Radio Disney (Was Re: WNFT-1150 AM)

[mwaters@wesleyan.edu (Martin J. Waters)]

>Wayne Carter wrote:
>        I attended (out of curiosity) a recent live remote at the Arsenal
>Mall called the Radio Disney World Tour. Backed by their "Motherland" it
>was obviously a nationally funded event, and took over the entire mall.
>>        What amazed me was the depth of the response they received. There
>>were literally thousands of kids and parents there! The entire place was
>>packed out while I was there, about three hours.
>>        WPZE may only have 5kw, but it is my supposition that they could
>>be a major radio force in the coming years with R/D.  This response level
>>for a six month old station is pretty good.

        Whenever the ratings come out now, I always wonder what the Disney
station is doing in each of its markets, because the ratings don't measure
this audience. If the response is as good in general as that remote showed,
one would think Disney would have a survey and start promoting it. Has
anyone heard what WPZE's advertising staff is saying in sales pitches?

>        I would not be terribly surprised to see Hibernia positioning to
>aquire one of the soon-to-be-spun-off FM signals in the ARS/CBS deal,
>giving R/D a signal that could be heard relatively well in the "new"
>market #6, Worcester/Boston.
>        What do you guys think of 93.7, Radio Disney?!  ;-)

        So far, Disney is using only AMs. And in a lot of cities they're
AMs with signals that are not anywhere near as good as WPZE, like their
Providence station and the one that they are about to go on in Hartford.
But perhaps the use of AM is a strategy to get started cheaply and see how
it goes. Paying those prices, it's a lot easier to justify a format that
they may think of mainly as a promo for the rest of their empire. If it
turns out there's real money in it, I wouldn't be surprised if they started
moving it to FM.

------------------------------