Religion gets another AM 540 WLIE

[awj223]

Depends on where you live.  NYC must use the same terminology as Chicago, where the word "Freeway" isn't generally used.  Chicago's Dan Ryan, Kennedy, Stevenson, Eisenhower, and Edens Expressways are also freeways by the west-coast definition of the term.

And I'm sure they don't call I-495 "The 495" either, like they would if that road was in LA or Phoenix.

I'm aware of the Chicago terminology, having visited that city twice.  They also like using the words "inbound" and "outbound" rather than the cardinal directions.  Fortunately I spent the plane trip studying a map of the area and wasn't confused by traffic reports mentioning the "inbound Kennedy" and "outbound Eisenhower".

However, the terms "expressway" and "freeway" were defined by the predecessor to AASHTO and are now part of the FHWA's Manual on Uniform Traffic Control Devices.  http://mutcd.fhwa.dot.gov/HTM/2003r1/part1/part1a.htm
Expressway—a divided highway with partial control of access.
Freeway—a divided highway with full control of access.
Some local governments continue to abuse the terminology for reasons unknown to me.

I guess the term "expressway" is accurate to the extent that freeway is the more restrictive term (subclass).  Just as all expressways are roads but not all roads are expressways, all freeways are expressways but not all expressways are freeways.

[DavidEduardo]

I suspect nobody on Long Island would confuse the initials LIE with "lie."

Of course we do.  Calling the LIE an expressway is a frigging lie!  It's the world's largest parking lot.    

Haha. As anyone who has tried to get to JFK at rush hour knows.

[Tom Wells]

In 2002, I worked  a few weeks at 2 places on LI, one in Brentwood,  another in Bethpage.
I mentally catalouged LIE as "largely ineffective expressway".

[CTListener]

Here's an idea (off the top of my head). Approximately 10 percent of the population is gay. Is there a station specifically programmed to gay people in your market? TEN PERCENT is pretty freakin' great market share! In certain markets the Muslim community represents a double-digit market share. Is anyone attempting to program to them?

You aren't going to get conservative, flag-waving, offend-nobody Corporate America to spend a penny advertising on those stations, no matter how many potential ears those stations might reach. Let's say Target decides to take a chance and launch an ad campaign on your hypothetical Muslim station. Muslim station then airs an interview with someone with al-Qaida sympathies and the program host lets him have his say and either doesn't question him or lobs softball questions at him. (I'm assuming the host wouldn't publicly agree with him.) Bloggers latch on to the audio and put it on the Internet along with the Target ad that ran right after the interview. Fox News picks up the story and runs with it; more negative publicity for Target. Suddenly, conservative blog readers and Fox News junkies across the country, not just in the station's local market, start going to Wal-Mart instead of Target and telling their like-minded friends what they just heard/read "about Target and al-Qaida." How quickly does Target pull its ads? Yesterday, if it could?

Better to sell the station to Salem or Multicultural, who let the programming pay for itself, than try to convince advertisers who want everyone, regardless of belief/politics/sexuality, to buy their products and have a clean, positive mental image of their brands to risk having their sales pitches associated with programming that gets a significant number of Americans boiling mad, justifiably or not.

[Mike Walker]

Or you could try aiming at some of the other groups I mentioned (or some that I didn't think of). Those just popped into my head as groups not being served..sizable ones in some instances.

You may have a point about a station aimed at Muslim listeners, but i'm not so sure about a station, or network aimed at gays. Will and Grace was hugely successful, and had no trouble getting sponsorship from "conservative corporate America". That's the thing about "conservative" business people...when there's money to be made, the "conservative" thing to do is to make it!

Younger people are more tolerant of differences in sexuality than are people my age (almost 50) and older. I didn't know any gay people growing up. Or so I thought. It turns out that one of my mentors in radio was gay, as he told me not long before he died. It didn't affect my estimation of his worth as a person one tiny bit (despite the fact that I am NOT gay...and will celebrate my 30th anniversary in November). He was a wonderful person, generous with his time and friendship. Much of my love of production came from him...as he was the first genuine "production wizard" I ever met. We all know someone like that. We just may not realize that we do.