WBZ cuts Leveille, Cuddy, Dyett, poss. Desmarais

[Eli Polonsky]

> From: "Ari Alpert" <xradioguy@yahoo.com>
> Thursday, January 1, 2009 2:35 PM
>
> If CBS is looking to cut costs, turning off a 50k
> transmitter 5 hours per night would probably save 
> a few pennies!

I very much doubt they will do that. The current (and
very unfortunate) mode for much of radio appears to
be to save money by cutting local air talent payroll
for shifts that are not deemed essential for optimal
listener numbers and sponsor exposure, IE; drivetime.
Of course, live overnight shifts have been the first
victims, and there are many stations that no longer 
have live evening shows, and some no longer program
live or locally mid-days.

However, it's still considered important for major
market competitive stations to keep the signals on 
the air and modulated overnights, even if only with 
generic network programming, infomercials, or (for 
music stations) automation or board-ops... because 
they want to maintain a 24/7 dial presence so that 
people can set their clock radios at night to wake 
up to the all-important local and heavily sponsored 
morning drive show.

Though the major companies no longer feel that it's
worth paying local air talent for competitive local
nighttime programming, they wouldn't want to risk 
having someone set their clock radio to competition, 
or an overnight shift worker (or insomniac) tuning 
to another station (and perhaps staying there into 
the next day, or forever) just because their signal 
was off the air late at night. 

Only all-brokered stations that fail to sell airtime,
or maybe a few very small-market stations with little
competition for a very localized audience, sign off 
the air overnights nowadays, and with satellites and
automation even most small-market commercial stations
now remain on the air overnights. (Not including day-
timers that must sign off at night, but even many of
them have gotten low-power nighttime authorizations).

It seems to be a matter of where the bottom line is 
set by the majority of stations and companies. If 
they all universally lower the bar by eliminating 
local overnight programming, then they don't have to
be as competitive for attracting listeners to those
shifts, since they apparently feel that any revenue
those shifts have generated have not been worth the 
local payrolls. But, as long as the stations are on
the air with SOMETHING modulating the carrier 24/7,
then (practically) all of them will be. I'm sure 
that if company-wide directives eventually suggest
major-market stations sign off overnight, they will 
all follow suit, when or if that ever happens.

EP