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A good reason to kill it, right?
Right.
Over the past several months, I've posted articles here about AM radio stations in the US either going dark, or flipping to syndicated, automated formats like Sports Bet talk.
Since the start of last year, Bell Media in Canada turned off 6 or 7 AM stations; KNPT Newport Oregon (which had a stream and an FM translator) switched off permanently -- along with a couple sister, AM and FM stations; KUTI Yakima (ESPN Yakima -- an already syndicated station) turned off; CKGO Vancouver and CHQT Edmonton saw their staff fired and the two stations went to a simulcast, and may end up going off the air; 50KW station KDWN in Las Vegas went off the air permanently (their stream didn't help them survive); CHML Hamilton, Ontario went off the air permanently; another company in Canada sold off a ton of AM stations last year.
It seems that a lot of Radio companies are downsizing and AM radio is bearing the brunt of it; the others bearing the brunt, naturally, are the laid off airstaff and other laid off workers, the majority of whom will never work in Radio ever again.
So, as you can see, it's been a fairly dark year or so for AM radio in the US and Canada. In one case, where Bell Media got rid of so many stations (some of which had OK ratings), their leadership said that "radio isn't a viable media anymore". It seems that they no longer believed in Radio as a relevant medium with any future.
It wouldn't be the first time, of course, that a large media company has shown that it no longer believes in Radio -- Radio Disney proved that when they sold off all of their AM radio stations, then turned off all their HD Radio channels nationwide, and then finally cut off their Radio Disney stream.
Radio Disney went from being an Over-The-Air radio player, to pulling the plug on all Radio operations -- OTA or online streaming -- completely in just under 5 years.
WCBS 880's most recent logo, used until Midnight, the morning of August 26th, 2024.
In many cases, the stations that I wrote about last year weren't really making enough money to stay in operation -- that was the case with KNPT Newport (50% decline in ad revenues after the Pandemic was over), and it is said the KUTI / ESPN Yakima had a deteriorating antenna system and it probably wasn't worth all the money needed to rebuild it. The return on investment just wasn't there.
Radio in general is in a tough spot economically. Anyone who is acquainted with the economics of Radio knows that. But it turns out that even if you are a Top Billing Station in the US, your owners will lay off staff, and flip the station.
And this has happened in the US's "Market #1", New York City. WCBS 880, a mainstay in New York City media culture, is flipping from All-News to Sports.
WCBS was a TOP BILLING AM RADIO STATION in New York City. They are one of the top 20 billing radio stations in the United States.
Here is a list of the Top Ten Billing Radio Stations in the United States, last year.
WCBS 880 is #10, with $29.7 Million in revenues.
And WCBS 880 was the #2 Top Billing AM Radio station in the United States last year, also (competitor WINS in NYC is FM as well as AM).
It naturally begs the question: What company risks throwing $29.7 Million away?
Here is a link to the RadioInk article where I got those two charts. It's a roundup of Radio revenues for last year.:
Despite the fact that WCBS 880 pulled in over $29 million a year, their owners have fired 22 people and have just switched WCBS to Sports -- with part of that programming being syndicated, and some of it appearing to be a simulcast of another station in NYC. And on top of that, they changed the call letters to generic and forgettable sounding ones, WHSQ.
On the radio forums there are all sorts of reasons given for this flip. "They're saving money this way" seems to be the general mantra. Being that WCBS's owners, Audacy, Inc., also runs WINS in New York -- another All-News station -- they figure that the WCBS newsies will migrate to WINS and WINS will get even more revenue from it.
And that begs the question: when you treat your listeners like shit, why are they going to stick around and migrate to one of your other stations?
After all, News is not confined to a Radio station. You can easily get your news from your smartphone or laptop computer. There are alternatives, and even older demos who love radio know about the alternatives, many of which are right on their phone.
