With everything going on around me (tons, when you’re about to close on a home), I’m still thinking about WCBS 880. People are still WRITING about WCBS 880. Eventually, the noise will calm down and everyone will go on about their business.
It’s too bad that radio companies don’t make decisions based upon the reaction of their audience. There are a number of stations that would still exist in their prior forms, from the time when they were most popular. New York would still probably have 66 WNBC, either K-Rock or WKTU on 92.3. Certainly, WCBS 880. WABC would still be playing music...
They say change is a good thing. Well, I don’t know about that. First off, who is “they”, and secondly, why do we HAVE to have change when we love some things so much?
Perhaps, things are more profound… magnified… here in the world of radio broadcasting. Oh, we know all too well that nothing lasts forever. There’s no job security. (At least, today) there’s no money in Radio. For the listener, there’s no guarantee that our favorite station will be there tomorrow. Patronize your local advertisers; local companies and mention your favorite stations. Maybe they’ll stick around.
Well for heavens sake, get off your phone if you like a radio station! Get involved! Tell your friends you listen OVER THE AIR to a particular signal!! Tell them you hope they keep AM and FM in cars so you can hear it in the next vehicle you buy! Tell the CAR DEALER where you’re shopping for a car, that you won’t buy one without AM and FM in the dash (hey, that’s a real thing with me…. I told the last dealer that exact thing!)
Do you know why I’m posting this? Because, I cannot just be all doom and gloom. I LOVE radio! My love affair with this medium started when I was very little. I took a transistor to bed with me under the covers – like so many of you who come here! I was a listener before I chose radio as a career (one of several careers, but hey, we do what we can to survive). I just simply cannot just say nothing and watch the greatest medium of any generation simply fade off into the sunset, because a few greedy broadcast behemoths mis-managed the industry after convincing the Federal Communications Commission to relax the ownership caps and cut the very programming that captivated us down to the bone!
It’s been nearly 3 weeks since Audacy announced to its New York City audience that WCBS NewsRadio 880 would disappear, and today is the second full day of what is now All-Sports, nationally syndicated WHSQ ESPN 880. For me, there’s a hole in my radio on the 880 khz frequency. Tuning in briefly to the station yesterday morning were two voices I’d not heard before on that frequency. They might as well have been speaking Japanese as far as I was concerned. There was nobody local. In the 10 minutes that I listened (in my car, on the way to a VA medical appointment), I missed hearing the familiar voice of meteorologist Craig Allen – whose detailed and very accurate weather forecasts kept me informed every single day. Craig always mentioned Connecticut in his forecasts.
Often, WE were the weather story! Craig Allen did reports for both Morning and Afternoon Drive on WCBS 880. He was their Chief Meteorologist. WCBS NewsRadio was so large an operation that it had it’s own dedicated weather center and its own staff of meteorologists! Like a television Weather Center, but dedicated to one radio station! That’s unheard of in 2024 except at only a few radio stations around the United States.
Perhaps, that was part of its undoing. All these departments within an All-News operation cost money. These days, anyone following the radio industry knows that money at the corporate level is very tight. One COULD get into the financial status of WCBS’s parent company as seen below:
Nice stock price, eh? I bought them before they got de-listed two years ago. Purchased $100 worth of stock. And it’s now down to just $0.04 cents. Wait till I put in my TWO cents… lol.
To be perfectly honest, its really unfair to lay all this blame on Audacy. This company, formerly called “ENTERCOM”, had its own storied history. If you go back 20 years ago, Entercom was (mostly) financially sound, although they were starting to get in over their head by purchasing too many radio stations. iHeart did the same thing, pre-iHeart (Jacor, AMFM, etc). Perhaps some of you remember.
Those two are by far, NOT the only big players in the radio ownership game, but they are the biggest and most well-known. If you’re in the radio industry in any capacity, you probably work for, or know someone who works for one of those two media giants.
I wrote this blog for a reason. Not revenue. Not politics. No, I wrote it out of a sincere outpouring of love for the radio industry. The radio stations mean a lot to me… and I’m talking about the RF signals that leave the transmitter, NOT the cold, dead internet stream. The people who work in radio right now mean a lot to me.
I saw some of them at my friend Bob Gilmore’s “Tri-Annual Radio BBQ” this past weekend (I missed you guys so much! Glad you came!)
Here’s something we broadcasters did just for fun. A few years ago, at one of Bob Gilmore’s other Radio BBQ events, we broadcast on Airchexx’s sister internet station, HitOldies.net the entire event. We had some help from the folks at WRMI Miami Shortwave. Thanks to Paul B. Walker, who set the broadcast up, and Bob himself for recording and turning it into a video event – And here’s the fun, as it happened!
So, yes. I care deeply about the state of radio. That’s why I archive so much of the recorded radio out there. Wherever I can find it, whoever sends it, whatever the radio recording is, it’s so important to me to archive it here. Because, frankly, there’s no other way to keep the lifeblood of the most entertaining medium ever invented alive. \
If the internet in all of its current and future forms is the future of everything, then lets put radio NUMBER ONE on the list of things to save. And I mean, saving over the air radio for future generations, and the broadcasts that already happened saved HERE. I cordially invite you, the visitor to this website to donate, either in cash (see the link in the sidebar) or a piece of audio recorded off the air. I credit EVERYONE who donates!
Thank you!
