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Lib Station Discovers It's Better To Go Black

But it's OK to listen to angry Rush, Hannity, Beck, and friends? Not sure if that's what you meant.

The thing is...these are all media entertainers....talkers who are "conservative" and "liberal".

They are people who make daily sensationalistic statements, and fan the flames of partisanship for the sake of ratings and padding their own wallets....by enraging and b.s.-ing their gullible, naive listeners.

My point is...while media might seem like fun and entertaining...many in talk radio are saying what they have to say to get audience. It's a gig...not always to be taken seriously. Sadly, many listeners hang on every word. It's show-biz, folks.
 
It could be that the station has failed because there is no market for Liberal Talk.

It could be that the market for Liberal Talk does not want ANGRY MEN the way Conservative men apparently want them.

It could be that the management never quite figured out how the sell the product

Let's see: some Liberal.... what was his name... O'Henry... O'Barr... oh yes: Obama.. you may have heard of him he was elected president of some big organization recently. It was in all the papers.

How did he do in Michigan? How did he do in Detroit? I'm sure it was because no one in Detroit, much less the rest of Michigan would ever have an interest in liberal talk radio.

I suspect the folks running the station who had to make the decision to "pull the plug" are also discussing all of these puzzling questions.
 
I suspect that, more than anything else, this station failed because its signal stinks. Has *any* format succeeded on this signal since the heritage Top 40 days?
 
There are plenty of stations that "succeed" (for some value of "success") despite mediocre signals.

There are few - maybe none, even - that can succeed these days with mediocre signals that emanate from multiple-tower directional arrays on expensive pieces of land.

Despite the OP's attempt to make this political, it's really much more about the transmitter site than about anything that was being done on the air. No company in tight economic times is going to keep pouring money into maintaining an expensive DA for a 5-kilowatt signal on the upper part of the band that reaches only a portion of the market, at least not when they have multiple full-market FMs and a significantly better AM in the cluster to focus their resources on.

There are plenty of AMs out there that are probably in similar straits, and I expect it won't be long before many of them follow 1310 down the path.
 
Don't let it surprise you if they end up diplexing, They probably could go STA with 1250 watts nondirectional for a considerable period of time. They could license as around 1000 watts nondirectional days and about 30 watts nondirectional nights. WCCW and perhaps other stations would require a 10% field reduction under the ratchet clause. If they moved across the street hypothetically with the same pattern they could only be 4000 watts night.

The most likely scenario is that someone made an offer to buy the land for much more than the station is worth. You'd think that with all the vacant land with torn down factories, they wouldn't need to buy an occupied parcel though.
 
Tim said:
But it's OK to listen to angry Rush, Hannity, Beck, and friends? Not sure if that's what you meant.

The thing is...these are all media entertainers....talkers who are "conservative" and "liberal".

They are people who make daily sensationalistic statements, and fan the flames of partisanship for the sake of ratings and padding their own wallets....by enraging and b.s.-ing their gullible, naive listeners.

My point is...while media might seem like fun and entertaining...many in talk radio are saying what they have to say to get audience. It's a gig...not always to be taken seriously. Sadly, many listeners hang on every word. It's show-biz, folks.
Click to expand...
Well sayed! Thank you
 
Schroedingers Cat said:
The most likely scenario is that someone made an offer to buy the land for much more than the station is worth. You'd think that with all the vacant land with torn down factories, they wouldn't need to buy an occupied parcel though.
Click to expand...

Old factory sites have a high probability of being financial nightmares. A high-school friend of mine went on to become something of "little league" Mitt Romeny. He was handed capital and told to go find good investments. He bought a company in Texas. He was convinced it would be a winner. I don't remember the exact price tag, but I will use the number that seems to rattle around in my memory. The EPA came in and told him he would have to remediate some vacant land that had been contaminated by the factory over the last half-century. It cost him about $38 million in unexpected clean-up. With a big smile, he said: "No big deal. The company turned out to be better that I thought it was. We paid the 38 million in clean up and I still met all my financial goals and operating predictions."

When you buy what has been a radio station transmitter site for the last 40, 50, 60 years, you have a low probability of finding contaminated land. Old factory sites are often the last land developed in a community because they can be full of land-mines.
 
steve82655 said:
Tim said:
But it's OK to listen to angry Rush, Hannity, Beck, and friends? Not sure if that's what you meant.

The thing is...these are all media entertainers....talkers who are "conservative" and "liberal".

They are people who make daily sensationalistic statements, and fan the flames of partisanship for the sake of ratings and padding their own wallets....by enraging and b.s.-ing their gullible, naive listeners.

My point is...while media might seem like fun and entertaining...many in talk radio are saying what they have to say to get audience. It's a gig...not always to be taken seriously. Sadly, many listeners hang on every word. It's show-biz, folks.
Click to expand...

Well sayed! Thank you
Click to expand...

You guys call it "show-biz". Some people call it legalized prostitution.

It sounds like you are saying: They don't say these things because they are in love with America. The just perform a "trick" for a cash payment.
 
Isn't this the station CC was donating to MMTC?
 
Pretty surprising that the business case to donate it made more sense than trying a different format.

ProgTalk has been a dog ratings wise in just about every market.
 
umfan said:
Pretty surprising that the business case to donate it made more sense than trying a different format.

ProgTalk has been a dog ratings wise in just about every market.
Click to expand...

