Re: 1060, 96.9...

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

>Mark Laurence wrote:
>
>The most successful music stations have had similar formats for
>decades too.  Kiss, Magic, WAAF, WBCN, Oldies, WCRB, and
>WZLX have all stuck to the same formats for over a decade, and in
>some cases far longer.

        I agree that in many cases that's true. However, there also are
more-or-less new type music formats that pop up and succeed quickly in many
cases in many markets. Modern rock is a recent example. I was mainly trying
to see a difference between news/info. type programming and music because
the content is so basically different. Music formats on radio partly depend
on outside factors, like with modern rock where there just seemed to be a
moment in rock music several years ago where there was suddenly a new thing
happening. Radio helped it happen, but also jumped on the train when it
already was rolling. While there are different types of talk stations,
there's a lot less range and even less in all news. It is what it is, so
tradition/habit/image of dependability, etc., come much more into play.

>When in the history of radio has anyone done that?  Sure, there
>might be a few stations whose owners stuck it out that long in the
>hopes that their dreams would come true, and maybe in a few
>cases they did.  But I can't think of anyone who ever threw a huge
>investment into their radio station, and didn't expect things to pay
>off for five years.

        I didn't mean a licensee ever did, does now, or should sit still
for losing money for five years. I'm talking about how much profit is
viewed as being enough, or whether an owner is willing to run a deficit
even for a short time to put a format on in a first-class way. The olden
days owners in a lot of cases had lower expectations for profits. Plus,
there were all the program content rules, like every station basically had
to do news, that built in a lot of expenses. Now, it's like playing slot
machines. If a format doesn't pay off the big jackpot right away, they
flip. The business is just different. Without necessarily even putting a
value judgment on it, I'm just saying the business is different now, like
just about every other business.