Sheridan Broadcasting Sells WAMO to Religious Organization

[Parttimer]

Contemporary Christian is a sleeping giant. I have been told that in Orlando, a non-commercial CCM, WPOZ (Positive Music) is #1 in the market with women 25-54. Because it's in the non-comm section of the dial the ratings aren't included in the ones made public, but subscribers can see them.

Most of the successes that I know of, however, are in the South where the religious base is less Catholic and more of a mix of other Christian denominations.

Now here's the part I don't know... in the commercial band, do these stations sell spots or do they make most of their money from brokering blocks of time for teaching? And do they ask for listener support (contributions?)

Ken, you worked for Salem as I recall, what's the story on cash flow?

[MsMusicRadio]

  Wouldn't want to let anybody down. Whatever the new owners do would be my personal idea of "waisted air space". Just my two cents. Howver with Bob, WISH, Q, 3WS, and Star overlapping music, I would think any of them but WSHH might see this as an opportunity. Or not

[Pratte4Life]

My ancestory is that of Quakers, so let me first get this obligitory statement off my chest-

THIS IS THE GREATEST DAY EVER! THE WORD OF THE LORD WILL BE HEARD INSTEAD OF GANGSTA RAP! GOOD HAS DEFEATED EVIL! THIS IS BEST FOR THE COMMUNITY- WHAT IS BEST FOR THE HUMAN RACE!

Now that my puritanical side has spoken, let me just ask this-

Is Pittsburgh radio now COMPLETELY middle of the road?

I mean, the formats we have left are nothing exciting. What's out there- mainstream country, soft rock, best hits of yesterday and today, contemporary hit radio, and christian stations? Maybe a few AMs playing oldies?

I may not like hip-hop or radical leftist talk radio, but at least it was in-your-face. Now it seems that every radio station that plays music is almost programming playlists for elevators and workplaces.

WDVE has updated its playlist, but they still have Fleetwood Mac on it, you know?

I actually like Fleetwood Mac but when WDVE and WISH can share songs on their playlists something is wrong. Why not just put Huey Lewis on WDVE as well?

Even the talk radio stations are boring. KDKA is KDKA. Everything you can hear on 104.9 you can hear somewhere else in the country with the exception of Ellis Cannon, who is hardly a personality in the sense that Mark Madden or Myron Cope were (or even Rev. Bill Currie, come to think of it).

True, there's Jim Quinn, but while he may be hard hitting he is hardly fresh.

WPTT is now business talk. Sports Talk isn't even that personality based anymore locally.

That essentially leaves The X. While I do think this speaks volumes about sports talk being the most creative radio, you do have to ask yourself if this is all there is.   

I legitimately think two of the best personalities on Pittsburgh radio today are still Jack Bogut and Bill Cardille. They are friendly, engaging, true professionals and legends in every sense of the word and nobody who hasn't retired yet listens to them.

[Steve N.]

I'm from Boston, where something like this happened about 3 years ago. The staff of WILD-FM (now WKAF, a satellite of WAAF, a heavy metal station west of Boston), a then-sister of Radio One-owned WILD-AM, which was owned by Sheridan in the 1970s, was given maybe about 3 or 4 hours to clear out of 97.7 FM because Entercom bought the station that Monday afternoon and flipped to heavy metal (satellite) the next day. A year before that, the same Entercom flipped its decently rated rhythmic AC (then WQSX) to Boston's third classic rock station (currently WMKK). Net result: Boston only has one rhythmic station, and it's ALL gangsta rap (CC's WJMN). Meanwhile, we're left with 10 headbanger-dominated stations: WAAF/WKAF, WBCN, WBMX, WBOS, WFNX, WMKK, WROR, WXKS-FM, WXRV and WZLX, plus another two (WMJX and WODS) which venture in metal frequently, with one of these two passing off metal artists Journey, Bon Jovi and Nickelback (plus AC/DC and Van Halen) as soft music (WTF?).

Now does anyone wonder why so-called "hate speech" talk (represented in Boston by WEEI, WRKO and WTKK) have big ratings?

[only1moore]

I'm surprised that the African-American community have not spoken out on this yet. Something is really wrong with this picture.

[Jay F]

Is this well known yet by the general public or only those who follow radio?

I'm surprised that the African-American community have not spoken out on this yet. Something is really wrong with this picture.

[MsMusicRadio]

It's time to bring back Richard Routree because the African-American community just got the SHAFT

[MsMusicRadio]

What about a non-commercial outlet?

[xmusicmatt]

Contemporary Christian is a sleeping giant. I have been told that in Orlando, a non-commercial CCM, WPOZ (Positive Music) is #1 in the market with women 25-54. Because it's in the non-comm section of the dial the ratings aren't included in the ones made public, but subscribers can see them.

Now here's the part I don't know... in the commercial band, do these stations sell spots or do they make most of their money from brokering blocks of time for teaching? And do they ask for listener support (contributions?)

A CCM station in Columbus pulls very decent ratings and is in the Comm part of the band, they sell ad time + listener support to make up the difference.

[greg.hahn]

A couple of thoughts,
Based on the information in the PG article, I would guess this is a Catholic group buying the stations. Usually, major Christian groups have issues with Saints, so if it were St. Joseph's mission, well, that basically all but gives it away.

LOL. That is some really convoluted logic. Protestant groups have a problem with praying to saints and worship of saints, but no problem at all with the fact that there ARE saints. In fact, in protestant theology all believers are saints. Foxe's Book of martyrs is still a classic on protestant shelves, and it's chock full of catholic saints.

That being said, you can Google "Saint Joseph Missions" and find they've been buying radio stations for some time now. They were working on a deal last summer.

I'm not sure what's up here, but this isn't the local dioceses buying some stations.