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Anything happening in radio in Saginaw or Flint

Discussion pertaining to Flint, Saginaw, Bay City, Midland, Mt. Pleasant, and Michigan's thumb region.
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Matt
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Anything happening in radio in Saginaw or Flint

Unread post by Matt »

I'm assuming not, since sinklair has turned this forum into "I'm going to bitch about my employer nonstop" forum. This used to be a fairly active and interesting market. What happened?
This is a pro-Harris/Walz account

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Realist
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Re: Anything happening in radio in Saginaw or Flint

Unread post by Realist »

Matt wrote: Tue Aug 03, 2021 10:16 pm I'm assuming not, since sinklair has turned this forum into "I'm going to bitch about my employer nonstop" forum. This used to be a fairly active and interesting market. What happened?
Hmmm - Cumulus owns the top rated stations in Saginaw and Flint and hasn’t changed anything. McDonald won’t change and neither will whoever owns WSGW, The Moose, MIX 106 and Power 107. The last format change was a tweak of Joe FM to 80’s music. I’m truly not expecting any more format changes unfortunately
sinklair
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Re: Anything happening in radio in Saginaw or Flint

Unread post by sinklair »

Matt, sorry you have nothing else to do but try to criticize me. But feel free to add something useful to the conversation.

While I don’t hesitate to criticize some of the amazing management incompetence that happens at local TV stations, I’ve also acknowledged some of the really good work by hard working local journalists.
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audiophile
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Re: Anything happening in radio in Saginaw or Flint

Unread post by audiophile »

Something is vacuuming up the AC shares. Anybody know who?
Ask not what your country can do FOR you; ask what they are about to do TO YOU!!
Realist
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Re: Anything happening in radio in Saginaw or Flint

Unread post by Realist »

MWmetalhead wrote: Wed Aug 04, 2021 7:15 pm Brand new Nielsen audio ratings (ages 12+) were released today for both Flint and Saginaw-Bay City-Midland!

Some highlights for Flint:
- The reversion of 95.1 FM to the "B95" branding appears to be working! I'm a little surprised by that, because other than the resurrection of the B95 brand, not much else has changed. Nonetheless, the 5.7 share the station scored in Flint is its best result in years.
- Boring Cars 108 reached what might be an all-time record low mark, also a 5.7 share, interestingly enough.
- Bad book for Banana 101.5. Not a big surprise. The playlist sucks ass these days.
- Cars 108's numbers sure as hell didn't go to WHNN. Another shitty Flint book for that station.
- Fuzzy signal considered, 97.1 The Ticket does quite well in Flint! 97.1 has long been one of the higher rated Detroit signals in Flint, even dating back to the FM Talk days. Still, I cannot remember 97.1 ever pulling a 3 share in Flint.
- The advent of Classic Hits on 107.3 to date has garnered only a tiny audience (0.3 share).
- Big post-election drop-off for WUOM/WFUM.

Some highlights for the Tri-Cities:
- WIOG hangs onto first place with an 8.3 share.
- Very nice gain for Z93; their 8.0 share is good for second place.
- The Moose holds steady in the mid 5's; sure would be nice to see KCQ listed.
- Second piss poor book in a row for WHNN. Upper 3's. A truly pitiful showing for that massive signal.
- WTLZ sees a nice recovery.

Flint:
https://ratings.radio-online.com/content/arb163

Tri-Cities:
https://ratings.radio-online.com/content/arb281
Looked at the Saginaw ratings and it’s raised a couple of questions for me:

I’m not buying that WSGW-AM received no ratings. This has to be incorrect.

