eagles.

That probably is the best solution, being from the bird, but another thing 1210 might try is Female Talk. I was sitting in the doctor's office the other day and ABC TV had some sort of female gossipy talk show on. Drove me crazy, but the women seemed to like it. Why not on radio? Granted those women would probably be more inclined to listen to an FM radio female oriented talk show than to one on AM, but it's one style of radio talk not heard much of other than Delilah at night on WJBR.

There might be an audience for "female talk" - beyond what's already all over daytime TV (thank you, Baba Wawa). But except for the one show you mention, there's little, if any, syndicated product available - certainly not enough to fill a weekday schedule. The idea is, in the face of declining revenues and decreasing and aging audience, to minimize costs. That means syndicated and automated.

For some reason, local CBS station management has decided to take out-sourced news and not use the CBS/Westwood One network newscasts. Nor KYW. They apparently do run CBS radio spots on 1210. But it's certainly not high praise for local management's confidence in the quality of "CBS radio's" on air product, nor in the audience appeal of the CBS brand name (let's face it, news brands today are made on TV and CBS has been running a distant third in both the evening and morning since before WCAU died). Increasingly, CBS radio news is becoming just another Westwood One (Cumulus) "brand," with ever less connection with the TV news division with which it shares a name.

And lest we forget, 106.9 was beating 1210 with a mostly/later all-syndicated line-up. If they'd started with Imus, instead of throwing money at Scary Larry, they might have stayed in the black. Also, lest we forget, WDEL with the syndicated shows had audience numbers nearly double those of WILM. It's strange they'd kick Loudell's butt and then hire him and expect him to beat those same syndicated shows. Even so, the total audience (cume) for the two talk stations combined in now less than half what it was.

Not having access to the book, it would be interesting to see how WDEL vs WILM vs WHYY-FM [the three news/talkers] in the Wilmington market, beyond the 12+ numbers.

If I had to guess, I'd rank them WHYY-FM in first place through out the day parts [especially with the younger demos who want news/talk/informational programming without the hype. Then WILM in 2nd place for the conservative older demos [55+] who are a loyal audience. Maybe WDEL beats out WILM during AM Drive with Peter McArthur's News block over Bruce Elliot's News/talk format, but then again maybe not. The styles are different. Peter's is a more news oriented broadcast. Bruce's show is more conversational with humor and local interviews [even plays a clip from Colbert]. So depending on what he's discussing, could be more interesting.

The odd thing though it seems, to my ear, that WDEL has far more local spots than WILM. That just may be how each station does their spot breaks. Bruce Elliot's show seems to do them in a bunch where as Peter does spots after each feature. Finally they stopped putting a spot between traffic and weather together which is better for the listener. The two most important things you want in the morning while rushing to work is the weather and the traffic. So that was a good upgrade by WDEL.

Walter Sabo had some interesting comments about 1210 AM in this link: http://www.talkers.com/2014/10/23/thursday-october-23-2014/

Jul said:

Walter Sabo had some interesting comments about 1210 AM in this link: http://www.talkers.com/2014/10/23/thursday-october-23-2014/

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From that it would appear that Gary R'Nel gets the spot. And he's not terrible.

DavidEduardo said:

Look again, and start with Orlando.

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Do you really think Real Radio is like NJ 101.5? They have a variety of talk shows and play music on weekends. They don't sound anything alike.

DavidEduardo said:

Different markets, but both same Sabotage concept.

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I didn't know Sabo did Real Radio, but I always considered those shows "personality" shows, more in tune with Hot Talk. I guess it's just six of one, half a dozen of the other.

The other board is reporting that Rich Zeoli is moving to afternoons.

Read more at: http://radioinsight.com/blog/headlines/90579/dick-morris-exiting-wpht/

DavidEduardo said:

And I was not aware how spell check would morph Walt's name... I did not see the totally unintentional but nonetheless amusing change until it was too late to edit.



Maybe that kind of talk is more fun and entertaining today!

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1. I just thought "Sabotage" was a marketing term he used for his service. It's catchy.
2. That kind of talk (hot talk) has ALWAYS been more fun and entertaining. Stations are just afraid of it now. Too many special interests with nothing better to do that protest radio hosts to bother having edgy programming.