Re: WNFT (was Re Norhteast Radio Watch)

[Douglas Broda <dougbroda@mindspring.com>]

Dan:

I was thinking of WEEI and WITS -- whether WEEI failed is debatable (the fellow
at 'BZ who wrote another poster thinks it did; your position is certainly a
reasonable interpretation, too). WITS, IMO, was a failure.

I said rough on the market number because I didn't have the market list in front
of me. BTW, I don't disqualify something as an all-news if it carries a *few*
programs that are talk. WCBS has always carried Sunday AM talk and carried the
Mystery Theater at one point, but I would have called it all news throughout. At
my last listen (admittedly months ago), Houston's situation would fit into
all-news, though it's got a few other programs.

Top 15 markets, for the record:

1) NYC
2) LA
3) Chicago
4) SF
5) Philly
6) Detroit
7) Dallas
8) DC
9) Houston
10) Boston
11) Miami
12) Atlanta
13) Seattle
14) Nassau/Suffolk
15) San Diego

My rough count was off by two or three. As I said, Dallas has no all-news any
more; I can't speak to how well they cover breaking news and emergencies.
Similarly, Atlanta doesn't either (WCNN and WGST failed at that format), though
it has at least one station with heavy coverage of emergencies and breaking news
(WSB, which fits the "full service" moniker). Nor does, IMO, San Diego
(Nassau/Suffolk is covered by WCBS, which has  substantial hard-news coverage of
those areas *and* whose signal covers them, but I won't give either LA all-news
credit for covering San Diego, because while the signal gets there well, they
don't make any real effort to cover the area).

So... of the top 15, 11 have all-news stations covering the market by my count.

I don't think the critical issue is all-news, though -- I think it is, as others
have said, covering the crises in weather and other breaking news. If a small
market like Albany (#57) can have radio stations go wall-to-wall in a crisis (as
at least two local stations did when a tornado flattened a neighborhood here
recently and many more touched down or threatened to -- on a weekend, BTW), so
can Boston. The problem is the mindset of programmers. The answer, IMO, is in
developing contracts with local TV stations -- many of the tornado reports here
were by TV reporters and weathercasters talking to the radio audience by phone
link. It promotes the TV station's news, is inexpensive for the radio station
(or, in some cases, free), and they're already covering the story anyway, so
there's no added expense to the TV station save a phone call.

Dan Strassberg wrote:

> At 06:05 PM 6/14/98 -0400, you wrote:
> >
> >OTOH, despite being an area with many well-educated news junkies, all-news
> *has*
> >failed twice in Boston.
> >
> Huh? I don't think the all-news format on the old WEEI 590 failed. CBS
> simply disposed of the station (purportedly because, at the time, CBS was
> interested only in 50 kW full-time AM signals and WEEI was 5 kW). The first
> new owner, Helen broadcasting, kept the format for quite a number of years
> until the station was sold again and the second new owner, the Boston
> Celtics, changed the format. I believe that, by then, WBZ had gone heavily
> into news. I think that when CBS sold WEEI, they acquired KRLD, a 50 kw
> full-time news-talk station in Dallas, the other top-15 market that you
> claim has no all-news station. And regardless of whether they provide
> adequate coverage of local news--especially in emergencies that occur at
> times other than Monday through Friday from 5:30 AM to 7:00 PM--Boston has
> two news-talk stations: WBZ and WBUR, both of which do very well in the
> ratings. The only all-news station that I can think of as failing in this
> market was WGTR, which had signal problems and was hopelessly outclassed by
> its established competitor, WEEI.
>
> Yeah New York and LA have two 24/7 all-news stations apiece. Chicago has
> one, WBBM, and one news-talk station, WMAQ. San Francisco has KCBS. DC has
> WTOP. Philly has KYW. What are the other all-news signals in top-15 markets.
> Is St Louis a top-15 market? I think KMOX is news-talk, not all-news. And
> what about Houston? Is it a top-15 market and is KTRH all news? Is Tampa Bay
> a top-15 market? What is the all-news station there, WHNZ? I think WHNZ
> carries some talk, and despite a good frequency, 570, WHNZ can only be heard
> along the coast because it has to protect WDBO in Orlando on 580.
>
> -------------------------------
> 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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Douglas J. Broda
Broda and Burnett
Attorneys at Law
80 Ferry Street
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(518) 272-0580
dougbroda@mindspring.com
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