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

[SteveOrdinetz]

> 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.