More Nassau cutbacks

[Who REALLY Cares?]

Splicer, it seems like you're a disgruntled Nassau insider and you see the grass as being greener on the other side.  You share insider information on here that only the highest level managers or engineers would know.  Shrewd?  NOT!

[NHRadio]

Are there any non-disgruntled Nassau insiders left? 

Splicer, it seems like you're a disgruntled Nassau insider and you see the grass as being greener on the other side.  You share insider information on here that only the highest level managers or engineers would know.  Shrewd?  NOT!

[necrat123]

The 98.3/101.5 tower is owned by Crown Castle.

[JIBGUY]

Big corporations, that have no understanding of small market - locally produced radio destroyed them and now have to exit and sell to (Hopefully) local owners who get it and will revitalize the markets they serve.  Mr. Shapiro, Mr. Schmidt, Mr. Christian and Mr. Fisher are all people that understand how to win with a local, community involved station(s).  Any one of those gentlemen would be perfect suitors for the Nassau stations.  Time will tell. 

Best owners here in Maine also seem to be the ones where no one on this board has any complaints about... meaning that jobs are steady, people there are happy.  In no particular order, such owners are:
- Stephen King   ... well funded and steady.
- JJ Jeffrey  ....ultimate great local radio guy... eats, sleeps, breathes Maine radio.
- Saga   ....well-run, financially stable even in this economy.
- Dick Gleason  .... working hard making 1240 uber-local.
And was glad to see Clark Smidt get WCAP-980 in Mass, as he is local (living nearby) and a hard worker.  And (Mass, again) look for good things, I'm sure, with WNBP-1450.

[splicer38]

From the FCC website:  Transfer of control of 102.3FM to Birch Broadcasting (Andrew Summerau has a 95.1% equity stake and 100% of the votes)  has been approved by the FCC on June 24, 2009 (BTCH-20090309ACH). There is a letter from the commission that states they have until Sept. 5th to turn it on.  Guess Mr. Summerau did close on that deal.  Don't know how that affects the marketing/sale of the Nassau stations.

Splicer, it seems like you're a disgruntled Nassau insider and you see the grass as being greener on the other side.  You share insider information on here that only the highest level managers or engineers would know.  Shrewd?  NOT!

Reply:  Nope.  Never worked for Nassau.  Just an innocent bystander reading tea leaves and watching the pieces fall into place and trying to anticipate what they'll do next.  A lot of the "facts" I bring to the table are publicly available like the FCC filing above.  No insider information at all.  I also have many contacts in the industry that have good listening skills.  I don't know of ANY Nassau employee that's happy to be where they are.  From what I hear, the ones that are left are not comfortable in their position and are being over worked trying to cover for the ones that have been let go.  It sounds like the grass is pretty "Brown" at Nassau these days!  Watching all this happen to big corprate radio companies is saddening but if this is the beginning of locally owned stations and local operators getting back in control of these stations that is a good thing no?

Recent articles indicate Clear Channel is having their own problems with Goldman Sachs and Private Equity.  They could be next to be "Reorganized".

[OlderRadioGuy]

"Approved" does not mean the sale has "Closed".

From the FCC website:  Transfer of control of 102.3FM to Birch Broadcasting (Andrew Summerau has a 95.1% equity stake and 100% of the votes)  has been approved by the FCC on June 24, 2009 (BTCH-20090309ACH). There is a letter from the commission that states they have until Sept. 5th to turn it on.  Guess Mr. Summerau did close on that deal.  Don't know how that affects the marketing/sale of the Nassau stations.

[Oldbones]

It sounds like the grass is pretty "Brown" at Nassau these days!  Watching all this happen to big corprate radio companies is saddening but if this is the beginning of locally owned stations and local operators getting back in control of these stations that is a good thing no?

The same laws of economics that apply to corporations apply to local operators too.  Local or not, don't expect to see full airstaffs returning.  Ever.

Name one industry where the grass isn't pretty "brown" these days.  Radio is not alone. 

JIM:  I too hope these signals end up in local ownership.  Mr. Fisher is a terrific operator and understands local radio and how it works.

Really, the only station in his cluster that any effort seems to be put into is Mix.  The other 2 FMs are mostly bird-feed (is there any local programming on WSCY?), and the AMs are pretty much throwaways.

- Dick Gleason  .... working hard making 1240 uber-local.
And was glad to see Clark Smidt get WCAP-980 in Mass, as he is local (living nearby) and a hard worker.  And (Mass, again) look for good things, I'm sure, with WNBP-1450.

I'm not from Maine so I have no idea what's on 1240, but I can't imagine a graveyard-channel AM drawing much of an audience, no matter what they're doing programming-wise.

Speaking of WCAP, have you actually heard this station?  It sounds like small-market radio circa 1963.  Does anyone under 65 listen?  Surprising, considering Smidt made his fame & fortune as a programming consultant.

The bottom line is that just being "local" isn't gonna cut it in the 21st century.  If you suck, no one's gonna listen no matter how "local" you are. 

[NHRadio]

WSCY is live in AM drive as is "The Planet" WPNH. In fact today was Joyce Danas' first day on SCY. She was with WOKQ for about a dozen years, and is a veteran of WCGY as well.
While the AM's aren't relevant to anyone under 60, they're not throwaways either.
A Nassau employee is hardly in a position to take other stations to task for the lack of local programming.

Really, the only station in his cluster that any effort seems to be put into is Mix.  The other 2 FMs are mostly bird-feed (is there any local programming on WSCY?), and the AMs are pretty much throwaways.

[Jim]

I would rather have a bird fed station than a Nassau fed station.  WRN does a great job with WPNH 100.1.  3-4 breaks an hour are actually customized for the station with live local content.  I'll take that over Nassau's voicetracking.  Also, Jeff does lots of community involvement type things on all 3 stations and tons of remotes.  There is also someone in the studio at the FTN, SCY and PNH building from 5 am to 7 pm everyday.  As far as the AM's, what small town AM is doing much of anything these days?   Down here in the south is wall to wall black gospel and religion on the small town am's.

[Gadon]

I would NOT quite put the nail in the coffin for a lot of the 'small town AM's' in northern New England quite yet.. A good number of the small market AM's still provide a mix of good local and national, talk and sports content. There is plenty of religious content on the FM side of the dial.