Entercom flips NY talker to Air America

[Scott Fybush]

At 12:20 PM 9/17/2004 -0400, Bob Nelson wrote:

>Entercom has changed the lineup of their WROC in Rochester, NY
>from conservative talkers to the Air America network. Some may feel
>the poor ratings they were getting were due to a weak signal, or
>some feel that Rochester is a liberal-leaning area and they'd
>prefer Franken to Ingraham/Hannity, etc.

My analysis, from just down the street:

WROC had been doing the Ingraham/O'Reilly/Hannity thing for about a year 
and a half without making a dent in the ratings against the big gun of WHAM 
(with Rush, Savage and 50 kW against WROC's 1 kW signal). The signal 
certainly wasn't WROC's only problem, but trying to make a go of things 
against WHAM with essentially the same format was an uphill battle and then 
some.

No doubt Entercom looked at the numbers Air America's been doing in markets 
that are similar demographically (Portland, Oregon for instance) and saw a 
niche. All you need is 2 or 3 percent of the audience, after all.

Is Rochester especially liberal? Not really. The city, like any big 
northeastern city, votes reliably Democratic year after year, but Monroe 
County surrounding it is majority Republican and the outlying counties are 
solidly Republican.

s