WWBA flips to Classic Country

More here:

https://radioinsight.com/headlines/177874/wwba-tampa-flips-to-classic-country/

I guess I will have to listen to see if WWBA's Classic Country is the equilvant of WPCV-FM Lakeland.

A brief listen today and everything I heard online was 1972-1980. Donna Fargo, Gatlin Brothers, Charlie Rich etc.

Predictably, The Martin Gramatica/Rock Riley Show has moved over to WHBO.

Gramatica/Riley I am waiting for the podcast

I might have mentioned this before but BA Radio's day signal is so strong in Sarasota that their
second harmonic is hearable by some receivers on the high part of the John Ringling Causeway.

The death of real local radio continues....sad.

So much of this station wastes itself out into the Gulf, they might as well just clear as many sport fishing shows as possible.

On the other hand, some classic country loving fisherman have their demographic covered now with WWBA.

Second harmonic is very strong indeed, and primary signal is not hard to hear between Dothan and Tallahassee up towards the NW in the late afternoon hours.

Byron

While it's sad to see a station that's mostly live and local flip to a box-of-records format, there needed to be yet another fascist propaganda and sports outlet on the AM dial like there needed to be more sand on the beach. I'm sorry some people lost their jobs, but otherwise; good riddance to bad rubbish.

ai4i said:

"Link"

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Yes that has been the one and only to count on any more here.

WHPT 102.5 The Bone is live and local all day. Still Local Radio.

If you look at the WWBA pattern on the FCC database, not the map on Radio-Locator, you will see they are not wasting that much signal over the Gulf. Its' the high conductivity of seawater that makes it appear that way.

rfrus said:

If you look at the WWBA pattern on the FCC database...you will see they are not wasting that much signal over the Gulf.<br>Its' the high conductivity of seawater that makes it appear that way.

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You are correct but their null toward Orlovista's 810 is so deep that it makes me wonder if they would be better off financially to reduce their day power and let their null that way out a bit. <br>
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I wish that they could erect more sticks and put a stronger signal in a broad arc away from D-FW at night.<br>
They are far from being interference-free even several miles NORTH of where I hear them on 1640 in the daytime in Sarasota.<br>
I am sure that they expect most of their new listeners to be on 96.7 & 98.3 anyway.

What I don't understand is how they are going to finance this? Even with a boatload of infomercials on the weekends, it costs real money to run a radio station - just to power it up - let alone on air talent or support staff. I wish I could remember what a poster had once opined on what the power up costs were, but I seem to think they were in the range of $1000 per week. Who is going to buy advertising on a jukebox? Although the WWBA lineup was rightwing, "fascist propaganda" seems harsh. When they ran Dan Ruth on Saturdays, I thought they got decent following. If they would take that a step further and really mix up the opinion makers on air - some right and some left - think Hannity and Colmes - they could (have) differentiated themselves from the established conservative talker in Tampa Bay. On another board I have suggested the use of an all-news station as the framework for a local all news. That would be tough to do in Florida as there are no all newsers south of DC, but suppose they arranged to pay some amount to pick up the feed from WTOP, run it a minute behind, and insert local news when DC traffic and weather runs, as well as inserting local ads where it fits in with the broadcast stream - maybe an idea? Music on AM just seems to be a placeholder.

Interesting side note: They upgraded their online stream from 64k to 128k AAC+ AFTER their flip to Classic Country

Jingle-sing of WWBA calls heard coming back in from the spot break, last time I listened.

Byron

I scolded the station owner on the station's FB page.
Listeners pelted him, asking why the horrible change.
He griped about "not making any money" and "operating at a deficit."

And running an AUTOMATED country music format ON AM with zero local interaction will draw listeners and "make the station money?"
No local news, no local hosts, nothing but COMPUTERIZED MUSIC which can be found in many other places.
Gee, just the kind of radio station advertisers would want to be associated with.

I told him that station has long been mismanaged and that this change was another of many boneheaded decisions which make it clear station ownership knows next to nothing about BROADCASTING and cares little about the station's listeners.

Dondd said:

I scolded the station owner on the station's FB page.
I told him that station has long been mismanaged and that this change was another of many boneheaded decisions...

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They plan for all their listeners to be listening to their two translators.
My favorite question to ask in any thread about a derailed radio station is always the same:
What would you do with it?
Their diurnal signal is great.
I personally would consider this format.

Nia is trying to get a small amount of listeners on each station they own or operate in the market, so they can combine the cluster total listeners up together and sell it as a combined audience.

Basically like the big boys do it but on a smaller scale.

30,000 here
60,000 there
40,000 here

If done correctly it could become 2-3 shares in the market and generate a little bit of money.