Re: AM radio is NOT dead!!

[Dan Strassberg <dan.strassberg@worldnet.att.net>]

Sean P. Smyth wrote:
> 
> Obviously, you also have to be programming something which the people in
> identify with. (Not putting folk on a Concord radio station, for example.)

I don't think you understand the folk scene around here. Notwithstanding the
impression (left over from the sixties, I daresay) that folk is a hippie,
Harvard Sq kind of thing that appeals to impoverished twenty-somethings
living in garrets in Cambridge and Somerville, folk, in fact, appeals most
to affluent, white, fifty-something suburbanites (they were forty-something
when WADN went on the air in 1989)--exactly the group that lives in Concord,
Acton, and the surrounding towns. Maybe these are people who were part of
the sixties folk scene around Harvard square, but, today, the majority are
investment bankers and lawyers. Typically, they have several kids--most of
them in college or grad school by now--a big dog, a $400,000+ house, 401(k)s
worth the better part of $1 million, and a couple of Volvos.

Check out the coffehouse circuit. Most folk music in greater Boston is
performed in coffeehouses. Most coffehouses are activities of church
congregations, the vast majority of which are Unitarian-Universalist--the
UUs. Putting WADN in Concord was a truly inspired move, not merely because,
from a technical standpoint, it could hardly have been built anywhere else,
but because the people who built the station wanted to do folk and Concord
and vicinity is dead center in the middle of the market they were going
after. Why did the station fail? It's easy to blame mismanagement. Maybe
that was part of the problem. They operated the station on a grander scale
than any local radio station can afford in this day.

If you know anything about the operation, you can't blame lack of promotion,
though. Between the annual Riverbank Festival and the concert series at the
Colonial Inn and the Emerson Umbrella Center for the Arts, WADN did a
bang-up job of promotion. Sadly, I have to say that I think the problem was
that the station is on AM, and the most of the yuppies to whom the station
appealed don't listen to AM. (And remember, I am one of the strongest
proponents of AM in this group.)

The second problem was signal. It sucks, particularly at night. The signal
problem was compounded by the fact that, until a few weeks ago, WADN hardly
modulated an already lousy signal. The other signal problem was 1150, which,
as recently as last Februrary, was splattering all over WADN, even in WADN's
back yard. The result was that listening to the station was truly painful.
Only a dedicated folky, who also happened to be an AM fan and a DXer would
put up with the interference. I think that limited the potential audience to
one person--me.

I tried repeatedly to bring those aspects of the signal problem that WADN
could do something about (no modulation, 1150 splatter) to the attention of
Lloyd Simon, then the principal owner. Simon was a strange character. He
seemed almost pathologically shy. Either he wasn't interested in what I was
trying to tell him, which I thought was odd, or he wasn't technical enough
to appreciate it. Another possible explanation is that he was so exhausted
by his several-year-long battle with the town of Acton over the TX site that
he couldn't muster the energy to do battle with Greater Media over their
clearly non-conforming operation of 1150.

Note that Greater Media didn't do anything about the splatter problem until
their VP of Engineering made a trip to Boston in preparation for the DAB
trials that WNFT ran early this year. This was almost eight years after WADN
went on the air, and the splatter problem had existed for years before WADN
signed on. Note also that while the installation of NRSC filters at WNFT
apparently controlled the splatter, 1150 has been even better behaved,
modulation-wise, since ARS has been programming the station. I find that
quite remarkable, because high modulation levels are a hallmark of hard-rock
formats, such as the one ARS is running. Goes to show that at least some AM
signal problems do yield to technology.

- -------------------------------
Dan Strassberg (Note: Address is CASE SENSITIVE!)
ALL _LOWER_ CASE!!!--> dan.strassberg@worldnet.att.net
(617) 558-4205; Fax (617) 928-4205

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