Massive stick for WHNN for the longest time led to #1 or #2 in overall ratings. At what point do they consider dropping AC and possibly go back to classic hits? Or, gasp, put the classic rock format that’s on WHEELZ on 96.1 and call in WIN 96 like they did when they were AOR in the late 70’s / early 80’s

Z93 is #2 overall now. Will it lead to more live jocks? Elisha is mostly voice tracked from sister station WIOG, Duffy is VT’ed from western Pennsylvania’s 99X. No jocks between 7pm and 6am. C’mon
Matt
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Re: Anything happening in radio in Saginaw or Flint

Unread post by Matt »

Realist wrote: Tue Aug 03, 2021 10:31 pm
Matt wrote: Tue Aug 03, 2021 10:16 pm I'm assuming not, since sinklair has turned this forum into "I'm going to bitch about my employer nonstop" forum. This used to be a fairly active and interesting market. What happened?
Hmmm - Cumulus owns the top rated stations in Saginaw and Flint and hasn’t changed anything. McDonald won’t change and neither will whoever owns WSGW, The Moose, MIX 106 and Power 107. The last format change was a tweak of Joe FM to 80’s music. I’m truly not expecting any more format changes unfortunately
It's crazy that even with format stability that there still isn't personnel changes at all. Is there a morning legend at a major station? It doesn't seem so. It seems like the market peaked in the 90s.
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matt1
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Re: Anything happening in radio in Saginaw or Flint

Unread post by matt1 »

WILZ (104.5 FM) "Classic Rock That Really Rocks" DID play AC/DC latest song "Shot In The Dark" (NOT the Ozzy 1986 remake) last December & January BUT that was it, still same old "Classic Rock" crap!!
matt1
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Re: Anything happening in radio in Saginaw or Flint

Unread post by matt1 »

Also WILZ did NOT play a new song by Cheap Trick from their latest album. They did in 2017 called "Long Time Coming" though!!!
Kennelly Heaviside
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Re: Anything happening in radio in Saginaw or Flint

Unread post by Kennelly Heaviside »

The Flint Market has always been affected by the lack of Full Power Commercial FMs. This is partly due to the proximity of other markets, constantly changing and more restrictive rules for allotment spacings, and ridiculous adherence to First Local Service rules. Canada has long allowed directional short spaced allotments and allowed limited increased interference allowed to new allotments, but the FCC has not relented. This has resulted in not enough FMs to cover all format bases with 70 dBu signals. This results in the audience being lost and fragmented with adjacent market signals. The population has also moved out to places like Grand Blanc and surrounding Township, Fenton, surrounding Township, Linden, Mundy Township, and other outlying areas. The aformentioned Township areas now EXCEED the population of Flint. If you add the 2020-2021 census figures up, you'll see it's true. Outlying areas may be at higher terrain and lower density and taller height structures that attenuate adjacent market signals in the center of the county.

Because the AM signals were good compared to other markets, CPs for WFDF-FM on 95.1, and WBBC-FM 99.9 circa 1948 were not built. Channel 6 interference rules resulted in NCE WFBE using commercial channel 95.1 from 1953 until 1997. You can find this information at worldradiohistory.com in station directories, and Broadcasting Magazine if you look hard.

The never ending pandemic and social upheaval of the last 18 months may indeed be turning a lot of people to pursue more spiritual interests, and this may be pushing people away from "mainstream" formats to Christian formatted stations for guidance on navigating all this. WCSG in Grand Rapids topping the ratings is at the forefront of this change, which will likely continue and expand.
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audiophile
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Re: Anything happening in radio in Saginaw or Flint

Unread post by audiophile »

On a nationwide basis there is certainly better picks.

https://cmbonline.org/cmb-station-of-th ... t-winners/
Ask not what your country can do FOR you; ask what they are about to do TO YOU!!
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Ben Zonia
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Re: Anything happening in radio in Saginaw or Flint

Unread post by Ben Zonia »

MWmetalhead wrote: Thu Aug 05, 2021 7:40 am To prove what an utter joke the NAB is - WCSG didn't even receive a nomination for Christian Station of the Year. They would've been near the top of my list.
It looks like there were a lot of Petitions To Deny against WCSG back in the early days. Did they always regard it as competition? That's what is usually behind Petitions To Deny, rather than real issues.

http://licensing.fcc.gov/cgi-bin/prod/c ... r_id=69979

Anybody have more information on the motivation?
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