Re: Frank Sunday Out At WCCM??

["Mark" <markwats@netway.com>]

   Bill O'Neill wrote:

> Word out there is Frank's selling radio further up the Merrimack near
> the ocean.  I would suspect that it's cheaper to run bird-feed PM
> drive than taking a salesman out of the market for half the day. The
> expectation seemed to be that the station was going to bring over the
> Messina-crafted local AS format that he had established on WLLH.  ONce
> they went to the bird & the box except for PM drive with Messina, it
> was just a matter of time that there would be no room for humans....
  
I was expecting that Frank's format was going to run on WCCM,even if it was
the "jock in the box" system that had run on WLLH.I started having my
doubts when they stuck with Talk America birdfeed nights/overnights till
October,when they changed the birdfeed receiver to Music Of Your Life.Makes
you wonder if they had no intention of running a locally produced MOYL
format,why bother changing the satellite receiver settings?
I just wonder if Frank left on his own,knowing that his format was passed
up in favor of the dish,or was he shown the exit???
 
> The Lawrence kilowatt seems like it's not sure what it wants to be (or
> where). They have what resembles a largely unattended, temporary
> set-up in a store front in Lowell and buzzing a lot about taking on
> _that_ market while not embracing the one that is largely ignored by
> everybody on the planet, their COL of Lawrence, Plaistow, Andover,
> NAndover, Methuen, & even Middleton, N. Reading.  

  They made quite a lot of noise about becoming "Lowell's Radio Station"
after Mega took over WLLH.IMHO,I don't think they've passed the test.Why
haven't they passed??Well for starters,the Lowell studio which does sit
idle 99.89995% of the time.A few weeks ago they made a lot of noise about a
new Monday-Friday talk show,"Lowell Today" hosted by Bob Ellis,to air daily
from the Lowell studios.They ran ads in the Lowell Sun,sent faxes to
various businesses (I happened to see one of these faxes come into my
workplace) and on-air promos as well.I think I can count on one hand how
many times this show has run from the Lowell studio since it started almost
a month ago.

  Second,the day signal is quite OK in Lowell.Once the sun sets,the 1K is
sliced to 243W,and depending on conditions,various levels of interference
from Windsor,Montreal,et al, you can't always depend on a usable signal in
all areas of Lowell.The night signal tends to always be usable on a regular
basis in the area of outer Andover St over to Rogers St near the junction
of I-495.Sometimes the night signal is garbage in the area of
 Le Lacheur park,where the Lowell Spinners play their home games.

  And finally,just because they have the Lowell Spinners games it doesn't
automatically make them a Lowell station.I don't recall them doing much on
air promotion of the games,other than the occasional teaser from Frank
Sunday on his show.

  Oh,and before I forget,their top of the hour ID:"WCCM,Lawrence-Boston"
Night signal in Boston? If it's not always dependable in Lowell........


 Mark Watson