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Disney Selling 23 Radio Stations


24994J

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Man, this sucks. A part of my childhood was with this station (specifically AM 640 in Philadelphia). All the Disney songs and popular Pop song appropriate enough for it playing every day. I enjoyed the DJs and blocks and everything about it was just wonderful. Now I can't listen on the radio anymore. I gonna miss it. Oh well.

I do feel sorry for the people who will be out of jobs come next month.

(Please don't judge; I was a kid back then. Really.)

 

1/2

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2/2

 

On the other hand, this change is a smart idea. Everything is going to the Internet and the cellphone now. Anything is just a click or tap away, including Hulu, Amazon, the Watch Disney apps and websites, Facebook Instagram & Twitter and iHeart (and by extension, its Nick Radio). So this had to make sense. the Kids are very app-savvy (including me) and really won't mind following Radio Disney to the app. So this won't be a bad thing for many people.

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Nickelodeon has already signed a contract with iHeart

 

Sorry, I'm way out of Nick's demographics so forgive me. I guess that's not surprising given Bob Pittman's ties to Viacom, he was able to pull some strings there.

 

As for me, I don't really find this sad, nor surprising. Disney already sold off the station here, 1160 AM, which Disney bought from Belo when they decided to get out of radio. 1160 was bought by Salem and I have no clue what they're going to be doing with it. At last check they're silent but the towers are still standing. Also I have younger siblings who are within Radio Disney's demo. All of them have iPod touches, none of them have the iHeartRadio or Radio Disney apps. Most of their time is spent watching YouTube which is where they get all their music. With that, you can control what you want to listen to, when you want, and there's no DJ's yapping over the music, and if they really wanted to hear the profanities on the songs they can with YouTube. Radio Disney was a novel idea in the late 90's/early 2000's when it was created and I did listen to it. But in this day and age it doesn't really resonate with the demo, and it's on AM radio. Who wants to listen to that?

 

As for the 200 losing their job, well, it shouldn't happen that way but Disney tried to keep staffs as small as possible. They had a couple people who did community outreach and of course to produce the required public affairs programming. But I know here in San Antonio they had a GM, a sales person and an engineer. They had no more than 5 working there so they didn't have to list the vacancies and hirees on their EEO reports. I'm sure the other Radio Disney stations operated with a lean staff for the same reason. To be quite honest I think KRDY and the others were fed by satellite from Burbank to the transmitter because KRDY was located in an office building and it didn't appear it had microwave equipment necessary to send the signal from the automation computer to the transmitter.

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When Radio Disney launched I was out of the target demo.

 

In grade school I listened to Q102 (Peace On The Streets!), which gradually went to a dance format.

 

Then, eighth grade, February 1997. I was introduced to WDRE Philadelphia for the first time. Philly's Modern Rock. Granted, it was during its last week of broadcasting. But it was incredible, all this great music that I had only experienced barely before. Pretty much the week after the station closed down, most of the staff moved to WPLY Y100.

 

Y100 got me through high school and through college. It was one of the few genuine radio stations out there. Genuine meaning that it felt REAL, not voicetracked. Even when the playlist got bad (helloooooo Trapt and Nickelback), the station still had a great morning show and a great feel.

 

The morning show, Preston and Steve, moved to WMMR in 2004. Radio One, the station's owner, decided to kill Y100 the day of their last show.

 

The day Y100 died was the day I stopped listening to terrestrial music radio. (Ok, so there was a bit when they had 97.5 The Hawk, but that died too.) To me, music on the radio is completely and totally irrelevant.

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When Radio Disney launched I was out of the target demo.

 

In grade school I listened to Q102 (Peace On The Streets!), which gradually went to a dance format.

 

Then, eighth grade, February 1997. I was introduced to WDRE Philadelphia for the first time. Philly's Modern Rock. Granted, it was during its last week of broadcasting. But it was incredible, all this great music that I had only experienced barely before. Pretty much the week after the station closed down, most of the staff moved to WPLY Y100.

 

Y100 got me through high school and through college. It was one of the few genuine radio stations out there. Genuine meaning that it felt REAL, not voicetracked. Even when the playlist got bad (helloooooo Trapt and Nickelback), the station still had a great morning show and a great feel.

 

The morning show, Preston and Steve, moved to WMMR in 2004. Radio One, the station's owner, decided to kill Y100 the day of their last show.

 

The day Y100 died was the day I stopped listening to terrestrial music radio. (Ok, so there was a bit when they had 97.5 The Hawk, but that died too.) To me, music on the radio is completely and totally irrelevant.

 

I remember all the "Save Y100!" bumper stickers and what not.

 

Preston & Steve are great in the mornings, and back in the Y100 days Marilyn was still with them. But I was never a fan of the music they played.

 

I had no idea Radio Disney was even still around. I don't think we ever had a Radio Disney station in the Lehigh Valley.

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I'm not terribly surprised. Frankly, radio is (slowly) dying, and even if it weren't, people generally don't think to look on the relatively low fidelity AM dial for pop music radio (be it for kids or adults). Unfortunately, virtually all the Radio Disney stations were AM stations.

 

It's too bad that HD Radio never took off. Radio Disney could have been a good format/service for stations to broadcast on one of their "sidebands."

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I never was a radio fan growing up but only in June last few years I started to listen. Now, I normally listen to SiriusXM stations like Classic Vinyl, Coffee House, once in a blue moon hits to hear the new music but more likely you'll find me listening to CNN, BBC World Service (I wish they carried the audio of their cable channel though) or MSNBC. If I'm not a car with Sirius I will listen and support out local college station WTMD.

