Dear Bill,
I agree. I live in the "hinderlands" of AM broadcasting as there are not many high-powered, full-service AM stations east of the Chesapeake. We really don't even have much in the way of "informational" FM stations, except WSDL 90.7 FM in Ocean City that recently went over to NPR while its sister station WSCL 89.5 in Salisbury stayed Classical. Our local AM stations are more news-talk and aren't more than 5 kw. Our local WDOV-1410 in Dover (a Clear Channel outlet, of course) is completely useless for news, local or otherwise. During a recent snow, I had to tune to Wilmington stations 30 miles away to see if my local schools were open or closed, as WDOV totally dropped the ball. WDEL-1150 up in Wilmington is better (I used to work there so I have to say something nice about them hi!) but they only run news from 6-9 AM and from 6-7 PM. Since Baltimore has no all-news station, it's either
KYW or WTOP and since I'm a native Washingtonian, I gravitate toward WTOP. I can barely pick up 103.5 PM here in Delaware but 1500 always put a good signal in here, day and night. Granted, Delaware is not in WTOP's service area, but when a disaster hits the region, how will people east of the Chesapeake get their info? As you said, the bean-counters seldom think about the listeners outside their region.
Reading a local radio blog out of DC, the observation was made that Bonneville seems to think AM radio is dead, so why not move the Golden Goose to FM and dump the Posties on AM? If the 1500 outlet was 5 or 10 kw, I could see it. But waste a 50 kw station on what amounts to a gamble, or a programming experiment? I don't see the logic in that. They could have put the Washington Post programming on 107.1 instead and kept all news on 1500 (along with the Nationals and Redskins as there is a lot of talk as to where
their broadcasts will end up) and that would have made more sense.
John Cereghin
Smyrna DE
Bill Harms <wharms@xxxxxxxxxxxxxx> wrote:
John:
I think that you are putting your finger on something that a lot of
people are failing to recognize and that is the service provided by
stations outside of their so-called primary service area. It used to
be a big deal in the past for certain stations to establish an
audience at night beyond their local coverage area. I have to wonder
why station owners are ignoring it now. If they really don't want to
serve people outside of their local coverage area why bother with
high power and with directional antenna systems? In the case of WTOP
wouldn't a simple ND 10 kw day and suffice? That would eliminate
interference to stations like WFIF and allow
them to operate at night
too.
Bill Harms
On 4 Jan 2006 at 19:19, John Cereghin wrote:
> I heard of the WTOP switch this afternoon while actually listening to
> WTOP which puts a good signal into the central Delmarva on 1500.
> Personally, I think shifting the current WTOP programming off of 1500
> to FM is a mistake. WTOP is a local institution in DC and you don't
> mess with an institution. Imagine shifting KYW to FM! And the
> proposed NPR-lite that is going to be put on 1500 on March 31 sounds
> like a real snoozer. DC locals are not exactly supportive of the
> Post to begin with as it is losing readership in its print edition
> for years. If DC locals are not wanting to read the Post, what makes
> Bonneville think people will want to listen to it? Listen to Post
> reporters drone on for 20 minutes on Iraq or abortion or social
> security? That might fly on the
low-end of the FM band but not on a
> 50kw AM blowtorch.
> For all-news outlets in the Mid-Atlantic, we have the New York and
> Philadelphia outlets. Baltimore does not have an all-news outlet as
> WBAL and WCBM are talk stations. Delaware has only graveyarder WILM
> on 1450 with a news format as WDEL and WDOV are talk. The loss of a
> 50kw WTOP from AM will create a gap for all-news stations in this
> part of the Mid-Atlantic.
>
> John Cereghin
> Smyrna DE
>
>
>
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