What will happen to 750-AM format wise?

[secondchoice]

I could easily see ESPN on 750. “Big picture” Apollo already have ABC on channel 2. Apollo should get ESPN radio easily. “CBS TV” on channel 2 would be a big headache for ABC / Disney so I believe Apollo would not have any trouble getting ESPN radio on 750. Then all of the UGA sports goes on 750 especially the Basketball. The Bulldogs football games could be on both 95.5 and 750 if the revenue dictates.

 

[TheBigA]

I could easily see ESPN on 750.

By doing that, they're basically giving up on the signal.

 

[jabba17]

Could they put second-tier talk on the AM? Glenn Beck, Clark Howard, Mark Levin, Red Eye Radio, etc.? Or use it as a minor league for the likes of up-and-comers like Shelley Wynter? Maybe put a local host opposite of a syndicated show and vice-versa to draw different audiences.

Heck, Anne Cox Chambers could try her progtalk dream again.

I know they would be competing with themselves but if both buckets of money added up to something bigger...?

 

[LegalTender]

Could they put second-tier talk on the AM? Glenn Beck, Clark Howard, Mark Levin, Red Eye Radio, etc.? Or use it as a minor league for the likes of up-and-comers like Shelley Wynter? Maybe put a local host opposite of a syndicated show and vice-versa to draw different audiences.

Heck, Anne Cox Chambers could try her progtalk dream again.

I know they would be competing with themselves but if both buckets of money added up to something bigger...?

News/traffic updates would air around uncommon formats and breaks. Overlaps and missed cue-ins might cost Smilin' Mark his smile.

 

[trusty]

News/traffic updates would air around uncommon formats and breaks. Overlaps and missed cue-ins might cost Smilin' Mark his smile.

Keep the drives on both (and keep Mark smilin'). Split out some of the shows. (WDUN did when they added FM (however limited) - seems to have worked.)
(Even Kimmer said he would do overnights. ($$))

 

[RadioDoogie]

The AM signal still stretches much further out than the FM. Even though AM sounds awful. I’ve gotten WSB AM across the country. However, we also have streaming services that get around signal limitations. And you can listen to WSB anywhere. I asked the younger generation at work and they all told me they either never listen (and never have listened) to FM radio or don’t even really know how it works or what radio stations exist out there. They all listen to streaming services. This leads me to ask how much longer will terrestrial radio survive with the newer generations paying no attention to it at all. I love my FM radio because it gives me a sense of being localized. Like with local TV, you get local news.

 

[MediaMan]

Keep the drives on both (and keep Mark smilin'). Split out some of the shows. (WDUN did when they added FM (however limited) - seems to have worked.)
(Even Kimmer said he would do overnights. ($$))

WDUN and WSB are not good comparisons. WDUN-FM covers even less of the main market of WDUN than WSBB-FM does the WSB market from the old site. The 102.9 has always had signal issues in Gainesville proper as it's just too far out of town for a C3 to get into buildings/houses and even some roadways around the rolling terrain of Gainesville. Then, to make matters worse, Urban One put a tall tower translator on the 102.9 frequency which basically makes WDUN not listenable beyond Flowery Branch and the west side of Hall County which is the area where most residential and commercial growth is occurring in Hall County. Therefore, WDUN-AM 550 ratings still far exceed the FM ratings. Frankly they aren't much better than when the FM was doing music.

WSBB-FM new site will allow the 95.5 FM signal to duplicate and even exceed in the south metro regions the AM's daytime primary signal of 2 mV/m which frankly I think is too weak a signal to keep most people listening to AM in an urbanized area like Atlanta. 5 mV/m (FCC-AM City Grade Signal) is more likely the minimum strength an AM needs to serve an audience in today's world. If that's the case, the new 95.5 signal is double what the AM's 50,000 watts half wave tower Class A signal delivers. Other than DXers, the skywave nighttime audience is practically non existent and means zilch to the advertisers buying time on WSB Radio.

The more urbanized an area I think the shorter the runway length for over air radio. It's a slow decline with the pace being determined by what type product is being offered by the over air stations. The music only stations with zero local content or community connection will be the first to go but foreground stations like WSB won't suffer the decline as quickly. This prediction assumes all factors stay the same. It rarely does. Radio is easy to access. It's free and it has incredible reach. You won't kill it easily and certainly not quickly.

 

[charlestondxman]

Talking about Jacksonville, Jacksonville had two sports stations previously (1010 AM/92.5 FM and 930 AM), but Cox wanted to extend their brand.

Cox owns two TV stations (CBS and Fox in Jacksonville, so they have almost the entire Jaguars season) but had no audio. The station there has one local show (in afternoon drive), and the rest is off the bird.

It could be like New York where they kept WFAN’s AM and FM completely simulcast.

 

[DavidEduardo]

WSBB-FM new site will allow the 95.5 FM signal to duplicate and even exceed in the south metro regions the AM's daytime primary signal of 2 mV/m which frankly I think is too weak a signal to keep most people listening to AM in an urbanized area like Atlanta. 5 mV/m (FCC-AM City Grade Signal) is more likely the minimum strength an AM needs to serve an audience in today's world. If that's the case, the new 95.5 signal is double what the AM's 50,000 watts half wave tower Class A signal delivers.

The ITU defines "usable minimum signal" in urban areas as being 15 mV/m.

5 mV/m is not adequate in noisy big metros and with today's plethora of RF-emitting devices in homes and workplaces.

In studies of in-home and at-work listening in diary markets (where locations are specified) it can be seen that as much as 95% of AM station listening takes place inside the 10 mV/m contours.

So, as far as real listening is concerned, the FM well out-covers the useful coverage of 750 AM.

