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WPLJ says farewell New York. Any thoughts on final day/shows?

kidrauhl said:
Oh I apologize for that. I just think its stupid klove hase two frequencies in the same market and took over 40 peoples jobs.
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They don't have two frequencies for the same format. K-love is on one and the other, lesser signal will be used for Air-1.

They do have a local office, and every station they add increases the staff handling donations, events, revivals and such in the various markets.
 
kidrauhl said:
Oh I apologize for that. I just think its stupid klove hase two frequencies in the same market and took over 40 peoples jobs.
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Once the dust settles, EMF will have K-Love on 95.5 and Air 1 on 96.7. The programming is different.

It is a shame about the jobs. Nobody wants to see that. However, radio is similar to other industries where there are declining revenue streams and opportunities for efficiency and automation.
 
kidrauhl said:
Oh I apologize for that. I just think its stupid klove hase two frequencies in the same market and took over 40 peoples jobs.
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I really don't understand the hate people have shown for EMF.

Cumulus is a poorly run company and it ran WPLJ into the ground. The station, despite its legacy, was bland and uninspiring. Instead of investing time and money to make WPLJ better and more relevant in the current media age, Cumulus ran it worse than a lemonade stand, hamstringing the rather talented air staff and producing boring radio that even drove away the Jersey soccer moms which once were fiercely loyal to it.

EMF spends time and effort developing programing appealing to a certain segment of the population. The business model is different, so the business needs for staff are different. It isn't very localized, but the model and the implementation are successful. In each market they operate, they find and retain an audience. In that aspect, they do much better radio than WPLJ had been doing for the past decade: They deliver a consistent product to a desired audience, building the audience dedication needed to keep the lights on. In the EMF sense, this means getting donations as opposed to selling commercials, but business is business.

YOU might not like the programming. But that doesn't make it bad, nor does it make EMF "evil" for merely existing and even succeeding.
 
NewsStud said:
Cumulus is a poorly run company and it ran WPLJ into the ground. The station, despite its legacy, was bland and uninspiring. Instead of investing time and money to make WPLJ better and more relevant in the current media age, Cumulus ran it worse than a lemonade stand, hamstringing the rather talented air staff and producing boring radio that even drove away the Jersey soccer moms which once were fiercely loyal to it.
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I'm not sure what they could have done differently other than completely abandon the Hot AC format and go after the rhythmic audience. I thought there was an opportunity for a station to replace Kiss in 2012. That really didn't happen. But other than completely blowing the station up, there weren't many other alternatives. So now the station has been blown up.
 
TheBigA said:
I'm not sure what they could have done differently other than completely abandon the Hot AC format and go after the rhythmic audience. I thought there was an opportunity for a station to replace Kiss in 2012. That really didn't happen. But other than completely blowing the station up, there weren't many other alternatives. So now the station has been blown up.
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What would "going after Kiss" have done? The revenue wasn't there to support it (both market-wide and specific to an older skewing urban format). In reality another station going non-comm is a blessing for the remaining commercial operators, and should make things a little healthier for them.
 
luperm said:
What would "going after Kiss" have done? The revenue wasn't there to support it (both market-wide and specific to an older skewing urban format). In reality another station going non-comm is a blessing for the remaining commercial operators, and should make things a little healthier for them.
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There is about $70 million being spent on the three urban / Urban AC stations. Since that format area attracts lots of Hispanics, too, it is about the only growth format in the market.
 
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We keep going round and round on this. Some people tend to want to let present-day Cumulus off the hook. Post-Dickeys, there was nothing Cumulus could have done with PLJ other than let it atrophy to nothing? In other words, there are too many signals in NYC for viable commercial-supported formats. So EMF should be looked at as a savior, then.

Blame Cumulus for the lost jobs. EMF took one commercial frequency off the books in NYC. They'll make good use of 95.5 (as they already have with 96.7), and the rest of the market has one less station to split the shrinking revenue pie with.

Apparently Cumulus and EMF are both making the best use of their assets. Though Cumulus now finds it necessary to shrink, while EMF is expanding.
 
JBraddock said:
Blame Cumulus for the lost jobs.
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It depends on the job. I've already seen several former PLJ DJs have shown up in other places. Jayde Donovan has a syndicated show, and as far as I know, it was unaffected. Certainly there has been consolidation in terms of PDs.
 