Pissing off your listeners doesn't always work well. When Radio ditched several music formats for older listeners in the late 2000's -- Smooth Jazz, AAA, Oldies, Alternative Rock, Motown, Old-School R&B, Standards, Beautiful Music, and even other niche formats like Kid's radio and Heavy Metal -- many of those listeners left Radio completely, and went to streaming services like Pandora, Spotify and YouTube.
If I want to hear all 2010's pop music (like Radio Disney used to play a lot), there's a Pandora channel for that. It's a great channel to listen to, if you want to slip back into 2012 when things didn't suck as much as they do now. If I want to hear Metal, thanks to the local FM rocker pulling the plug on their HD2 Metal Militia channel, I just go to YouTube or Pandora for that kind of music.
No Radio necessary.
Here's the article I wrote on Radio Disney, and Radio Disney's demise. It is a capsule of everything wrong with Radio today.:
Thanks for giving me the finger over the last few years, Radio. I guess in a way -- by going online to get the music I like -- I'm giving you the finger right back. And I'm not apparently alone. Now, I still listen to radio. I still tune around. I listen to some talk, some music, a little bit of religious radio from time to time, and a lot of the Sikh prayer music at night on KVRI 1600, and sometimes the CBC. There's also an classic alternative HD2, as well as a Classical Christmas HD2 channel I like.
But it is a bit jarring to read some of the attitudes of radio people towards folks in my age range (I'm a Generation Joneser), along with Boomers and Gen X'ers -- people who grew up with and love radio -- to where they seem to view us with disdain. If often feels like they are indeed giving us the finger.
And right now, WCBS's owners are giving the WCBS listeners the big middle finger. Despite the money they were making, they're cutting staff, cutting costs, and hoping that in the end it will still pencil out for the corporation.
I suppose time will tell.
For those interested, here is a link to ESPN New York's website, where there is a list of the shows on both WEPN 1050 and WCBS 880.:
OK, IT'S A BUSINESS. BUT IS IT A GOOD BUSINESS PRACTICE TO KILL A MONEY-MAKER?
You know, on the Radio forums, they keep repeating the mantra that "Radio is a Business".
OK. I get it. It is indeed a business. And power bills, airstaff -- they all need to be paid. And that means you have to have ad revenue.
But what business -- that is making big money, and is a top revenue earner in its market -- gives the finger to its consumer base?
Of course, in Radio, they say "our customers are the advertisers -- you listeners are the product, which we deliver to the advertisers". OK, you're doing a great job, Radio. Too often you're telling your "product" -- the listeners -- to go away. You are giving your "product", the listeners, less reason to tune in to your stations, and many of them are indeed leaving. You really think your "customers", the advertisers, are still going to pay you for that smooth move?
Thankfully, my own livelihood is not on the line. My last job in the Radio industry ended on December 31st, 2006. Since then I've just been an interested observer with nearly 20 years of working in the Radio industry (a 3 month internship, 3 years at one station, 16 years at a radio format company) under my belt.
And -- for the life of me -- I just can't wrap my head around a company taking a gamble by killing a Top Billing Radio station in America's #1 city. It just doesn't add up.
But I suppose I could be wrong.
My headline poses the question: What does this mean for Radio in the US?
I think it's a sure sign of Radio's decline. If the industry truly thinks that Radio listeners don't really count -- even when you have a top billing station in Market #1 -- then you're going to increase the decline of Radio listeners.
Oh, and to those who run the Radio industry: The listeners aren't migrating to your online platforms. They're going to Spotify, YT, Pandora, and online podcasting. This includes older demographics (who traditionally love Radio) as well as the younger ones. They not only are finding Radio to be irrelevant because it's older tech -- they're finding it irrelevant because Radio is making itself irrelevant to the listener. From 2012 to 2022 Radio lost 10% of its listeners. They didn't leave just because of Spotify. They also left because Radio itself is too homogenized and blah to listen to.
The local rock station situation in Seattle is a classic example. Seattle is a Rock town. AC/DC sold out the 20K seater, Seattle Center Coliseum 4 nights in a row in 1981. Grunge was born here.
