Re: [IRCA] small station owner in a small market

["John Callarman" <JohnCallarman@xxxxxxx>]

I've just finished reading selected material from the 400-plus posts in my in-box after a three-day trip to Amarillo to visit my brother and his wife, including several on which I've already commented. I am a great fan of genuine local radio, as some will note on my comments earlier this evening regarding KSLM and other Willamette Valley operations.

Clint Formby, owner of one 250-watt daytimer where I worked, and Warren Hasse, at KPDN-1340, a 250-watt fulltimer, in Pampa, TX, taught me a lot about local radio, and much of what I learned I put into practice at still another 250-watt daytimer, WCAS-740 in Cambridge, Mass., on which I was privileged to work with Pete Taylor, who has participated in this thread.

After hearing Larry Stoller and his partners talk about their operation at WODI in Brookneal, Virginia, at the NRC convention in 2004, and, of course, after my own observations about how much more difficult it is to operate a truly local station today than it was during the time I was in the business, I had prepared some questions about WABV's operation even before the other Taylor suggested we could get a detailed picture of what's being done by a young, dedicated radio man to build a station that's relevant to his market.

I did a little mapwork and webwork at the FCC website to get an idea of what the competition might be like in Paul's corner of South Carolina, close to the Georgia border, and confined myself to stations within about 40 to 50 miles of Abbeville.  

At Hereford, in 1958 when I was there, the population was slightly larger, at 8,000, than Abbeville is now. Hereford has grown to 14,000+ but Deaf Smith County has only 18,000. At KPAN, our operation was live .. I worked from sign-on (6:15 or sunrise, whichever came later, to 1 p.m.) on the board and a fellow named A.C. Higgins worked from 1 to 5 p.m. Then Rose Garcia came in to do the Spanish music show until sign-off, which went quite late in the summer. Higgins sold ads in the morning, then participated in our news block from noon to 1 p.m., and I gathered news in the afternoon, covering night meetings, etc. I also, during football and basketball season, took a big old reel-to-reel tape recorder (it was in the days before portable cassette recorders came on the market) to the football stadia and the basketball gymnasia and taped the Hereford Whitefaces football and basketball play-by-play. (I was quick enough back then that I could actually keep statistics and broadcast at the same time.) Formby handled some sales also, and there was one other full-time salesman. For a time, it was Ralph Beistle, who later managed Formby's station at Tulia, KTUE-1260, where I worked part-time as the afternoon DJ while going to school at West Texas State. Betty Roberts answered the phone, typed the logs and wrote much of the advertising copy which, for the most part, was read live on the air by Higgins, myself and Formby during the morning news block. (Clint also, as I recall, taped some spots and, I think, during the time I was there, we installed our first cartridge tape machine and began to records some of the spots thereupon.) It was a small but efficient staff.

The questions I'd posed for Paul are:

In your city of license of approximately 6,000 population in a county with a little more than 27,000 population, do you have a newsman who goes to the police station, the fire station and the sheriff's office to gather news from those sources? Does he cover the Abbeville City Council, the School Board, the County Board meetings? Does he use the cellphone (or some other form of communication) to call in on-scene accident or fire reports? Does someone do local interview programs with community leaders involved in various events? Do you reach out to the southwest for news and information from Calhoun Falls, to the south to relatively unserved McCormick County, or due north to Due West?

Does your sales staff produce its own local commercials or are they done by talent (presumably you). How much production is done on local commercials? Do you do live remotes from advertisers' stores? Abbeville County looks to be small enough you're probably not yet dominated by chain retail outlets, so there should be, still, some locally owned and operated retail outlets ... but some county residents and maybe even some in Abbeville itself likely to head north to Anderson or east to Greenwood. Dun and Bradstreet, via Melissa Data, shows there are 334 businesses in the Abbeville ZIP-code, where the population in 2000 was 13,506.

Regarding classic country music, how large is your playlist? How far back does it go? Do you have any Carl Smith, Webb Pierce, Hank Snow, Faron Young, Jim Reeves, on the play list? Mel Tillis, Marty Robbins, Don Gibson, Kitty Wells, Jean Shepherd, Mickey Gilley, Jerry Lee Lewis, Charlie Pride, Sonny James, Tom T. Hall, Merle Haggard, Buck Owens? Does anyone on your staff know who wrote "I Can't Stop Loving You"? I note that the median age of Abbeville County residents in 2000 was 36.9, 68.3 percent of the population was white, and only 0.8 percent of the population (eight years ago) was Hispanic.

Do you have a local sports show that talks about American Legion baseball, high school football, basketball, track, baseball and other sports in Abbeville County? Does WABV do sports play-by-play? What arrangements have been made with small-school coaches to call in their scores?

Do you concentrate on Abbeville County alone or do you depend upon your music to compete for local sales with stations in nearby Greenwood (population 22,000) in Greenwood County (population 67,000), where 100000watts reports WCRS-1450 plays adult standards, WLMA-1350 does talk and sports, WCZZ-1090 does black gospel, WZSN-103.5 is adult contemporary, and the 36-watt LP, WHZZ-97.7, does variety and 100-watt WXOR-102.3 does religion. I note WZLA-92.9 Abbeville, not owned by Hellinger, does oldies. Or perhaps you're trying to hit the Anderson market. Or, perhaps, none of those stations has significant listenership in Abbeville city/county, other than WABV and WZLA and listeners go farther outside the market for your competition. What competition do you expect, if any, when the FM'er with a CP in Due West goes on the air ... or will their owners concentrate on Anderson rather than Abbeville County? Do any of the stations mentioned in this paragraph have a full-time local newsman on staff?

Demographics for Greenwood County are similar to that of Abbeville County, at least in 2000. Median age slightly younger -- 35.2; a slightly higher percentage of whites -- 65.6; and a considerably higher percentage of Hispanics, 2.2 percent. In the four Greenwood ZIP codes, there are 1,824 businesses, but one would consider 

How deep is Hellinger's commitment to its city of license and the county where you operate, considering that an application is on file with the FCC to move WABV from Abbeville to Whitney, Nevada, on 1370 kHz, to put a 14-kw signal from nine towers about five miles south of Las Vegas, daytime only, with virtually all of the signal going north-northwest?

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If I were 30 years younger, I'd be interested in seeing what could be done with a news-sports guy, a crackerjack salesman, a good woman personality, each sufficiently versatile to contribute to programming, and some office staff to skillfully program a fully-automated station in a market the size of Abbeville. Preferably a market in Oregon!!! Impossible dream, Janice wouldn't go with me so I wouldn't go!!!

John Callarman, Krum TX (who often identifies only as Qal R. Mann, and/or The Krumudgeon, because my full name is in my e-mail address.)

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