 

[LegalTender]

[WSB Program Director Pete Spriggs] has already changed the station’s on-air descriptive from “News 95.5 and AM 750 WSB” to “95.5 WSB, Atlanta’s news and talk.”

The removal of any reference to AM in the slogan is symbolic. The AM signal is not changing or going away. The new slogan reflects the reduced import of the AM signal for its listening audience and how the new FM signal will make that even more of a reality.

Spriggs said only 10 percent of its target 25-to-54-year-old audience now listens via AM. Nearly as many stream the station. “The AM signal is still extremely important and is considered the most historic radio signal in the Southeast,” Spriggs said. “But for marketing purposes, if I want a new listener to tune into my station, it’s going to be a lot easier to find us on the FM dial.”

AJC

 

[TheBigA]

The problem is there already is a WSB-FM, and it's at 98.5. They refer to it as B98.5 So they potentially have a branding problem. Unless they think no one will notice.

 

[BoboKnight]

The problem is there already is a WSB-FM, and it's at 98.5. They refer to it as B98.5 So they potentially have a branding problem. Unless they think no one will notice.

It would have shown up by now since according to Pete Spriggs 90% of their listenership already listens on 95.5.

 

[LegalTender]

It would have shown up by now since according to Pete Spriggs 90% of their listenership already listens on 95.5.

His statement is less than precise:

• 10% of the 25-54 target audience listens to AM radio across the board.

- or -

• 10% of WSB's 25-54 audience listens on 750 and the rest on 95.5.

 

[RadioDoogie]

I would think switching the call letters would be more of a paperwork nightmare. I’m sure lots of documents around the Cox office refer to 98.5FM as WSB-FM. And for it being in that position for so many decades, I would think would be a difficult change.

 

[TheBigA]

I would think switching the call letters would be more of a paperwork nightmare. I’m sure lots of documents around the Cox office refer to 98.5FM as WSB-FM. And for it being in that position for so many decades, I would think would be a difficult change.

Still, they're attempting to retain the WSB branding while moving the content to FM. In point of fact, there are two radio stations called WSB-FM.

 

[fybush]

I would think switching the call letters would be more of a paperwork nightmare. I’m sure lots of documents around the Cox office refer to 98.5FM as WSB-FM. And for it being in that position for so many decades, I would think would be a difficult change.

Clusters change call signs internally all the time. It's not an especially big paperwork issue. I'd bet the TV repack going on upstairs is generating 20 times the paperwork that a callsign change for 98.5 would create.

Where the confusion would probably be greatest - and the reason the calls probably haven't changed, and won't - is with ratings and ad agencies. Buyers still associate stations with call letters, and for them (if not for the average listener), "WSB-FM" is still tightly linked to the AC format on 98.5. You don't want to disrupt that just to make one hourly ID sound a smidge cleaner. It's the same reason CBS (and now Entercom) never reshuffled in Chicago, where there's an identical situation with WBBM(AM)'s all-news format now simulcast on FM, where there's already a rhythmic top-40 station called WBBM-FM. The WBBM(AM) simulcast still has the WCFS calls from when it was "Fresh," and there's never been a compelling reason to change that.

 

[TheBigA]

The WBBM(AM) simulcast still has the WCFS calls from when it was "Fresh," and there's never been a compelling reason to change that.

However, what this thread is about is splitting off the AM signal from the simulcast. Once that happens, the WSB format associated with the AM station will only be on the FM band. This is comparable to what happened with WMAL in Washington DC. Once they split the simulcast, the WMAL letters stayed with the FM station, and the AM applied for new letters. It seems to me that if the call letters are part of the branding, they're creating a branding problem by having two FM stations associated with the same letters. And yes, you're correct, they have the same problem in Chicago. And KCBS has the same problem in San Francisco.

 

[semoochie]

Clusters change call signs internally all the time. It's not an especially big paperwork issue. I'd bet the TV repack going on upstairs is generating 20 times the paperwork that a callsign change for 98.5 would create.

Where the confusion would probably be greatest - and the reason the calls probably haven't changed, and won't - is with ratings and ad agencies. Buyers still associate stations with call letters, and for them (if not for the average listener), "WSB-FM" is still tightly linked to the AC format on 98.5. You don't want to disrupt that just to make one hourly ID sound a smidge cleaner. It's the same reason CBS (and now Entercom) never reshuffled in Chicago, where there's an identical situation with WBBM(AM)'s all-news format now simulcast on FM, where there's already a rhythmic top-40 station called WBBM-FM. The WBBM(AM) simulcast still has the WCFS calls from when it was "Fresh," and there's never been a compelling reason to change that.

The way it sounds, WSB-FM is not referred to that way and only uses B98.5, so it seems like the obvious thing would be to just swap the call letters, to produce a smoother ID on 95.5/750. It doesn't appear to have any practical effect on 98.5.

 

[jabba17]

The way it sounds, WSB-FM is not referred to that way and only uses B98.5, so it seems like the obvious thing would be to just swap the call letters, to produce a smoother ID on 95.5/750. It doesn't appear to have any practical effect on 98.5.

The last time you heard "WSB" on 98.5 outside of a TOH ID was right after Cox got schooled by Susquehanna over who had the right to call themselves "99 FM".

https://law.justia.com/cases/federal/district-courts/FSupp/620/143/1456444/

The future Q100 was not affected, but the future B98.5 sure was.

But if Cox switches the calls, then 98.5 can be BB98.5! Now with more B! Number 1 with a BB!

 

[jabba17]

I still think Cox ought to see if the Rhode Island State Board of Education will let them use WSBE-FM. Then the TOH ID would read "double-u-ess-bee-ee-eff-em".