But CIWW/CKBY were on both AM and FM. How many big American stations are simulcast AM-FM combos? KNX, KCBS, WBBM, WSB, KYW, WFAN, WINS, WWL. The list is long. U.S. broadcasters see a value in keeping both the FM, for most of the listeners, and the AM, for those in the more distant suburbs. Even if Rogers turned off AM 1310, why not keep 101.1 FM with its News/Talk format in the nation's capital? Why become Ottawa's SECOND Country station?
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City News Ottawa No More
- Thread starter SomeRadioGuy
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But CIWW/CKBY were on both AM and FM. How many big American stations are simulcast AM-FM combos? KNX, KCBS, WBBM, WSB, KYW, WFAN, WINS, WWL. The list is long. U.S. broadcasters see a value in keeping both the FM, for most of the listeners, and the AM, for those in the more distant suburbs. Even if Rogers turned off AM 1310, why not keep 101.1 FM with its News/Talk format in the nation's capital? Why become Ottawa's SECOND Country station?
Because they think they’ll make more money doing country, that isn’t rocket science.
And a profitable one. Among the best billing stations in the U.S., four are All-News: WTOP, WBBM, WINS, WCBS. In LA, KNX is Audacy's best billing station. In San Francisco, KCBS is Audacy's best billing station.
And CKBY was only local All-News in AM and PM drive. Middays and evenings it ran talk shows. Overnights and weekend mornings it used Canada's All-News overnight service, also used by CFTR Toronto, CKWX Vancouver and several other news/talk operations.
I had no idea that the all-news schedule was limited in Ottawa. However, I am familiar with CFTR, which I last heard in June, when Toronto was covered in wildfire smoke.
In today's noisy world, 50 kw is really not high power. But North America, with the example of the USA in the early 30's and NARBA's specifications coming out of the late 30's and implemented at the start of the 40's, limited all stations to a maximum of the very low power of 50 kw.
But none are the most profitable. "Billing" is gross revenue, even before sales commissions. Profit is what is left after expenses, and those stations you name are horribly expensive to run.
You're thinking about it backwards.
Rogers was presumably losing money (or not making enough) on the all-news format. So think "format change" first - and then once they had decided to do that, the AM became dead weight and was shut down BECAUSE of the format change.
David, I’m no engineer (so perhaps you can provide some insight here). If 50kw wasn’t the limit, and certain AM radio stations could be authorized up to 100kw, would it make much of a difference? I’ve never listened to an AM station broadcasting over 50kw, so I’m curious what the results would be.
Personally, I’ve never had an issue listening to any local AM station at 50kw. The maximum power level has always seemed like more than enough to give you strong reception and arguably more steady of a signal in many parts of a large (or terrain challenged) market. Anything below 10,000 watts is arguably not enough though, unless you’re on the bottom of the dial.
As a side note, a good portion of the Ottawa Gatineau market is francophone. There are other stations that provide programming in French as well. Not sure if this is true competition, but it was probably a factor.
In Europe, powers in that era creeped up to the 300 to 600 kw range, and in the 50's we started to see them up to a megawatt, later going to several million watts in Europe, Asia and the Middle East.
The advantage is that daytime coverage can be all or most of a European nation at the highest powers, and just a couple of stations when powers in the 300 to 600 megawatt range were use.
I programmed a 100 kw AM on 710 in Argentina, and the difference was notable as daytime coverage was not just the huge Buenos Aires Metro (bigger than New York City Metro) but also all the rural and smaller cities surrounding Bs. As. You could drive hours and hours out of the city and still hear it.
We have a 550 kw station in the Netherlands Antilles. Daytime and evenings it programs for Cuba, while in early morning hours it targets NW Brazil with two separate directional systems. Those are areas on two separate continents!
True, 50 kw is adequate for most of the large US metros, although no 50 kw stations has full day and night coverage of either the New York or LA metro.
The big issue with US stations is that most fulltimers of 5 kw or more are directional and often have nulls that miss some or much of the market.
That makes sense! Too bad that wasn’t the case in North America, but it’s not like every AM radio station could be at such a high power level.
I understand that AM is on a steep decline, but again, I personally felt like most class A or B stations were almost equivalent to FM. You’re missing out on some fidelity, and therefore it’s not a solution for music, but it’s good enough for spoken word. But with that being said, I definitely think that the sun has set on lower powered AMs that can barely be heard through all of the electrical noise. A notable exception in my home market of Seattle is KVI 570, which is extremely strong with only 5,000 watts. At the top of the dial, that station would be unlistenable.
Circling this back to the ottawa conversation. I’m still surprised that a class B AM went dark, but I guess it’s important to keep in mind that it’s not as easy in Canada to simply sell off a station and program it with another format. I’ve also only had the chance to look at the radio locator daytime as nighttime patterns, and couldn’t really tell if they had adequate coverage over the entire national capital region.
I lived in NW PA about 80 miles SE of Erie for a year and we had a nearby 1310 that was supposed to be 5kw day and something miniscule at night.. im not sure it was making full power, but it was also modulated at only liek 40 percent.
I could hear CIWW during pauses in audio on our local 1310 .. i know i heard it at night5, but im pretty sure i heard it at least once before the drop to night power
I could hear CIWW during pauses in audio on our local 1310 .. i know i heard it at night5, but im pretty sure i heard it at least once before the drop to night power