Doin' the Chancellor Swing (Was Re: WPLM)

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

>Dan Strassberg wrote:
<snip>
>If the postings at Airwaves are correct, the swing-based standards format
>that Chancellor initiated at KABL (Oakland/SF) and is now exporting to KLAC
>(Los Angeles) is truly trans-generational. That Chancellor would invest in a
>standards-based music format on two of its major market AMs certainly says
>good things about Chancellor (the first good things I've heard about the
>company since I can't remember when). Allegedly, the format is working in SF
>and Chancellor has high hopes for it in LA.

        Watching the Dick Clark New Year's show last night, I was thinking
about this Neo-Swing thing that's happening as they had the Cherry Poppin'
Daddies on and 20-somethings dancing (and actually knowing how to do the
dances). I also think that a station committed to this format could do
something with local sales if they really worked at it, even though the
conventional wisdom says advertisers don't want the older demo. That's a
huge problem with national sales, so it still would be a bad problem. But
the Chancellor thing is encouraging. If it works in California, you'd think
they'd jump right on it in Boston. As you point out, they already have the
station that has the AS franchise for the market.

>Hmm. At the risk of sounding like Joseph Gallant, maybe Chancellor should
>buy 1200 from Fairbanks and sell 1430 to the Asher family (even if the
>Ashers are willing to pay only $1.00 for it) under the condition that the
>Ashers move WESX from 1230 to 1430. This would greatly improve WESX's day
>signal and would make way for the proposed move of 1200 to the WEZE site at
>Wellington Circle. (Currently, that move is impossible because of prohibited
>overlap with WESX.) Chancellor could then move WXKS (AM) to 1200 with 50
>kW-U DA-N. Although the night signal west of Wellington Circle would still
>be poor, it would be a lot better than the 1430 night signal, and would
>probably be good enough that a station perceived to have an exclusive format
>could do OK.
<snip>

        But what about WESX's night signal on 1430? Or is WXKS's pattern
aimed that way? Also, the 1200 signal west of Wellington Circle -- what are
the likely limits of its actual listening area west of the antenna? How
would you estimate its overall night coverage of the market compared with
590, 680, 850, 1030 and 1510? Except for WBZ, they all turn up DOA west of
Framingham (680 has trouble in Natick!), and especially west of 495,
anyway.

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

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