If it were viable, someone would be doing it.
then when the coverage sucked and you couldnt hear it, youd complain about that.
youd never be happy .
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Audacy Layoffs
- Thread starter freqdev
- Start date
If it were viable, someone would be doing it.
then when the coverage sucked and you couldnt hear it, youd complain about that.
youd never be happy .
There are enough stations doing the format in other places where they have a good idea how much money it'll attract.
Well with some translator signals of similar coverage area.
For example, WJMZ HD 3 (X98.5 - W253BG) billed at 0.6 in July 22, beating out full market WROO 3x (at 0.2)
Which says if its good content it will definitely beat out a larger signal station. Coverage doesnt matter if almost no one is listening.
WROO has been in the dump since they got rid of the rock format, and it's owners don't seem to care.
WZWK used to boast that their transmitter was right in Greenville's "center of population" ...thats when their tower was at McAlister Square off Pleasantburg Drive, but now its at St Francis Eastside/Patewood Medical Campus adjacent to Haywood Mall, with most coverage limited to that area near Woodruff Road now barely reaching downtown Greenville, and their signal dropped from 100 watts down to 25 watts.
WEBK really does a good job picking up the WRBK signal east from Chesterfield County out to the Florence area, sounded great and a great alternative to other commercial stations.
Heading west from Richburg they have WNBK in Whitmire (90.9) which kinda reaches Union and Newberry better than 90.3 but it suffers lots of interference from WYFG. And another signal of theirs reaches most of Woodruff and Laurens, as well as Gray Court on WUBK at 88.1
With all of their signals, they reach about 150 miles in a line from Enoree SC to Chester to Lancaster to Cheraw to Florence/Darlington.
I wish WRBK would get another signal in the
Spartanburg/Gaffney area (maybe that 97.5
translator W248DD for Spartanburg) and they
also have a translator in York SC at 92.1 and
Monroe NC at 94.3
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But neither number is representative of an audience size that advertisers might be attracted to.
And... in markets that size, a 0.2 and a 0.6 are both within the margin of error so they are statistically identical.
In neither case were they anything more than a neighborhood station. That is the whole concept of LPFM stations.
My 1st experience with an LP station was when I still lived in NJ, and WUPC-LP (Arrowhead Village) came on the air. It barely covers only the towns of Brick and Point Pleasant NJ, and the signal barely leaves town.
I remember sometimes hearing it in some parts of Toms River closer to Lakehurst. I was afraid of this station causing interference to WIOQ in Philly.
i agree but i think with the usc sports contract for three sports and a locally sponsored weekday afternoon show its about making money not ratings
Some of the music is good, but Radio Baha'i at 90.9 starts causing problems east of I-95. WIOZ Pinehurst has America's Best Music but around power lines it doesn't have much of a signal south of the border. Myrtle Beach has beach music on 94.9 but a lot of the songs aren't familiar to me and after a while I get tired of it, and WEZV is back to soft AC but that varies widely. Closer to the beach there is Carolina Gold, which I haven't spent a lot of time listening to but it might be good.
Of course Florence now has classic country.
Sports talk is overrated in our market, how can they be making any decent money? This isn't Atlanta (Braves) and only a select few wanna hear about College Football 24/7.
Even so with WROO as sports talk they have a near 100% Simulcast on 98.3 /1400 WSPG Spartanburg which makes them even more redundant.
I think a nice classic urban format would definitely work on 104.9, they already had one on 104.9 HD2
And the other Sports Talk, the audio quality on 97.5 W248DD is horrendous, drowned out by background interference from WCOS across their whole coverage area. That alone makes their station hard to listen to.
Even so with WROO as sports talk they have a near 100% Simulcast on 98.3 /1400 WSPG Spartanburg which makes them even more redundant.
I think a nice classic urban format would definitely work on 104.9, they already had one on 104.9 HD2
And the other Sports Talk, the audio quality on 97.5 W248DD is horrendous, drowned out by background interference from WCOS across their whole coverage area. That alone makes their station hard to listen to.
when you have no overhead every dollar can go to the bottom line. major colleges pay well to be on good signals in key markets.
