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Old July 28th 06, 05:35 PM posted to rec.radio.shortwave
D Peter Maus D Peter Maus is offline
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First recorded activity by RadioBanter: Jul 2006
Posts: 962
Default FM Format change in Fresno...

m II wrote:
wrote:

It'll get tired after a month or so;

Who'd advertize there ?


Exactly. I'm wondering if this format change indicates a trend. Are the
religion based stations losing people to the extent they are no longer
able to attract advertisers or contributors?

It's a sad state of affairs that the new owners think a tasteless
approach will increase income. David Eduardo is probably right when he
says there will be another change once the initial 'excitement' is over.

It's all publicity.


We had a station sterilize a frequency here in Chicago. Went from
CHR, to "Hell Radio..." which drew a LOT of fire (so to speak) and then
to Young Talk, which failed dismally.

When WNIB went from it's classical format, to WDRV's Classic Rock,
they stunted with a week of 24 hour single artist segues before they
settled down.

I did a format change from Rock to Country where we took the station
dark and did crickets and bird sound effects, with only a legal ID each
hour, for a weekend.

Things will settle down into a more mainstream format.

But to answer your question....there has been a strong movement in
recent years by, for, and against religious stations in the US.

For awhile there, and some still today, religious broadcasters
snapped up the non comm frequencies for satellite distributed
evangelicals. Many public stations found themselves crowded out of
coverage by drop-in religious broadcasters. There was, and has been
huge, debate over this due to the pseudo commercial nature of much
religious programming and the threatened loss of some Public Radio
coverage.

Aggressive steps have been taken by Public Broadcasters to protect
their franchises, by consolidating locals allocations in the region to
retain their coverage and prevent religious drop-ins from eating up
their weaker signal areas, mostly fringe. WBEZ acquired two additional
frequencies, and is working on a third, in the wake of this.

Still, religious FM's are having a tough time meeting the revenue
goals possible with more mainstream fare, and are the target of
acquisitions all over the dial. Like the Florians at WNIB, it's tough to
turn down nearly half a billion dollars, no matter how well you're
doing, or how much you believe in your product.







“The only thing worse than being talked about is not being talked about.”

Oscar Wilde