WCNS, WXJX flip to talk
June 1, 2023With the flip of the calendar to June, WCNS (1480; W298DH 107.5 Latrobe) and WXJX (910; W254CR 98.7 Apollo) flip from the “Westmoreland Gold” format to conservative talk radio. Steve Clendenin has owned the station under his Maryland Media One umbrella for the last couple of years, but has signed them over to Disrupter Radio owned by John Fredericks. Fredericks owns stations in Atlanta, Philadelphia, and two markets in Virginia – most of which carry a conservative format.
WCNS will see new call letters for the first time since 1979. The requested calls are WJFA. WXJX’s calls will also change and the request there is for WJFG.
Mr. Fredericks has reportedly asked though a mutual alliance to speak with PBRTV, and when we do we will have more about this format and ownership change.
I’d really like to have a LOCAL conservative talk station. Sadly, I fear this will just be a plug and play of syndicated programs.
I wonder how well WPGP 1250 and 1320 WJAS reach Latrobe? Between those two it’s an all star lineup, and add in Eric Metaxas on 730 WPIT and there’s almost too much to listen to if you like all the shows!
There’s other top syndicated talent that the Pittsburgh area doesn’t have, like the Jessie Kelly Show, Joe Pags, Chris Plante, Dana Loesch and Bill O’Reilly, who are on stations outside of the market, like WWVA and AM 600 The Patriot from Salem OH.
Maybe there could be some local talkers, but I don’t know if the region has enough who are active broadcasters right now, to fill a day of programming. Maybe you could scan You Tube and posted shows for upcoming talent.
I’ll have to listen on 910 because WHBC in Canton Ohio interferes with Latrobe’s 1480 out east of Pittsburgh where I live and the signals beat.
I’d like to read that interview with the new operator. I’ve long thought that radio stations don’t interact with the press enough, there’s silence on programming and engineering decisions, and that’s not in step with today’s world of social media where we hear about everything else.
If you don’t have a social media expert, stations could use their own website with blog to post to.
AM radio forever!
Boomer
Darn, I really enjoyed the Gold programming Clendenin brought to those stations. It was good stuff! Lots of great music for sure. Looks like one preset on my radio I’ll have to swap out for another station now… Syndicated anything is no bueno for me – I don’t have an interest in listening to it. That’s what the internet is for. If radio wants to survive, station owners need to invest in local talent and local content. Here’s hoping the new owner actually brings in some local personalities.
I guess I’m missing something, but why does this market need yet another Conservative talk station. There is 1250 and 1320 full time conservative talk, but the greatest portion of KDKA. Is there really a market for yet more conservative talk? Seems like overkill to me.
You are correct, the market is oversaturated with conservative talk. But one can argue that not all stations – particularly those outside of Allegheny County don’t necessarily reach all parts of the market. Just the nature of the biz these days…
The thing is, saying that there are “too many ” conservative AM talk stations would be like saying there were too many Top 40 music stations back in the day. Syndicated conservative talk shows stations are not interchangeable.
There is a lot of conservative talk on the air right now, it’s found a home on AM radio, all thanks to Rush Limbaugh. One good reason to listen to an AM radio is that your listening isn’t tracked by some tech company, and that’s important to some people.
I checked at Radio-Locator and looked at the signal maps for 1250 and 1320, and their signals don’t really reach into Latrobe well, a fault of the low ground conductivity in our area. Signals don’t go too far before they lose strength and get hissy around here.
I think that music radio is a great companion, but the issue is that the vast majority of music stations are just running a canned, automated hits format, and it turns people off.
The one thing you can say about talk radio and sports is that those formats are designed to be topical, up to the minute. I like to know that the talk host is live, even when he’s sitting in Dallas and syndicating his program. I cheer when someone calls in from Pittsburgh as I’m listening to 1250, and hoping they do well on the air.. 🙂
I wonder if there would be enough local talk radio talent that would want to broadcast over a radio station? Today’s rising stars are getting their start on line, would they even want to make the jump to radio for what a station could pay these days?
Boomer
George, If you read my post, I did not say there were “too many” conservative talk stations. I simply questioned if there is a market for additional stations programming the same format. At some point, are you not simply dividing your own audience?
“Oversaturated” and “too many” strike me as near synonyms. As for AM radio, considering the terrible sound quality, spoken word programming is about all the band can support. And syndicated spoken word programming is all the band can afford. Truth be told, now that there are multiple stations possiblle on each FM station, if makes no sense to even bother keeping the AM band dedicated to terrestrial broadcasting.
AM audio quality could be so much better, the real fault is in the receivers; the audio bandwidth is too narrow for good fidelity, and circuits have high distortion.
At the same time, AM transmitters are at a technological peak, with audio allowed up to 10 khz, and stereo broadcasting if the station chooses to use it.
There are some good radios out there, like my friend’s new Hyundai, just an average car, but the AM radio is great and it seems to use every technique to make a station sound good, with wide variable audio bandwidth, low distortion, noise reduction, and high sensitivity, even through the tiny ‘shark fin’ antenna.
At moderate volume you could think you were listening to an FM station; at higher volume you can hear the the audio filter on the treble, but it’s smooth roll-off and not objectionable like other car radios.
AM is also needed in emergencies, because if all of the digital channels go down in a disaster, AM radio from another town might be the only information channel you’ll have access to.
Boomer