Re: SO many WQEW fans...it's amazing!

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

>Tim Davisson wrote:
>In the past few weeks,  I've read dozens of
>comments about the format change at WQEW.
>
>I am truly stunned how many people who are
>age 20 to early 50's who seem to love this
>station.  This is not the typical core audience
>of most standards stations.
<snip>

        When it comes to things like musical taste or radio listening
habits, the denizens at this newsgroup are way out of any sort of
resemblance to your basic normal general public. A lot of radio people have
a great interest in music and are very knowledgeable about it. That
sometimes leads to a much broader musical taste than most people have, in
my experience. Among my non-radio friends, I see that for some of them
music isn't that important at all. But even for those who love music and
spend a lot of time with it, they usually like just one type of music and
that's it. I always have found radio people much more likely to be
interested in widely differing sorts of music.
        Besides the music, there's a lot of appreciation among a lot of the
people on this group for radio programming that is different from the basic
regular formats that are duplicated everywhere. And WQEW was
unique--different from any of the satellite AS feeds and from other locally
programmed AS stations I have heard. Most of them seem to imitate the
satellite format playlists with local jocks. WQEW was uniquely New York in
the music it played. It was really a direct descendant of the AS format on
WNEW, so it had a heritage, in a funny sort of way. And, beyond
programming, the station, as WQXR (AM), has an interesting history going
back to the '30s with its start as a "high fidelity" experiemental station.

        IMO, the New York Times has just written a very shameful chapter in
its corporate history. As of around 10 p.m. tonight, it sounded as if WQEW
was going to do no programming to mark the end of this format. The jocks
had worked under a gag order until they suddenly disappeared last Monday. I
wonder if they were just yanked without notice to make sure they didn't say
anything. So, they didn't even get to say any personal farewells, as far as
I know. The station, again, as far as I know, never mentioned directly in
its programming that it was changing formats. Except, of course, that eight
or ten other radio stations were buying ads to woo the audience and some of
those ads directly mentioned the end of WQEW's format.
                When WNEW folded about six years ago, the Times jumped in
and put on the AS format, winning points in the community, as it had for
many years running classical when other formats probably could have been
more profitable. Now it's take the money and run, and hide behind the
prestige of the continuing classical format on the FM station.
        Another post here today said the Times company has the obligation
to make the most money for stockholders. But that's a general statement and
you can argue about how to go about that and whether you focus on just the
next quarter or the long-term profitability of the company. You could argue
that the good will the Times generates in the community from running (until
later tonight) its two radio stations helps the bottom line in the long run
by reinforcing the corporate image the Times wants (supposedly) to project.
We all think of the Times as a national newspaper, and it is, but it is
first a community newspaper for the New York metro area and would be out of
business tomorrow if it were not successful at that.
        So, bah, humbug, to the Times, the grinch who stole American
popular standards. Here's to WPLM.


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Have you patronized the skywave signal of an AM Class A station today?

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