Re: adios WARE

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

>Kevin Vahey wrote:
<snip>
>Look at how in 20 years the landscape has changed.....WAAB and WORC in
>Worcester, WKBR in Manchester, WLOB in Portland, WICE in Providence, now all
>but forgotten as people switched to FM.

        And in Conn., gone, in many respects, are WPOP, was all news; WNHC
(now WYBC (AM)), was locally programmed soul/urban/Af-Am oriented talk;
WNLC (AM), deleted. Also gone as 100 percent local stations are WWCO, WMMW,
WSNG, although WDRC/Buckley actually does some good, interesting things in
doing local news dropins and local ad availabilities within its
four-station simulcast.

>But, what is bothering me more here is we are "lamenting" the death of a
>station, WHICH IS NOT DYING. It is changing owners, format and LANGUAGE.
>Isn't that what we are upset about? The station is switching to Spanish.
>Who can fault the owners for selling at the price quoted???? Why Mega wants
>it, I can't answer but it fills a hole that their money counters feel is
>justified.

        Some people may have the reaction that flipping to Spanish is the
same thing as eliminating a station, but that's not the case IMO. NPR just
had a long news report on yesterday afternoon about the rapid growth of
Spanish-language radio. With WARE, I think the main thing is that it's so
far from the target audience that it seems to a lot of people like a real
marginal use of a facility.