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What can Radio learn from WBEZ being the #2 Chicago station?

Posted by Seriously on March 23, 2021, 5:48 pm

Thoughts?

Re: What can Radio learn from WBEZ being the #2 Chicago station?

Posted by PR fan on March 23, 2021, 5:58 pm, in reply to "What can Radio learn from WBEZ being the #2 Chicago station?"

I hope it means that there is an audience for something other than right-wing extreme radio. When I hear the criticism of NPR as being too liberal, I want to ask these people if they've actually listened to it lately. I think their coverage is more balanced than a lot of people give it credit for being.

Re: What can Radio learn from WBEZ being the #2 Chicago station?

Posted by WYTZZ95FM on March 23, 2021, 6:25 pm, in reply to "Re: What can Radio learn from WBEZ being the #2 Chicago station?"

WBEZ is far from being too liberal. The right wing media labels NPR as being far left liberal because they state (along with some in Congress) that it gets funding from the Feds. It does not. It *does* get some GRANTS.

The syndicated programs can be very braniac and will not appeal to much of the blue collar working class.

Z

Re: What can Radio learn from WBEZ being the #2 Chicago station?

Posted by Hannah on March 23, 2021, 6:04 pm, in reply to "What can Radio learn from WBEZ being the #2 Chicago station?"

Z answered your question in the linked post. I listen to WMBI 90.1 but a relative works for Entercom in Chicago. Said it has never been this bad. He said Z is right in the post, Sal and Jeremy know their stuff too.

Link: Sad state of Chicago radio. HD subchannels. FM Translators.

Re: What can Radio learn from WBEZ being the #2 Chicago station?

Posted by WYTZZ95FM on March 23, 2021, 6:31 pm, in reply to "Re: What can Radio learn from WBEZ being the #2 Chicago station?"

Thank you for the roses. Hannah listens to WMBI. The non-comm faith based stations are eating a nice portion of the comm band stations revenue. Especially WMBI and KLOVE, people tend not to go to the commerical stations as a 2nd preset. Another example is EMF. They have solidified their spectrum. (Are we still laughing at them buying up all those translators)?

Finally, Covid has wrecked the commercial band (lower aged demos and music stations) along with people leaving for apps which are way easier to use when sitting in your office at home working all day instead of fiddling when you drive.

Z

Re: What can Radio learn from WBEZ being the #2 Chicago station?

Posted by QAnon 101 on March 23, 2021, 6:10 pm, in reply to "What can Radio learn from WBEZ being the #2 Chicago station?"

In a literal sense WBEZ swapped places with WGN. 10 years ago WBBM and WGN were neck and neck in the morning. Then WGN replaced a news show with Jonathan Brandmeier’s 5th comeback and they lost the information audience for good. WGN never recovered from Brandmeier.

In depth news coverage is being rewarded, which is nice. If another station wants to enter the spoken word arena they place themselves in between WBBM’s headline service and 15 minute NPR stories about the last Spencer’s Gifts in Outer Mongolia.

Re: What can Radio learn from WBEZ being the #2 Chicago station?

Posted by WYTZZ95FM on March 23, 2021, 6:33 pm, in reply to "Re: What can Radio learn from WBEZ being the #2 Chicago station?"

QAnon 101, good post. Let me add. The comm band stations are literally screwed, because you can't compete running 20 minutes of spots when the non-comms run 0. What are people going to tune in for? 25 minutes of stopsets? No jocks? 7 hour AM drive shows? Same crappy music with no local personalization?

Z

Re: What can Radio learn from WBEZ being the #2 Chicago station?

Posted by ChiTownGal on March 25, 2021, 12:45 pm, in reply to "Re: What can Radio learn from WBEZ being the #2 Chicago station?"

Dunno about Mongolia, but there is a Spencer's Gifts still thriving at Lincolnwood Mall just northwest of Chicago.

Re: What can Radio learn from WBEZ being the #2 Chicago station?

Posted by The Beatnik on March 25, 2021, 3:33 pm, in reply to "Re: What can Radio learn from WBEZ being the #2 Chicago station?"

Do they sell Mongolian Beef ?

Re: What can Radio learn from WBEZ being the #2 Chicago station?

Posted by Jeremy Andrews on March 23, 2021, 6:58 pm, in reply to "What can Radio learn from WBEZ being the #2 Chicago station?"

NPR in general is very popular. Not just on radio, but also podcasting. It’s not for everybody, but I’ve run into people from all sides of the aisle that listen.

NPR affiliates have been doing very good across the country this past year. I wouldn’t be surprised if they gained listeners who otherwise were just sampling it for information.

Aside from WBEZ, WGBH in Boston, KUOW in Seattle, KCFR in Denver, KNOW in Minneapolis, KQED in San Francisco (Double digits), are among public stations that have been doing or are doing quite well. Several of these Top 5

Re: What can Radio learn from WBEZ being the #2 Chicago station?

Posted by PatriciaV on March 23, 2021, 8:15 pm, in reply to "What can Radio learn from WBEZ being the #2 Chicago station?"

Does anyone have any data re: how the top 10 stations today compare with the top 10 stations 10 years ago? 20 years ago? 30 years ago?

In terms of thousands of listeners.

Point?

How have Spotify/Pandora / Podcasting impacted the audience? What about Youtube?

I imagine that the local TV newscasts have also been negatively impacted

Re: What can Radio learn from WBEZ being the #2 Chicago station?

Posted by Sal Vitro on March 24, 2021, 11:06 am, in reply to "Re: What can Radio learn from WBEZ being the #2 Chicago station?"

Again here we are talking about what radio can do....B-96 is DUN. But what do you put in its place? Z has pointed out that the spoken word format is hot. Perhaps there is a chance for “FM talk again, there is a whole segment missing from talk radio. It’s either to liberal or to conservative. How about some honest fun talk that’s local? Perhaps not for B but somewhere on the dial. Many of these stations were bought at 10x cash flow so you can’t just give them away you would lose to much money. Look at WLS what is the thought process on that station a bland morning show , then right wing nut jobs. Then a left leaning afternoon show 6 hours of local programming and none on the weekend. 95.5 in the garbage of they would have tweaked that music and added some gold based 90s they would have destroyed 99. Big goes away and none of that audience finds 99. Why because they want to be the “hot county station” btw the 80s called they want that slogan back..Why is this happening? Because they overspent on all these stations and Covid was a way to make amends for their sins. Entercom has made so many mistakes it’s laughable, firing Zimmerman was a mistake then Tim Polman who couldn’t run a boom box to Jimmy I’m too cool for the room to Racheal who should be a LSM instead of running a cluster she knows nothing about. We see what has happened the hubris of this bean counters has killed local radio. I heart could have put Lisa And Ray in the morning instead of Bobby and that would have done the job. They went cheap. 95.5 could have hired a local show but they went cheap and we see the result. We can all pre suppose and say what if. But the bottom line is the big 3 are killing Chicago radio. Until someone takes a chance and says let’s have some real fun, be local. Not have a 7 hour shift show) it will remain the same. This is not unique to Chicago it’s everywhere. And if you want to push your digital on air you may want to make your biggest platform more palatable.

Sal

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