The last days of WASN radio...1500AM

[iwasthere]

tt i will find out for you.

[Towntalk]

I seeby your link that it's for sale for about $1500.00. Maby Jay might be interested in buying it. Does all the equipment go with the price or is that just for the name?

[iwasthere]

just this afternoon i was a co-guest with another guest name frank. the internet radio www.insightradio.com is on tues from five to seven and sat from three to five. all topics are discussed with personal insights. all are welcome to tune in to listen and participate with the radio staff. i listen to radio deluxe that is broadcasted live from selected locations throughout the yr.

[irishbobcat]

In this day and age....one person can create and run an on-line station by themselves simply using their computer.....24/7.....and be eating and drinking
on Federal Street at the same time.....
It depends how much money and time and effort one would want to puty into the effort.....

One can get started with an internet radio station from $30 to $100 a month......

[Towntalk]

Now that would work, but if it were to come about, it would need a staff ... to produce the programs ... to sell ads ... to write copy ... to maintain the web site.

You would like to see a station that centered around the downtown area so you couldn't rely on feeds from other internet stations, but would have to offer a fresh approach custom made for the specialized service. If there is any music the station would have to be licensed by ASCAP and BMI and that costs money.

I'm sure Dennis could offer other insights into creating an on line station and its needs.

[jay]

Would some version of an internet radio station work for downtown Youngstown?

No transmitter or staff would be needed.   

[irishbobcat]

Anyone who buys an daytime AM radio station these days have a lot of things going against them....first, AM radios these days from Japan and China are
not produced with the same high quality as in the past because Japan and China do not have AM radio stations...they no longer have the drive or desire to produce
quality receivers. Even today's car radios are sub-standarded to the car radios we had in the past that were made by Delco....

Second, AM radio signals are greatly affected by radio waves from cell phones, computers, etc.....there is far greater interference these days and new owners will have to put in
big bucks to send out a quality signal to get over the garbage and sound great on today's sub-standard radios....

Someone with deep pockets and a strong passion for radio needs to be the buyer....

[Towntalk]

It would never work ... too small a market. Have you any idea what it costs to run a radio station? It's huge, and since radio stations like WASN and WGFT depend on advertising, they need the entire marketing area businesses running commercials on their stations, and there simply aren't enough businesses downtown to depend upon.
Restaurants are a very small percentage of radio advertising, and most of the retail stores downtown do not advertise on radio even on the more popular stations with higher ratings.

The costs of turning on the transmitter each day ... paying staff ... maintaining equipment doesn't come cheap, nor can the station be operated on the cheap.

The demographics of downtown Youngstown in the main are senior citizens and college students ... two entirely different tastes in radio listening.

Judging from what Dennis has been posting, the new owners have already decided the direction their programming will go, and once they do take over, they certainly will be watching the market ratings, so lets just see how it works out.

One interesting note about WGFT is that two long time local broadcasters Dan Godner (DJ) and John Nagy (news) with a great track record already work for WGFT, (they use to work at WKBN-AM until the station downsized and laid off several on air personal) so they know the market, and hopefully they will be kept on after the change.

[jay]

The station is 500 watts and is sun up to sun down.

Would it be possible to design programming for just the downtown businesses and residents?  Sell ads to the downtown eateries offering daily specials for the business crowd and the residential crowd.  Also, sell ads to the performance venues such as Powers, Stambaugh Auditorium,  University Theater, Convocation Center, Oakland and the Victorian Players.   Have daily news about the happenings of the downtown.  Make the station the place to go for anything downtown.

[Towntalk]

Does this mean that WASN and WGFT are going to be programming music only, if they are sold and what's the chance of their seeking an increase in power?

Lets hope that once the dust settles that the two stations have a fighting chance of increasing their share of the local market, something they weren't able to do with past owners.

I'm sure that there will be those who will bemoan the fact that they will drop the talk format, but if they can increase their coverage and boost their ratings to a higher level, that would really help pull listeners away from the other stations.

