The Unbearable Cheapness Of AM 620 WTMJ
The Journal Broadcast Group's AM station saves money late at night/early mornings on the weekends by replaying righty weekday morning and afternoon talk shows from the previous week to fill the air time with unpaid programming.
Yes, there are announcements that the programs are repeats - - I think they call them, oxymoronically, 'Best of...' - - but listeners could easily miss or misunderstand the designation.
Right now the station is re-playing a Jeff Wagner show from a few days ago, so event promos and other content is out-of-context-and-sync; For example, Wagner is excitedly reprising base running gaffes from a Colorado Rockies/Milwaukee Brewers series played in Colorado a week ago.
Current listeners would have every right to be confused because the Brewers are in the middle of yet another series with the same Rockies, at home, and many of the players Wagner is mentioning also played in the game that ended a few hours earlier on Saturday.
Bush league radio.
6 comments:
I wish I could find a progressive alternative to repeats of conservative talk radio. WTMJ must be making money even with rebroadcasts. Before you know it, Fox News ratings are going to have all media turn right leaning for the money and ratings.
The "ratings" argument is garbage. You could put Sly and a number of leftie talkers on 620, and I bet their ratings wouldn't be much different. Know why? Because they're the Brewers and Packers station, and people leave their radios tuned to it the next day.
Same goes for Clear Channel's AM 1310 in Madison, which just fired longtime AM host Mitch Henck for "budgetary reasons", and now will likely run syndicated hate radio in the morning. But they still decide to give Icki McKenna a paycheck and hours of airtime. Interestingly, Clear Channel also has an FM leftie talk station that does just fine, and I bet if they flip-flopped them with Icki and company, the ratings wouldn't change much, if at all.
It's a CHOICE by corporate radio to keep the hate on the air, and sports programming is the gateway to it
They're just gettin' twice the value for every dollar journal communications spends on propaganda!
And it isn't just WTMJ-AM, journal communications knows that the propaganda value of milwaukee journal sentinel and the rest of their media assets is more valuable to their overlords than and advertiser-supported entertainment/information business model.
Just like clear channel is willing to take a bath and lose money on rush limpbaugh, journal communications is not actually in the game to maximize its profits by providing a legitimate public service.
wtmj-am happens to do very well financially broadcasting racist hate and disinformation -- but it wouldn't really matter if they didn't.
Outside of major election cycles, look at the performance of milwaukee journal sentinel -- inflaming hate and faux outrage against your hometown isn't a business model for success.
Yet milwaukee journal sentinel excels at it.
Tells you something about the propaganda machine in Wisconsin.
Clear Channel - the company that destroyed radio.
Their music programming also managed to make music radio uniformly bland and predictable. Uninspiring, unchallenging, and safe also.
@jake,
Interesting theory. How would you explain Bellings ratings?
Jake,
WTMJ had a more balanced programming prior to Sykes arrival. One of the hosts went to NPR in Madison, the taxpayer funded government radio station.
Post a Comment