Hard to imagine they'd want to ditch the WLIB calls as they take on liberal
talk. I noticed you mentioned WINS in the same post. Heavily branded Top 40
calls, and scandal-tarnished as well. Became quite a successful news brand
nonetheless.

(You mentioned WABC as well. Highly branded calls but in that case
obviously untouchable. I was amazed a few years back when they briefly
experimented with "770" as their "channel brand.")

Jerome

"Rich Wood" wrote in message
I'm afraid the BBC is stuck in the last century. Rush Limbaugh has
been using that slogan almost since day one well over a decade ago.
It's a little like saying WINS is in a sad state because they've used
"Give us 22 minutes and we'll give you the world." Sometimes a slogan
stands up to the test of time. Advertising agencies have orgasmic
incedents when they discover one of their slogans enters popular
culture.
...
New York will be very difficult because their outlet is solidly
branded as a Black station, both Black talk and Dominican music. The
WLIB heritage (sadly) will have to be destroyed before a new one can
be created. That'll require a call letter change and very expensive
promotion. Their competition will be WABC. WABC does a lot of transit
promotion and television during important rating surveys. WABC and
KFI, Los Angeles compete for the title of the most listened-to Talk
station in the nation.

On 29 Mar 2004 21:42:07 GMT, "Cooperstown.Net"
wrote:

Hard to imagine they'd want to ditch the WLIB calls as they take on liberal
talk. I noticed you mentioned WINS in the same post. Heavily branded Top 40
calls, and scandal-tarnished as well. Became quite a successful news brand
nonetheless.

(You mentioned WABC as well. Highly branded calls but in that case
obviously untouchable. I was amazed a few years back when they briefly
experimented with "770" as their "channel brand.")

Both stations took many years to change their branding. As I recall,
WINS took about 8 years to really take off. I don't believe WLIB will
have the luxury of that kind of time. Talk Radio is a slow build.

If the deal instantly makes WLIB profitable, Percy Sutton will give it
all the time it needs. Will Air America have the money it takes to
survive?

I hope it does and I hope they focus on entertainment rather than
rabid politics.

Rich

Rich Wood wrote in :

If the deal instantly makes WLIB profitable, Percy Sutton will give it
all the time it needs.

It was my understanding (please correct me if I'm wrong on this) that Air
America is leasing WLIB; presumably, profit for Percy is built into the
lease terms. Inner City has said that they weren't making a profit with
the old format.

The question then becomes whether Air America will ever make a profit; and
they have said that their business plan calls for them to lose money for
the first two years.


--
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|but now I think I should have | Want to send me email? |
|been a wee bit more specific. | http://tinyurl.com/ps2u |

On 31 Mar 2004 23:06:37 GMT, Tom Betz wrote:

It was my understanding (please correct me if I'm wrong on this) that Air
America is leasing WLIB; presumably, profit for Percy is built into the
lease terms. Inner City has said that they weren't making a profit with
the old format.

Percy Sutton is a very smart man. I'm certain this arrangement brings
WLIB into the black financially. I would bet there's also a piece of
the advertising action built in. It's been reported that Air America
is chargin $1500 a minute. With 6 stations I can only imagine how many
bonus spots that includes.

The question then becomes whether Air America will ever make a profit; and
they have said that their business plan calls for them to lose money for
the first two years.

Walsh and Cohen were interviewed on 60 Minutes II and declared there
was enough money to lose for years to come.

The rollout of Franken was disappointing. He was clearly out of his
element and I have to replace the glass in my car that was shattered
by the piercing laugh of his NPR sidekick. This should have been the
best show they could have done as their debut, having months to
prepare. It wasn't. I think there's too much TV influence to
understand radio.

The production values were bad, as was the interface between Air
America's feed and XM's. Air America's levels were all over the place.
When XM took over levels came back to normal. It sounds like AM
operators who rely on processing to ride gain. Even the 60 Minutes
video showed pinned meters much of the time.

For a few minutes I thought Rush Limbaugh's feed got crossed. Ed
Shultz sounds like a wannabe Rush with only the content changed.

I wish they hadn't gotten so much advance publicity and caused
expectations to be so high and not met.

Rich

On 3 Apr 2004 15:32:18 GMT, Rich Wood wrote:

For a few minutes I thought Rush Limbaugh's feed got crossed. Ed
Shultz sounds like a wannabe Rush with only the content changed.

For what it's worth, Mr. Schultz is not part of the Air America
operation...he's syndicated separately by Jones Radio (in an unusual
arrangement...I believe a left-leaning group actually bankrolls the
syndication for Jones).

XM picks him up instead of 3 out of Randi Rhodes' 4 hours. They moved
him (or are moving him) from the "Buzz" channel, which becomes
"America Right" on Monday. One of the other AA affiliates, Clear
Channel-owned KPOJ/620 Portland, also carries Ed Schultz separately
from AA.

Alan Colmes (Fox News) is also on the XM "America Left" channel,
pre-empting some of AA's programming in his live slot of 10 PM-1 AM
ET.