[BC] Re: Westinghouse WOWO

[Rich Wood]

------ At 11:40 PM 2/26/2006, Scott Fybush wrote: -------

>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...)

Didn't everyone do that?

I remember being at the ABC Radio Networks as Director of Station 
Relations. Networks value a station by the Average Quarter Hours it 
brings in. I affiliated WDAY, Fargo, ND for Sally Jesse Raphael and 
Tom Snyder. The folks at ABC laughed at me. Tiny market, they said. I 
ran the numbers. WDAY brought in more AQH than our primary affiliate 
in Dallas. The laughing stopped. The WDAY signal just doesn't stop. 
At the time it seemed that everyone within reach of its signal 
listened and knew exactly who they were listening to when the ARB 
diary arrived.

On my first day I settled on getting KFBK, Sacramento, as my first 
affiliate. They were changing Program Directors. More, even louder, 
laughter. I had my material sitting on the new PD's desk the day she 
arrived. I think the first call she made was to me to pick up my 
shows. That caused the laughter to become minimal. The only person 
who didn't laugh was the President, Aaron Daniels. He sent me hand 
written notes of congratulations. Classy guy.

The industry has a tendency to discount the value of smaller markets. 
In networking, these are the markets that build your base and provide 
the percentage of national coverage you need for sales. At that time, 
syndication wasn't the dominant source of programming in major 
markets the way it is today.

WOWO was a very important affiliate for me both at ABC and the WOR 
Radio Network. The call letters, alone, had great bragging value.

Rich

Rich Wood
Rich Wood Multimedia
Phone: 413-303-9084
FAX: 413-480-0010