NewsStud said:
I really don't understand the hate people have shown for EMF.

Cumulus is a poorly run company and it ran WPLJ into the ground. The station, despite its legacy, was bland and uninspiring. Instead of investing time and money to make WPLJ better and more relevant in the current media age, Cumulus ran it worse than a lemonade stand, hamstringing the rather talented air staff and producing boring radio that even drove away the Jersey soccer moms which once were fiercely loyal to it.

EMF spends time and effort developing programing appealing to a certain segment of the population. The business model is different, so the business needs for staff are different. It isn't very localized, but the model and the implementation are successful. In each market they operate, they find and retain an audience. In that aspect, they do much better radio than WPLJ had been doing for the past decade: They deliver a consistent product to a desired audience, building the audience dedication needed to keep the lights on. In the EMF sense, this means getting donations as opposed to selling commercials, but business is business.

YOU might not like the programming. But that doesn't make it bad, nor does it make EMF "evil" for merely existing and even succeeding.
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So if k love and emf are all about helping people why didnt they offer to retain the wplj staffs jobs? That is evil in itself and dont say because it costs too much because klove in syndicated out of california and klove/ emf pays no taxes so maby you should consider that before assuming just because emf is christian based they can do no evil.
 
TheBigA said:
I'm not sure what they could have done differently other than completely abandon the Hot AC format and go after the rhythmic audience. I thought there was an opportunity for a station to replace Kiss in 2012. That really didn't happen. But other than completely blowing the station up, there weren't many other alternatives. So now the station has been blown up.
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They couldnt have replaced kiss if they tried your saying that they could have got on air talent as good as the talent on wrks like michael baisden bob slade jeff foxx mike shannon no way in hell. Plus WBLS is basically kiss fm so competition wouldn’t have really mattered probably.
 
kidrauhl said:
They couldnt have replaced kiss if they tried your saying that they could have got on air talent as good as the talent on wrks like michael baisden bob slade jeff foxx mike shannon no way in hell.
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Since they were all let go when Kiss changed formats, it wouldn't have been that hard.
 
kidrauhl said:
Actually WBLS retained some of them im pretty sure.
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Baisden was gone, because BLS had Steve Harvey. Jeff Foxx went to weekends. I think that's it.

Mike Shannon works for Cumulus now. So does Tom Joyner and DL Hughley. Don't you think those people could have made a good NYC radio station?
 
kidrauhl said:
So if k love and emf are all about helping people why didnt they offer to retain the wplj staffs jobs? That is evil in itself and dont say because it costs too much because klove in syndicated out of california and klove/ emf pays no taxes so maby you should consider that before assuming just because emf is christian based they can do no evil.
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The EMF formats are not "syndicated". They run on the company's own stations.

As a non-commercial station, WPLJ does not need salespersons, traffic, continuity or local bookkeeping. They don't need a PD or a General Manager or local DJs. They need local engineering and event and marketing staff. There were very few "old" WPLJ staff members who would fit the new operation.

This sort of thing has been happening with changes in format for the last seven decades in radio; "the new staff is at the hotel and will bring the music and the jingles in an hour". Jokes abound about radio people having U-Haul frequent move points.
 
TheBigA said:
Mike Shannon works for Cumulus now. So does Tom Joyner and DL Hughley. Don't you think those people could have made a good NYC radio station?
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And there is also the possibility of moving in between WBLS and WQHT by appealing more heavily to Hispanics who love rhythmic music but might like a station that was specifically targeted towards them.
 
kidrauhl said:
So if k love and emf are all about helping people why didnt they offer to retain the wplj staffs jobs? That is evil in itself and dont say because it costs too much because klove in syndicated out of california and klove/ emf pays no taxes so maby you should consider that before assuming just because emf is christian based they can do no evil.
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EMF isn't "about" "helping people." EMF is a religious mission of spreading a message. While EMF surely believes the message itself is helpful to people, it's still a business with a model that has no need for the vast number of employees once employed by Cumulus. They're not beholden to keep people on the payroll, especially when they never actually employed them to begin with! It is childish to think or demand otherwise.

As for not paying taxes, they legally exist as a non-profit operation which is eligible to not pay taxes. Countless entities such as this exist in the U.S. You seem to have to problem with EMF's religious mission.
 
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