[irishbobcat]

The latest news on Youngstown radio....
NOT K-LOVE OR AIR 1, YET: California-based Christian radio mega-operator Educational Media Foundation was supposed to take over control of Bernard Radio's urban WRBP/101.9 Hubbard, and change the Valley station's format to one of its satellite formats...but that hasn't happened yet.
Since the first of the year, numerous listeners tell us that 101.9 has been playing not "K-Love" or "Air 1″, or the previous "Jamz" urban format, but...the Sounds of Silence, and we're not talking about the Simon & Garfunkel hit.
What happened?
It's been pointed out to us that FCC records show that EMF's applications to take over 101.9 and to change it to non-commercial status are still in the pending "ACCEPTED FOR FILING" mode. For that matter, the station's May 2012 license renewal filing shows the same status.
Now, the EMF folks could well work up a programming agreement to put one of their formats on WRBP until the sale closed, but they apparently haven't done so.  EMF programmed "K-Love" on then-Beacon Broadcasting's WEXC/107.1 (now WLVX) Greenville PA while awaiting their purchase of that station to close.
We've heard that the original intent was to launch one of the EMF formats on 101.9 right after the calendar changed to 2013.
So, we don't know why they haven't done so with 101.9, and we still don't know for sure if the current WRBP will relaunch with "K-Love" (still heard on 107.1) or "Air 1″ as a complimentary format to that PA rimshot signal.
We do know that Bernard's urban talk/AC WASN/1500 Youngstown is noting its last day on the air on its website, January 31st. (We aren't nearly close enough to the signal to know if it's still on the air at this writing.)
The rumor mill says either WASN, classic hits WGFT/1330 Campbell "Oldies 1330″ or both will end up in new ownership hands, and that one of the stations will be paired with FM translator W233AI/94.3 Niles.
That translator is in the process of being sold to Helen Bednarcyk, who is (as far as we know) the wife of Bernard's general manager in Youngstown, Skip Bednarcyk.
The 94.3 translator would certainly be upgraded from the current 2 watt licensed power level at 2 meters (!) to a much more powerful signal, up to the translator limit of 250 watts. Such a signal could cover much of the populated area of the Mahoning Valley.
What happens to the 1500-or-1330/94.3 combo when all the pieces are in place?
Well, there's certainly an urban hole in the market with the move of Bernard's 101.9 to Christian format operator EMF...a hole that Sagittarius Broadcasting's WHTX/1570 Warren is going to try to fill to some degree, if only on AM.
If it hasn't happened already, the standards outlet now owned by Nelson Cintron plans to flip to the urban AC format "The Touch", which was heard in Akron on then-WTOU/1350 back right after Jaybird Drennan and the "Whistler" country format went away.
"The Touch" is a satellite 24/7 format offering from Cumulus Media, and 1350′s use of the format was so long ago that ABC Radio/SMN ran the format then...

[Towntalk]

Here is an idea on how WASN might be saved, provided they can find someone who is willing to buy it.

Since the station is licensed for daytime only operation, and is only 500 watts, program nostalgia music 1940's; 50's; and 60's with three newscasts per day at 6:00AM; Noon; and sign off news.

WASN also streams which allows for 24 hour service, so on the streaming service, keeping the nostalgia format; add four old time radio programs per night.

Sell ads by half hour blocks on the over the air service as well as the on line service with a maximum of 5 commercials per block for a total of five minutes at the top of the hour and at the half hour.

On the on line service, sell ads that would be on the web site, plus a maximum of two minutes of commercials per half hour in the actual programming.

There is a huge cult following for old time radio shows and since there would be no limitations so far as distance is concerned, this could work, and by working with one of the companies that holds the rights to hundreds of old time radio shows, here would be an opportunity to generate revenue buy selling Cd's of old time radio shows.

[Towntalk]

Whoever buys it better have deep pockets and a workable plan to satisfy the FCC, because they sure are going to need it right out of the starting gate. Low power stations that only operate from sunup to sunset don't generate the ad revinue that the larger stations do,and with so many stations chasing ad revinue in this market, it's all uphill, and that hill is very high.

[irishbobcat]

WASN Radio....1500 AM.....announced January 31,2013 as their last day of broadcasting.....

The station is on the market for $75,000......

anybody got some loose change to buy it?