Radio Stations: When The Flip Is A Flop

I'm aware that a good number of folks in the radio business visit this site; you should know that after many years in the radio business, I've worked for, and with, a good number of owners and managers. I've been an interim music director; operations manager; station manager; and an on-air personality,
handling every shift from overnights in the early days to morning drive at my last position.

Radio stations "flip" formats all the time, for any number of reasons: They think they can attract a larger audience, and more advertising revenue, by switching to different programming; they've researched the market and have found a void they believe they can fill; new owners come in, with their own program ideas and agendas; or it's an impulsive move that has NOT been thought through.

I worked for an AM daytimer for many years that had a loyal, if somewhat small, niche as a Christian formatted station, playing contemporary Christian music and a number of the daily 'preaching/teaching' programs, which basically were the bread and butter financially. However, in 2001, the management of this station made a programming decision, that not only wasn't sound, but began the road to that station's ultimate demise.

In April of that year, the station dropped all of its contemporary Christian shows (morning and afternoon drive, weekends) for talk programming because "there's a lot of money to be made in talk radio." At that point, the station's monthly billing averaged in the $10k neighborhood.

The CCM audience had a fit, and listeners tuned out in droves. The station had been able to maintain a decent audience before, but a new Christian AM station came to town, and, while not a CCM, it ate away at the audience. The talk show folks who had come in to run the "talk" side of things were spending money the station basically didn't have, but..they didn't know how to sell advertising time on the talk shows. My paychecks started bouncing.

After a number of "late" paychecks, I called it quits. The operations manager
that replaced me was, well, less than honest. The Christian programmers got irate calls from former listerners and threatened to cancel. A few did. Long-standing. loyal advertisers who had been with the station for years cancalled. The station's billing fell every month until..

March of 2002, when the local manager, who was, and still is, a close friend and colleague whom I respect and like very much, called and asked me to come back. I looked at the March billing, which hovered just over $4,000. It wasn't even getting to the break-even point.

In April, I went back as the operations manager and took out some of the talk programs and began doing a local southern gospel music morning show. It took a lot of work and two years, but by 2004 the station was billing around $9k a month. But that summer there was a decision made that soured me, and I walked away for good.

The owner came into town, heard some of the southern gospel music, and made a comment to my friend, the local manager, that his wife would be embarrased by the kind of music on the station. Of course, she was up North in another state where she'd never hear the station in a million years, but I was told to take the music off at the end of the week and put some talk shows back on.

I told my manager friend, "This will kill the station for good, when we do that."
The change was implemented, the few loyal southern gospel music listeners that the station had left, and I did as well, filing retirement papers and calling it quits in July of 2004.

That was a painful decision, but I left, and the station never gained steam again. It limped along for about another year, until it was leased out to a third party in August of 2005. Since then, it's been vandalized, damaged and basically destroyed. There's no studio equipment left, not even a microphone. It runs off a makeshift board from Radio Shack, a satellite system, a computer, and a portable Walkman-like CD player. It operates at less than half of its assigned power, making the signal weak.

It hurt to see that happen to a station where I spent many happy years, but back in 2001, I predicted disaster with that first format flip. Everything about that flip was a disaster.

Now, I've watched from afar as WDOD-AM in Chattanooga is poised for a similar fate, switching from adult standards to progressive talk, and losing their morning man, who had been with them since 1963, and their ratings, tumbling
totally off the Arbitron chart in only about six months time.

Go ahead and blow this one up, too, fellows. Send your listeners to me, we'll take good care of their ears.

WJJD ain't gonna be flippin' no format anytime soon! http://www.live365.com/stations/alanmccall