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It's Official, "Radio Disney" Is Ending on WQEW This Fall

The last AM CHR was WQMA "Q1520" in Marks, MS. That flipped formats to oldies a decade ago. Then it went silent.
 
RadioSuperFan said:
WQEW Would be a great home for Super Oldies with 50,000 Watts there's no reason why they couldn't go live 24/7 with local DJs.
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Where would the revenue come from? There is essentially no revenue available in large markets for audiences predominantly over age 55.
 
rjt45 said:
And what about the people that will be unemployed?? You people are jerks! Some good news from WQEW?? This is real life....not some computer game!
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If a business isn't making money they close their doors. It is no different in any other business. If you are in radio today you should be able to see the writing on the wall then it is too bad.
 
So is everyone saying that WQEW will become a waste of 50,000 watts with Indian, or Chinese, or another Regional Mexican station? How about a niche format...Soft AC, Smooth Jazz, the gold oldies, even simulcast WPLJ 95.5 temporarily.

-crainbebo
 
crainbebo said:
So is everyone saying that WQEW will become a waste of 50,000 watts with Indian, or Chinese, or another Regional Mexican station? How about a niche format...Soft AC, Smooth Jazz, the gold oldies, even simulcast WPLJ 95.5 temporarily.
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Let's take those individually:

Soft AC: nobody in the sales demos (25-54) grew up on AM and would be interested in listening to pop music on an inferior medium. So, if anyone, you will get 55+ which is unsalable.

Smooth Jazz: That's an FM only format, as it is mostly instrumental and sounds horrible on AM. And the audience, in any case, is almost all 55+ and unsalable.

50's and 60's pop oldies: Audience over 65 and unsalable.

WPLJ: why would Cumulus buy a station from Disney to simulcast an FM that has vastly better coverage and which targets 25-44 women, notorious non-users of AM.

Remember that WQXR does not have very good coverage in the daytime... definitely not full market. And at night, they mist most of the eastern half of the market.

On the other hand, the station does have pretty good coverage of many ethnic groups who are unserved or underserved. While there is an Indian targeted HD2 channel, that community is not well served.

There is only one regional Mexican station, and it is on a signal that is even worse than the WQEW signal. Yet there are 1 million Mexican and Mexican heritage people in the market... that's an underserved market and definitely not a waste of a second rate signal.

So, really, the three formats you say are a waste of a signal are truly of benefit, each to a significant listener group. While the ones you suggest will get little or no listening and have no billing potential and are, thus, unsustainable and of no value to anyone.
 
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This is the golden opportunity for WBAI to buy a full market AM station that reaches farther than 99.5. Then they can sell 99.5 and keep the cash to advance their cause.
 
nkd said:
This is the golden opportunity for WBAI to buy a full market AM station that reaches farther than 99.5. Then they can sell 99.5 and keep the cash to advance their cause.
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It will be a shame if Pacifica moves the antenna off the Empire State, essentially degrading the signal, and then ends up selling it. Personally, this 99.5/1560 swap is the best idea there is. WBAI is mostly talk anyway, correct?
 
nkd said:
This is the golden opportunity for WBAI to buy a full market AM station that reaches farther than 99.5. Then they can sell 99.5 and keep the cash to advance their cause.
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The WQXR day signal reaches far fewer persons than. Full Class B FM. At night, 1560 is very directional and covers even less of the market. It is definitely a downgrade from a full market signal to a much poorer overall high band AM with defective market reach.
 
nkd said:
This is the golden opportunity for WBAI to buy a full market AM station that reaches farther than 99.5. Then they can sell 99.5 and keep the cash to advance their cause.
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Not happening. I don't think WBAI would go to 1560, never! I would really want to see oldies going to 1560 which is a good opportunity to have 55+ listeners to go to the AM dial to hear oldies. If WMTR does really well with its "Classic Oldies" name, why not put it on 1560 and they will simulcast it as "Classic Oldies" WMTR and WQEW. Why not bring Allan David Stein to Friday night and he will play some doo-wop and street corner harmonies and it will make it sound better like the way Don K Reed or Gus Gossert who used to played doo-wop all the time every week. Let WQEW do its thing by maybe next week.
 
So do you know if WQEW's signal is completely going silent for a while? If that happens, KGOW has extra night coverage now across the Great Lakes and Midwest.

-crainbebo
 
crainbebo said:
So do you know if WQEW's signal is completely going silent for a while? If that happens, KGOW has extra night coverage now across the Great Lakes and Midwest.

-crainbebo
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All anybody but DIS insiders know is that Disney announced that all the remaining O&O Radio Disney stations would be shut down if there was no deal by the end of the month.
 
TheBigA said:
I hear that WMTR is not doing really well. In fact more people in Morristown listen to WCBS-FM.
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In fact, WMTR is 25th in 25-54. However, it's sales have been rising slightly in each of the last 5 years.
 
DavidEduardo said:


All anybody but DIS insiders know is that Disney announced that all the remaining O&O Radio Disney stations would be shut down if there was no deal by the end of the month.
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The more I think about it, "shut down" to the management folks at the corner of Buena Vista and Alameda may mean "no local operations" with just a network feed such as what we hear on satellite. No local sellers, no local promotions, etc. But they would keep the transmitter on with one engineer and locate the public file in an office of some kind as required.
 
I dont get it with so many dj's out of work who wouldn't work for $15 hr to be on a 50kw station and having air checks to prove it? you dont need to pay someone $100K...
 
Richard Stefan said:
I dont get it with so many dj's out of work who wouldn't work for $15 hr to be on a 50kw station and having air checks to prove it? you dont need to pay someone $100K...
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In what way would having any AM station (particularly a signal challenged one at the wrong end of the dial) on your résumé be of any benefit?
 
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