What to do with 1210 WPHT-AM ?

I would like to get the input from the radio geeks and analysts on this. Any suggestions on what should CBS radio do with 1210 WPHT-AM? Make some major changes to current talk format, Get rid of the talk format altogether, etc.

I was gonna say you were over your quota for WPHT threads for the month, but then I remembered that it is now March...Damn.

Jul said:

I would like to get the input from the radio geeks and analysts on this. Any suggestions on what should CBS radio do with 1210 WPHT-AM? Make some major changes to current talk format, Get rid of the talk format altogether, etc.

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So Juls ..
Do you just copy and paste this question every month onto this board? As far as WPHT AM RADIO.. I think they should Auction it off to the highest bidder.. How about a public access radio station like Public Access TV.. You could sign up Juls..and show us how to do radio the right way.

I was noticing a lack of Julius / WPHT posts in my inbox lately. Glad to see we're back on track.

...and just in time to keep hell from freezing over.

What they're doing with it now. There isn't a better answer.

Ravens said:

What they're doing with it now. There isn't a better answer.

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Which is not working and CBS radio refuses to realize it. If it was any other company, they would have thrown in the towel if they saw those numbers and a public radio station being them in the ratings.

It's making money, therefore it is working.

WPHT is doing no better or worse than most major market talk stations. Sports isn't the answer. WIP and 97.5 have that covered.

Jul said:

Which is not working and CBS radio refuses to realize it. If it was any other company, they would have thrown in the towel if they saw those numbers and a public radio station being them in the ratings.

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Except that isn't true. They're making money (and doing it with primarily local hosts in the hours that matter, save for Rush). No one at CBS doesn't know the situation--their ability to keep a roof over their heads and food on their plates depends on them paying quite close attention. And, frankly, they have access to better information than almost anyone on a discussion forum. Just "throwing in the towel" isn't usually an option--there needs to be something with decent odds of being better for the bottom line...and there's the rub. With an all-syndicated lineup, except mornings for most of the run, WWIQ, even on FM, didn't do substantially better. No one rushed in to pick up the mantle of FM talk when the company imploded.

But let's think through the alternatives: music is a non-starter. Sports talk is covered (and even if 610 completely drops CBS Sports Radio, it doesn't seem to be all that much of a priority to CBS...more of a nice little piece of a very crowded pie). So that leaves...exactly what they're doing, more or less. Hannity for Zeoli? Beck for Giordano? If and when the number crunchers think those kinds of swaps make sense, they'll make them. Until then, looking at the big picture, they can see it doesn't.

I dont understand why this board seems to be obsessed with 1210. Why? It's a nothing station on the AM dial. It has no impact on the community at all. Not many people (regular people, not radio people) listen to it. And CBS is making a little money on it. Give it a rest folks!

benale said:

WPHT is doing no better or worse than most major market talk stations. Sports isn't the answer. WIP and 97.5 have that covered.

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Think about this, WIP can't air everything, especially with the local national play by play sports. They need a 2nd station. I won't be shocked if the Phillies would be on 94.1 FM only, so that 1210 can be free to air national play by play sports, like the, NFL, NCAA tournament, Masters, etc and local play by play whatever it might be, that 94.1 can't air because of conflicts . On some occasions, last season, some Sunday Night NFL games didn't get aired at all on Philly radio, mainly because of CBS selling 610 AM and Eagles coverage, and thus had no place to air the Sunday Night NFL games. 97.5 had 950 AM as a back up, but they sold it.

And both ownership groups seem fine with their decisions, so that should say something. The national stuff is virtually meaningless, serving as filler when it happens to,work out.

AMRocks said:

I dont understand why this board seems to be obsessed with 1210.

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It's not the board.

Jul, in a separate thread, you want the Phillies off 1210, presumably because that bolsters the stations ratings, but supposedly because you care about CTCAM getting bumped.

Yet you would have them ditch the whole existing format so that they can air NCAA out-of-town basketball and the masters tournament. For real?

Ravens, with all due respect, maybe it is the board, too. You, me, and everyone else who feels compelled to play their part, like dotty old aunts and uncles at Thanksgiving dinner every year.

Perhaps Julius lives too close to the tower.

See, ~ 1990 I lived for a while in Northeast Philly. And for a while I got into short wave listening. Essentially, I was re-callibrating the dials of a radio that didn't have accurate enough frequency determination for my standards.

Helping me a lot was that WPHT, right across the river, came in on 1210, 2420, 4840, 9680, and so forth. Very convenient.

I'd like to hear the format give the Phillies games at least one more season, though. I enjoy their broadcast team better than I do my Mets' team announcers; although Josh Lewin is terrific he's just one guy. If the games went only on some FM station I couldn't get them, 100 miles away, as often.

The rest of the day, for all I care, they can play re-runs of the Philadelphia Freedom.

Steve Green NEPA said:

Perhaps Julius lives too close to the tower.

See, ~ 1990 I lived for a while in Northeast Philly. And for a while I got into short wave listening. Essentially, I was re-callibrating the dials of a radio that didn't have accurate enough frequency determination for my standards.

Helping me a lot was that WPHT, right across the river, came in on 1210, 2420, 4840, 9680, and so forth. Very convenient.

I'd like to hear the format give the Phillies games at least one more season, though. I enjoy their broadcast team better than I do my Mets' team announcers; although Josh Lewin is terrific he's just one guy. If the games went only on some FM station I couldn't get them, 100 miles away, as often.

The rest of the day, for all I care, they can play re-runs of the Philadelphia Freedom.

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Its a shame that a huge signal that 1210 AM has is being wasted, because of the current programming and format. It wasn't wasted when it was WCAU IMO.

A different era. Different tastes. Different technologies available. They could somehow magically be doing exactly what they did at whatever moment in time someone thinks they were ideal, and it wouldn't make a difference here in 2015.

Wait, check that....it would actually be worse.