I think its all about branding...104.9 (and before when it was 96.7) had tried rock (Real Rock Man Up / The Buzzard) and even CCM (Shine 96.7) but it couldnt compete with the Planet and WROQ, I think they gave up on it too easily...
Whats on there now is ok for the colleges but not many listeners. The Fan (97.1 / 97.7) has enough of the sports talk niche covered... Even their sister station WMYI has lots of potential and competition in the market but WROO they might as well sell it to someone who would put it to better use IMO.
Whats on there now is ok for the colleges but not many listeners. The Fan (97.1 / 97.7) has enough of the sports talk niche covered... Even their sister station WMYI has lots of potential and competition in the market but WROO they might as well sell it to someone who would put it to better use IMO.
doubt that will happen
Agreed. 25 watts for 101.5 (dropped power as antenna is much higher now than it was at McAllister) and 10 watts for 107.7 ain't much. But there are 200k people in the 40dB coverage area of 101.5 and another 75k in the 40dB for 107.7. Granted, lots of co-channel interference. But pretty big "neighborhood."
WZWK moved the station as Greenville Tech dismantled the tower at McAllister and the station now owns the tower its on at Prisma.
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Who would buy it? And better use for whom? Greenville is a perfect example of an "over-radio'd" market. Too many stations for market #191. That dilutes the audience to the point where a bunch of stations end up with less than a 1 share. No matter what they do. My take is it's being used in the most efficient way it can, given the signal.
Useful indoor signal is 65 dbu, and for good vehicle reception around 55 dbu.Agreed. 25 watts for 101.5 (dropped power as antenna is much higher now than it was at McAllister) and 10 watts for 107.7 ain't much. But there are 200k people in the 40dB coverage area of 101.5 and another 75k in the 40dB for 107.7. Granted, lots of co-channel interference. But pretty big "neighborhood."
If you look at Nielsen data, there is vey little in-home or at-work listening outside the 65 dub, and those two LPFM stations depend on in-home as people in cars leave the signal area even with a short drive.
Very broad statement. Useful signal depends on a lot of factors. And not sure about the 65dBu Nielson study, which also depends on a ton of factors as well. But, of course, I do agree, the station would be much more competitive with more power. It is what it is. .. today. Not bad for about a 10k investment & minimal operating costs.
The study I referred to was not done by Arbitron.
I did the study with our in-house research division, SIP, back in the early 2000's for HBC to allow a better evaluation of stations they bought, particularly rimshots. We looked at 5 of the top 10 markets and 5 of those between 11 and 25 and 5 in the 26 to 75 rank. We tabulated the data on ZIP Code vs home and work (when known) location for millions of diaries of adults 18 and over.
We found that 80% of all fixed location listening was in the 70 dbu coverage area and 95% was in the 65 dbu area. Nearly none was outside the 65 dbu area, and those that were generally were very close to that contour or, per Langley-Rice, in an area that actually had better coverage.
Since there has been no significan change in receiver technology in the last 15 years or so, the results are not going to change if the same study is replicated today.
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I drove by WZWK's small tower yesterday, it looks high up but its actually quite low compared to neighboring Roper Mountain and the big hill where where Hilton Greenville is, I think that area would be much better for their site since its much higher, or something closer to Downtown. ERP really shouldn't have been lowered to 25 watts, its not very high HAAT. and almost lost the signal 5 minutes after leaving their site.Agreed. 25 watts for 101.5 (dropped power as antenna is much higher now than it was at McAllister) and 10 watts for 107.7 ain't much. But there are 200k people in the 40dB coverage area of 101.5 and another 75k in the 40dB for 107.7. Granted, lots of co-channel interference. But pretty big "neighborhood."
WZWK moved the station as Greenville Tech dismantled the tower at McAllister and the station now owns the tower its on at Prisma.
There's still a few places within 2 miles where the signal is almost non existent, such as the I-85/I-385 interchange, as well as going up Pleasantburg Drive just above 385 towards Wade Hampton. In these areas I was getting interference at equal strength from a different 101.5 translator near Tryon NC (repeats WCQS).
Their 107.7 signal is also pretty bad unless you get well above downtown Greenville but I've heard their signal well (better than 101.5) near the Taylors area.
It's a great station if you're lucky enough to be within 1 mile of their site and you can leave it on all day if you never leave the area.
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