Re: Imus gives his version....

[Dan.Strassberg@att.net]

On the other hand, GM certainly does not have an 
impressive track record with talkers. They had the best 
AM signal in DC in WWRC 980 and they invested a bundle 
improving the signal even further when they increased 
the day power to 50 kW. But they bounced from one 
formatic and ratings disaster to another, all within the 
talk genre. And they flipped personalities about as 
rapidly as most of us change shirts, which was probably 
a big part of the problem. Finally, they sold the 
station.

GM has some properties that print money (the best local 
example is WMJX), but they also make a fair number of 
mistakes. Besides WWRC, there is the famous episode in 
GM's hometown of Philly, where they acquired classical 
WFLN and flipped it to some popular format, only to see 
the ratings drop by half and the demos change to a far 
less affluent audience. GM has now flipped the station 
again, after only about a year, and it remains to be 
seen how much time it will take to get back to square 
one as far as audience size is concerned. Moreover, I 
doubt whether they will ever replicate the classical 
demos.

Entercom has always had a reputation for putting the 
bottom line at the top of their priorities. Clearly, 
their approach to profits is inordinately short-sighted. 
Imus claims that his program was directly or indirectly 
responsible for $8 million of WEEI's annual billings. I 
have no way of proving or disproving that statement. It 
may be common enough for AM drive to account for 50% or 
more of a station's billings, but that may not be the 
case at WEEI, because the Red Sox and Celtics probably 
account for a very big chunk of billings (and expenses).

Still, if Imus accounted for revenues that exceeded 
three times the cost of acquiring his program, it would 
not seem to make any sense whatever to let the contract 
slip away. Assuming that Imus was responsible for 
billings equal to three times his program's cost and 
WEEI could pick up another program for _free_ (say by 
bartering avails in _other_ dayparts), they'd have to 
bill at least 2/3 as much to break even. Fat chance, and 
that doesn't even account for the damage WBOS might do 
at WRKO.



>I wonder how long Rush and "not a Doctor" Laura have on their contracts 
with
>Entercom?  I wouldn't suprise me if Greater Media tried to make a 
run and one or
>both of these high-profile, syndicated talkers.  Heck, Rush's ratings 
have
>fallen to the point that he may not be able to "crack the lineup" 
anymore at
>WRKO, if you use the same, lame rationale that WEEI used to let Imus 
slip away.
>
>Mike Thomas
>WXLO & Mediabase 24/7
>
>
>> If Johnson is correct the WBOS will now go all-talk, Entercom has 
made a big
>> mistake.  Imus fans will follow him to the station, giving WBOS 
a boost
>> against Entercom's WRKO.
>
>

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