AM Radio Station Musical Chairs

[Chip Fetrow]

I suspect that when Dan Snyder took the talk programming off WTNT (now  
WSPZ) 570 kHz, he moved much of it to 730 kHz, now WTNT.  I suspect he  
wanted the sports on the more powerful station.

570 is 5 kW day, and 1 kW night.
730 used to have a much better signal, with a two tower directional  
with one of the towers at 225 degrees or so, and a 90 degree tower.

For whatever reason, the remaining single tower is 60 degrees, so it  
is pretty inefficient.  I don't recall the old power, but it is now 8  
kW day, and an astounding 25 Watts night (changes monthly, based on  
both local sunset and stations it much protect, which ever provides  
less time at day power).

Snyder is a huge sports fan.  His broadcast company, Red Zebra  
Broadcasting, owns a few low power FM rim shot stations, and quite a  
few AMs.  He tends to run sports, and in days past, he used to put the  
Redskins game on every station.  I don't know for sure, but I believe  
he doesn't do that on ALL his stations anymore.

I believe he doesn't understand radio, but that doesn't matter.  He  
has enough money to continuously screw up.

The Congress really screwed up when they lifted the caps on station  
ownership in the same market.  This law change screwed up stations  
like those owned by Dan Snyder, but REALLY screwed the public when a  
market like DC has the majority of the stations owned by only two  
groups, Clear Channel and CBS/Infinity.

It is no wonder radio sucks.

--chip

On Nov 2, 2010, at 1:00 PM, tacos-request at amrad.org wrote:

> Message: 1
> Date: Mon, 01 Nov 2010 12:37:51 -0400
> From: "Richard O'Neill" <richardoneill at earthlink.net>
> Subject: Re: AM Radio Station Musical Chairs
>
>  Musical format and frequency assignment chairs seems to be the norm  
> in
> the Washington area. ;-) In the DC area that frequency (730 khz) has
> undergone various format changes in recent months. For the longest  
> time
> it was day time Spanish music with much reduced power/antenna pattern
> after sunset. Then came a period of rock music and/or Spanish
> programming. Now it appears to be all talk (in English), much like  
> that
> old blaster, WMAL. At least neither station has yet gone over to the
> dark side (IBOC- the hissing monster) which would certainly wipe out  
> one
> of my favorite AM night time stations, CHWO (740 khz) from Toronto.
>
> Richard