Rock 98.9's Logo and website banner. The station lasted about a year and a half.
In 2016 there was a new station, KVRQ Rock 98.9, that played Rock aimed at Gen X, and the mix was better than that at the mainstay, KISW, which has an afternoon show of yakkers who play little music, and the yakking simply isn't that entertaining to listen to. Most of the Gen Xers and Boomers I knew who liked rock listened to Rock 98.9 instead. They liked the mix of music, and they preferred the artists that were 98.9's core artists (80's through 00's hard rock, with some Grunge, Nu-Metal, and classic Metal).
The owners of KVRQ Rock 98.9 didn't promote the station well. There were no billboards, no advertising. No real visibility outside of the FM band. They thought that just flipping the format and putting up a website was adequate.
It wasn't. Since then KVRQ Rock 98.9 turned into KNUC The Bull (Modern country); into KPNW (Alt Rock - AAA); and into The Bull (Modern Country) again. With none of these changes did the company ever advertise outside of the FM radio dial. They seemed to take it for granted that if they just put a format on the air, it would draw listeners.
Here's the 2016 article I wrote on KVRQ Rock 98.9 when it was still a new station in town.:
Many in Radio have lost touch with the concept how to grow and run a business. Part of that aspect is advertising your product, to gain more consumers or customers. Too many in Radio have lost it. They think it's 1970 and if they just build it, they will come. That worked in 1975, but it doesn't work anymore. Too many Radio owners seem to be stuck in a 1970's Radio mindset, combined with the early 2000's "just put up a website and we'll make tons of money off the New Economy" mindset.
Neither mindset applies today.
For example, a lot of stations still "stunt" when changing formats. WCBS 880 didn't, but there have been some stations doing this as late as last year. It was pertinent in 1980 when people literally tuned the FM dial with analog tuning mechanisms, and could pick up a new station by chance -- but in today's smartphone, smartscreen, virtual pushbutton environment, the idea that people are tuning around on the dial looking for something to listen to are long gone.
The days of "stunting" to flip a format were over 15 years ago, but some stations still do it.
News flash: Today's radio listeners don't tune around anymore, looking for new stations. The older demographics that Radio experts make fun of do that, sure, but your 18-49 demos don't do that anymore.
They go online.
That's why you need to advertise.
Wake up, Radio.
A VID CLIP OF WCBS 880's LAST MINUTES
I will end this article with a vid taken by a guy on a radio forum I go to, a guy named Dalton, who lives in Pennsylvania. Like me, he likes older radios, and he likes AM radio. He recorded this clip of WCBS signing off for the last time, on a classic old 1960's AM portable radio. During the clip, one of their announcers is telling a tale -- a tale of how he always loved WCBS ever since he was a kid -- and he ended up working there. His voice is the last one heard before the WCBS ID at Midnight, and the plug is pulled, before the station ID's as "WHSQ".
Because there seems to be an issue with Blogger's YT search function (they changed it, and their Blogger/YT search function is basically broken -- all results, instead of being specific, are now completely useless), here is a link to the vid. It's worth checking out.:
EDIT: I found a way to embed the YouTube video. Had to use quotes around my search terms. The panel should play when you click the arrow.
IN OTHER LIFE....
My two cats I lost last year and this year: Fluffy is on the left, and Squeakers is on the right. They were pals. As you can tell, I was working on my GE Superadio 1, and also had some cleanup to do. You can tell I still read newspapers, and there were a couple books I was reading, too. The cats, of course, helped themselves to the table to take a nice rest from playing mouse.
This was in 2011. Such a long, long time ago.
In other life, yeah, it's been pretty shitty around here. My cat Squeakers died, and I had to bury her earlier today. It really sucks to lose your little friend, after dealing with her sickness for over a year, and all the joy she brought to my life before that. I still have a couple other cats, but Squeakers was my little pal.
Losing this one really hurts.
There's not much more to say. I still have a few new articles written, that just need editing, and some pics added. I'll get around to it eventually.
C.C. August 25th, 2024.