And it's been proven that the left-of-center audience just doesn't like the commercial radio concept of talk radio--they prefer the calmer NPR approach than either Limbaugh or Schultz screaming into the mike. And the more radical end of the left hates *both* commercial talk radio and NPR and worships at the altar of Amy Goodman and "Free Speech Radio News."
 
Mark Jeffries said:
And it's been proven that the left-of-center audience just doesn't like the commercial radio concept of talk radio--they prefer the calmer NPR approach than either Limbaugh or Schultz screaming into the mike. And the more radical end of the left hates *both* commercial talk radio and NPR and worships at the altar of Amy Goodman and "Free Speech Radio News."
Click to expand...

If it has been proven... tell me where I can document these facts. I understand that we ALL have our prejudices about who listens to what, and why they listen, but you are making claims of "proven fact" that have not come up on my radar as I try to understand media today.

Point me to your sources.
 
When you put a format on an AM signal, with very little marketing or local content, and lackluster sales effort - it's not exactly a surprise the audience doesn't find it.

I've heard many prog-talk AMs (and third tier conservative AMs) that are often neglected and left to run off a "computer in a closet" - then, they go off the air and people wonder why.

Put very little effort in, it won't survive regardless of where on the political spectrum the programming resides.
 
Goat Rodeo Cowboy said:
Schroedingers Cat said:
The most likely scenario is that someone made an offer to buy the land for much more than the station is worth. You'd think that with all the vacant land with torn down factories, they wouldn't need to buy an occupied parcel though.
Click to expand...

Old factory sites have a high probability of being financial nightmares. A high-school friend of mine went on to become something of "little league" Mitt Romeny. He was handed capital and told to go find good investments. He bought a company in Texas. He was convinced it would be a winner. I don't remember the exact price tag, but I will use the number that seems to rattle around in my memory. The EPA came in and told him he would have to remediate some vacant land that had been contaminated by the factory over the last half-century. It cost him about $38 million in unexpected clean-up. With a big smile, he said: "No big deal. The company turned out to be better that I thought it was. We paid the 38 million in clean up and I still met all my financial goals and operating predictions."

When you buy what has been a radio station transmitter site for the last 40, 50, 60 years, you have a low probability of finding contaminated land. Old factory sites are often the last land developed in a community because they can be full of land-mines.
Click to expand...

You raise an excellent point. I have even known people who bought old gas station sites only to
find themselves on the hook years later to pay for remediation of past fuel leaks.
 
FreddyE1977 said:
Goat Rodeo Cowboy said:
When you buy what has been a radio station transmitter site for the last 40, 50, 60 years, you have a low probability of finding contaminated land. Old factory sites are often the last land developed in a community because they can be full of land-mines.
Click to expand...

You raise an excellent point. I have even known people who bought old gas station sites only to
find themselves on the hook years later to pay for remediation of past fuel leaks.
Click to expand...

We have a lot of discussions in these forums where in order to discuss Talk Radio, we have to discuss the political situation and the next thing you know we are in trouble with the folks who monitor and supervise the board for getting too partisan among ourselves.

And here is one of those topics that just flame up like a forest fire in July. The general view of conservatives is that government rules about contaminated sites are a drag on business, and business cannot tolerate very many... or ANY more drags on the economic process. The general view of liberals is that government rules about current and past contamination are not strong enough. The people who own and operate businesses are all "big boys and girls" and they will find a way to pay for doing the right thing.

I don't propose we get into that debate in this thread. I do propose that what we have apparently settled in on as a meeting point of the minds is that pollution of sites can be bad enough to require legal action, and theories about pollution are not strong enough to demand draconian legal consequences every time somebody holds one side of their nose closed with a finger and blows the snot out of the other side onto the ground because they left home without a handkerchief this morning.
 
With the "birth" of Rush saving AM radio conservative talk became the format of all but a few 50,000 Watt stations. When liberal radio came about the only stations available had much less signals. Liberal talk is #1 or #2 in a number of major markets where it has a meaningful signal including FM. Radio 101 -- If they can't hear you, you won't have listeners. People say NPR radio is liberal and it has great ratings in every market. You might recall when WXYT got the Tigers and Red Wings the station had to be hot wired into the stadium for people to hear it. I don't care what format you put on 1310 or WXYT-AM you ain't going to get ratings. WXYT is a great place for CBS Sports Radio Network. Why, they need it to sell national spots saying they cover major markets.
 
Goat Rodeo Cowboy said:
It could be that the station has failed because there is no market for Liberal Talk.

It could be that the market for Liberal Talk does not want ANGRY MEN the way Conservative men apparently want them.

It could be that the management never quite figured out how the sell the product

Let's see: some Liberal.... what was his name... O'Henry... O'Barr... oh yes: Obama.. you may have heard of him he was elected president of some big organization recently. It was in all the papers.

How did he do in Michigan? How did he do in Detroit? I'm sure it was because no one in Detroit, much less the rest of Michigan would ever have an interest in liberal talk radio.

I suspect the folks running the station who had to make the decision to "pull the plug" are also discussing all of these puzzling questions.
Click to expand...

But if liberal talk couldn't succeed in Detroit, that's pretty telling. A station here in Columbus has failed twice carrying the format (granted everywhere in Ohio outside the northeast and core urban areas is majority right). Then again, Michigan approved right-to-work recently and a lot of people, including me, probably didn't see that coming.
Is it changing demographics or the simple fact liberals repeatedly have shown they have no idea how to make the format work?
 
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