[BC] Re: Westinghouse WOWO

[Scott Fybush]

Blaine Thompson wrote:

> It is common knowledge that Westinghouse invested the most into WOWO (of 
> all their radio stations) and received the most back from the station in 
> revenue, ratings, fire escapes, et cetra. :-)

One more thought on this topic before I call it quits for the night: 
WOWO was indeed the most market-dominant of any of the Group W stations, 
much more so than even KDKA or WBZ. When Price took over in 1982, it 
inherited a station that truly owned its community. EVERYONE in Fort 
Wayne felt connected to WOWO in some way, and there was - no kidding - a 
certain civic pride in that huge night signal. (It is true, and 
hopelessly geeky also, that one of the ways I courted my wife-to-be in 
college was to invite her up to my dorm room to listen to WOWO after 
dark in AM stereo. Sigh...)

While times change, and there was no way WOWO could keep the level of 
dominance it once had as the market absorbed something like a dozen new 
FM competitors, the station COULD have remained a much stronger 
news-talk voice even as it moved away from music. It's depressing, these 
days, to hear how stridently political the station's become in its 
programming (network and local) and in its imaging. While that imaging - 
which seems to follow the dictum, "whatever Fox News does on the air, do 
it a little brassier and louder" - may be in tune with much of the 
market, the fact remains that it's also been a turn-off to other Fort 
Wayners with differing political philosophies. My in-laws, for instance, 
don't listen to 1190 at all these days.

The point here isn't really about the politics, per se. It's just that 
WOWO was once - and not all that long ago, either - a station that 
everyone in Fort Wayne could, and did, listen to. It's not that station 
anymore, and if not for the fact that there's nothing else in town that 
does (or really can, given WOWO's signal advantage) compete for the 
news-talk audience, I suspect its ratings wouldn't be as good as they 
still are. It didn't have to be that way. I'd love to see what kind of 
numbers a less strident WOWO could pull today. I bet they'd be stronger 
than they are now.

s