No more questions about WBOQ flipping formats; it happened this morning

SteveOrdinetz steveord@bit-net.com
Mon Dec 22 14:34:45 EST 2003


> Just caught a promo that said that Jackie Ankeles, the woman who did
> middays under the old format will be doing middays under the new oldies
> format, so I guess I can't be sure how much of the programming will be
> birdfeed. I think her program was voicetracked before and will
> undoubtedly be voicetracked now. I believe that only the AM-drive show
> was done live. If the reason for the flip wasn't that oldies is
> available via satellite, whereas the unique blend of jazz renditions of
> pop standards by current artists isn't, and satellite is cheaper to
> program than voice-tracking, then I don't understand the reason for the
> flip.

Maybe the satellite is just temporary until the new library can be loaded
into the automation?  Maybe they'll use it overnights and/or weekends. 
Mid-days seems an odd format to originate locally if most of the station
is birdfeed...you'd think PM drive would have a higher priority.



 The old format definitely appealed to an upscale audience and the
> station had a good spot load to show for its efforts. So is this a
> personal thing with the new owner (he likes oldies? he likes owning a
> station that sounds like 3000 others around the country?)


Maybe he likes a station that has marketing potential?

>
> Maybe the problem was that the old format was too hard to explain to
> time buyers who can't hear the station. Maybe the new owner thinks that
> big-city-based time buyers will be more likely to make buys on a station
> whose format they understand. Does he REALLY think he can attract
> national buys to a Class A FM that can't be heard in most of the large
> market its service area abuts? That's clear thinking! As far as I could
> tell, WBOQ wasn't broken, so why try to to fix it? It still seems to me
> that it all boils down to greed.

National buys?  Not likely.  My guess was, like you said he wanted a
format that (1)appealed to a marketable demo and (2) could be explained to
potential advertisers in 25 words or less.  Hey, it's his station, he can
do whatever he wants with it.  I doubt greed had anything to do with it.

Chill, Dan...we've all had stations that we liked change format.  Often
times both listeners had the radio on at the same time.






More information about the Boston-Radio-Interest mailing list