WDTW AM 1310 to cease operations 12.31.2012

[firstandten]

anyone notice 1270 changed to hate radio?

Its changing back to sports

[Jimaz]

They're running Keener13.com tributes to the background music of Classical Gas.

Dead air now at 12:30AM, Jan 1, 2013.

[Jimaz]

Classical Gas

There goes the last surviving attempt to preserve culture in a popular format in this region.

[Vic_doucette]

It was funny to hear a commercial on 1310 a couple days ago for businesses to buy ad time on the station. Why bother run such an ad?

It probably came during a national program. Those shows are designed with a certain number of local breaks per hour, places where the local station can run commercials or other announcements.

As a local operator, you HAVE to fill those breaks with something -- a commercial, a public service announcement, a promotional announcement or a plea for people to buy commercials on your station.

My guess is that they were just going through the motions in the last few weeks and nobody cared what was in the local breaks.

[compn]

where will the two michigan medical marijuana radio shows will go now?
http://www.1310wdtw.com/pages/weekends.html

one hasnt updated and the other is trying a name change for a different station it looks like.

[Detroitej72]

Its changing back to sports

I guess you can only have so much right wing babble on the air waves.

[EastsideAl]

Progressive radio was dead from the start, since most of us have long since moved on from radio, and there is much less market amongst reasonable thinking people [[and here I include actual conservatives, dying breed that they are) to be ginned up by the one-dimensional frothing at the mouth rage style that holds sway on political talk radio these days.

However, I have to believe that even tin-hat hate radio is now facing a limited lifespan. It seemed to populate the airwaves as other options for gaining an audience for AM disappeared, but now I don't know of anyone under 50 who still listens to that stuff - or listens to over-the-air radio at all, for that matter, especially AM. And from what little I do hear of it [[mostly while visiting aged and addled relatives or waiting for sports events to start) most of their advertisers are solidly in the geriatric market segment. In fact, given its technological limitations and competition from other media, I wouldn't be surprised if AM radio disappears entirely in the next 20 years or so.

[Vic_doucette]

Video of the last two [[of six) towers coming down.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1gskUrvJKT4

[MikeM]

Wow, that was quick.

[douglasm]

In regards to the commercial breaks, Vic has it nailed. When we were running ABC "Stardust", we had 6 minutes an hour we HAD to fill between 6a and 7p every day. We were way undersold, so in a 3 minute break you'd hear 4 psa's, a weather update and a advertising solicitation.

I had a copy of the old Stan Freberg "Who listens to radio" campaign, and we used them relentlessly. Didn't work [[we went bankrupt), but I think they got higher ratings than our programing. Besides, the Sarah Vaughn sung jingle fit into the format....

[Vic_doucette]

OK, douglasm. I'll see your Stan Freberg and raise you another Freberg, my all-time favorite radio promotional spot.

[Hermod]

In the days before television became common, we would gather around the radio at night

Sunday nights were:

6:30-Our Miss Brooks
7:00-The Jack Benny Show
7:30-Amos and Andy
8:00-Edgar Bergen and Charlie McCarthy
8:30-The Red Skeleton Show