"msg" wrote in message
ernet...
David Eduardo wrote:


"Monty Hall" wrote in message
...



These broadcasters are insane to do things like HD/IBOC to restrict
and limit their already-dwindling audiences. They should be working to
INCREASE their coverage area and listenership; not reduce it.


The only coverage that counts is in their home markets.

DX listeners don't count in the business model.


They never have since the early 50's.


What is your understanding of the market coverage for clear channel WCCO
830
during the 1960s and into the mid 1980s? During all of that time, as a
listener,
I heard them advertising to a Minnesota state-wide and upper midwest area
market
during the day and national spots were common at night.

The daytime coverage is groundwave, not DX.

That a spot be for a national client does not mean it is intended to be
heard nationally on a single station. In fact, on a CBS affiliate like WCCO,
the dead night commercial time was often used to run the network spots that
they had to clear as part of the affiliation agreement. Paid national spots,
with few exceptions, have not been the rule at night on AM's since TV took
over most of the night audience.

They even promoted their
clear channel status and nationwide focus on each ID. Programming was
always
wide-area oriented and rarely was restricted to the Mpls/St.Paul metro.
Everyone
over the entire state regarded it as a cherished voice of a people and
region,
and the station widely promoted that image with various state-wide awards,
outreach programs, frequent remotes, etc.

Again, not DX but normal, groundwave coverage. And, as I said, as each
community got more AMs and new FMs in the 60's, 70's and 80's, the need to
listen to a distant AM was reduced to near nothing.

Today, KTLK FM with a news talk format on FM has more under-55 listeners in
the Mppls. metro than WCCO. In Mamkato, St. Cloud and Rochester, wehre WCCO
used to have double digit shares, it is now not even in the top 15 in the
under-55 age group.... and that listening, such as it is, is almost all
daytime listening, too.

Its changes in recent decades are
still lamented by older listeners, and I would appreciate knowing if any
other clear channels were held in the high regard, as an institution, that
was WCCO.

Nearly all are or were... WSB, WBZ, KDKA, WTAM, KMOX, KOA, KFI, WBAP, WOAI,
WGN, etc., were enormously influential in the era when for many miles around
there were scant few stations. Today, AM is irrelevant for younger
listeners and there has been such an increase in stations that the need to
listen to distant AMs is fairly limited.