What's next? Imus?
All kidding aside, I'm surprised Imus hasn't already surfaced in Syracuse. Citadel now owns ABC Radio Networks, which owns the current incarnation of Imus in the Morning. You would expect it would be a given that Citadel would require all of its clusters to carry Imus if at all possible. After all, the more affiliates you have, the better it looks to national sponsors.
In Syracuse, obviously you can't put Imus on 93Q or Lite 105.9. But he'd be perfect for WNSS (ESPN Radio), especially since Imus used to be carried by WHEN, the Clear Channel sports station. As far as putting him on 95X, I'm not so sure. It's kind of a stretch, since he is much older than Stern and the target audience. It probably can't be any worse than ------ and Ken, but it probably wouldn't be as good as the numbers they were getting with O&A. Either way, at least it would be free, since Citadel owns the show. That's a better deal than any rate they were paying for Stern or O&A... or for whatever their deal is with ESPN Radio. (Or did the Citadel purchase of ABC Radio also include ESPN Radio, by virtue of ABC owning ESPN?)
No matter what, it's a toughie. Obviously 95X's reputation has been hurting since Stern left... lots of complaints about the music, and the revolving door of morning shows. Many people say it's time to start over from scratch with a brand new format, but what format would work? There aren't many formats that aren't already being done in this market, and it doesn't seem like Citadel has the cash to put up the massive battle it would require to take down someone like B104.7. They would either need to hire Ron & Becky away from CC or wait until they retire (and hope their morning show beats out whoever B gets to replace Ron & Becky). Yes, R&B are mediocre, but listeners in this market love listening to the same old crap every day just because "it's what they've always listened to."
Agreeing somewhat with Jeremy, if 95X has been through all this crap and they're still making the effort... maybe they don't want to throw away their heritage just yet. Perhaps they're still hoping to ride out the storm and rebuild. It's a tough battle when half your former audience follows Stern to satellite and the other half simply jumps to competing stations that already had established morning shows in place, and yes, X certainly mishandled Stern's departure... who knows, maybe going in the direction of more music and less talk will bring people back. Of course, assuming the music rotation is more than just the same overplayed titles. I don't know, just something in me has always favored local shows over syndicated ones.
I could be wrong, and maybe this IS the start of the deathwatch. We'll just have to wait and see.
