Re: Will News/Information In Morning Drive Soon Vanish from Music Stations?

[Mark Shneyder <bostonradio@yahoo.com>]

Interesting subject.

I don't know how much music they'll add but GSM will be
smiling as the spot load gets increased by a unit or two.

But then again, in a major market with one or sometimes
two all-news signals, do you really need to have news
update/reports(in-house or customized) on a music station during AM or
PM drive? If you're a GM, you already know that you will have an
automatic audience drop-off at the top and the bottom of the hour as
everyone punches in a news station(s)for top stories and traffic. You
might as well do without news.

In the AM-drive thesedays, music FM's are heavy on 'lifestyle' and
entertainment updates. Real news is mostly just headlines(one or
sometimes two sentences) anyway. 

If I was running a music station, I wouldn't even bother getting news
from Metro or Shadow. Just traffic and weather, please. News is not
really their specialty and it shows in their updates. For example,
Metro Networks in most markets doesn't even subscribe to wire
services. What they refer to 'published' reports' comes directly from
your morning paper or the Web. They often buy news reports from local
TV stations because they don't have their own street reporters.

- -M

- ---Joseph Gallant <notquite@hotmail.com> wrote:
>
> In the last couple of years, most music-formatted FM stations (here
> and elsewhere) have gotten rid of newscasts in afternoon drive.
> I wonder how long it will be before music-formatted FM stations begin
> to eliminate news (and maybe even traffic reports) from morning drive?
> By eliminating news from morning drive, big-market FM stations would
> be able to save the $ 25,000 to $ 40,000 (aproximate) annual salary of
> a newsperson, plus the cost of a wire service printer.
> In addition, by eliminating news and traffic (and cutting back weather
> to the "bare bones"), music-intensive stations might be able to add 7
> to 9 minutes of music an hour in morning-drive.
> I think the first music-intensive FM stations that will drop news (and
> maybe traffic) in morning drive will be the "Magic"-type (similar to
> Boston's WMJX) stations that claim "more music, less talk".
> Joseph Gallant
> <notquite@hotmail.com>
> 
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