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I did listen to Radio Disney but the Boston signal was so weak in the 4 digits side of the dial and a station where they could yell out of the window to get an audience (stealing that Howard Stern line when he was on WCBS-TV after getting fired from WNBC radio 29 years ago.) New England AM radio sucks unless you listen to WBZ or WTIC, because they are the only 2 Class A stations in the region, need I say more?

 

On topic, Disney did a really stupid mistake, to be quite honest of not getting rid of the ENTIRE radio business and operations to Citadel. Disney made a ton of cash for that sale, resulting Citadel to merge with Cumulus (whom of which I never heard of until a year ago.) IIRC, Disney sold ABC-owned radio stations, sold the ABC Radio network, but kept ESPN Radio, Radio Disney and another operational unit like ad sales/traffic/dunno. It was really the weirdest sale of radio stations I have ever known of.

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What's going to happen to ESPN Radio? Is it doing well?

 

Look at the targeted demos. Radio Disney went after tweens and teens like 8-18, likely predominantly female. ESPN Radio is targeting men 18-49. Who's more likely to listen to over-the-air, mostly AM radio? Exactly. Also, there are 4 reasons why, no matter what the ratings are, that the sports outlet is doing fine...

 

1. E

2. S

3. P

4. N

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Part two of my radio story.

 

After Y100 died and it was clear 97.5 The Hawk was going the same way, I decided to join the satellite radio club.

 

I picked up a radio and a subscription to XM Radio.

 

XM was a dream; they had a college/indie rock channel. They had a channel dedicated to hair bands and big 70s glam metal. They had wonderfully programmed decades channels. They had a channel for 80s classic rock. If you liked music, you would find something on there. And before Lee Abrams went over to fuck up Tribune, he was really the driving force behind XM. Which was the leading satellite service.

 

Of course we all know what happened: the market couldn't support two services. And the one with the momentum, unfortunately, was The Dog. Because Stern. I did not sign up for satellite radio to get Stern. I signed up because I wanted to listen to music, awesome music, esoteric music. The Dog's music services were VERY pale imitations. And the "merger" was actually a buyout by The Dog.

 

So The Dog bought XM. The Dog then proceeded to behead XM with a machete, burn its corpse, cut it up into pieces, run it over two or three times, and then throw it in a garbage can. Which it then set on fire.

 

To me, satellite radio died in 2008. It's a dead technology that deserves to be shot in the head.

 

I get my music fix from Spotify these days.

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Part two of my radio story.

 

After Y100 died and it was clear 97.5 The Hawk was going the same way, I decided to join the satellite radio club.

 

I picked up a radio and a subscription to XM Radio.

 

XM was a dream; they had a college/indie rock channel. They had a channel dedicated to hair bands and big 70s glam metal. They had wonderfully programmed decades channels. They had a channel for 80s classic rock. If you liked music, you would find something on there. And before Lee Abrams went over to fuck up Tribune, he was really the driving force behind XM. Which was the leading satellite service.

 

Of course we all know what happened: the market couldn't support two services. And the one with the momentum, unfortunately, was The Dog. Because Stern. I did not sign up for satellite radio to get Stern. I signed up because I wanted to listen to music, awesome music, esoteric music. The Dog's music services were VERY pale imitations. And the "merger" was actually a buyout by The Dog.

 

So The Dog bought XM. The Dog then proceeded to behead XM with a machete, burn its corpse, cut it up into pieces, run it over two or three times, and then throw it in a garbage can. Which it then set on fire.

 

To me, satellite radio died in 2008. It's a dead technology that deserves to be shot in the head.

 

I get my music fix from Spotify these days.

 

I didn't follow the sat radio wars, the family's car had "The Dog" when we got it 3 years ago. We never paid for the service because the monthly ~$500 payment to two telecom providers, $200 or so to Comcast another $200+ to Verizon, but when we get the free offerings, its worth listening because I do not have any tolerance whatsoever to Indie music, it was those crybabies that ruined commercial radio 20 years ago. I will say the playlist recycle 24 hours, so that song you liked back in the day could get old in a week. At least they don't tout a "200 song playlist" and only run 20.

 

Outside listening to 98% of mostly news music or TWC/LOT8s styled music - I like traditional contemporary music with true (mostly female) artists who stood out from the competition and sadly the sellout of the one hit wonders or the untalented signers (who many can't even sing) have ruined the record industry. Blaming music piracy to this day is total denial of how they ruined the business model. It's complete greed.

 

one of the comments on that site I think nailed it on the head and that subject is prolly outside the scope of TVNT

 

 

Radio Disney never had a chance after the hierarchy shift from ABC to Disney Channel. They actually hired top leaders with zero radio experience, zero sales or advertising experience and had no ideas of their own. They were simply part of the same club of sweeties. Immediately, sales plummeted as they decided not to do business with churches or anything having to do with food so as to put their own idea of PC and micro-management as the top priority. They'd all be great Obama staffers.

 

Then they determined that clearly it was all the sales peoples fault on the ground. Hilarious. So, what did they do? Created an 800 page training manual and made everyone sit in their office on inane conference calls day after day. Then, as a brilliant display of business acumen, they sold off the only profitable stations they had, because they were in "smaller markets". Seriously, you can't even make this stuff up.

 

Its like Starbucks or McDonalds only selling off their profitable locations, imagining that would somehow make the big losers better. The stations that lost money hand over fist, they kept. The spin was, so as have a more "national" focus. P.S. - they never got ANY quality national business ever. Ask any National ad buyer. Nonetheless, everyone came skipping in to collect their check for as long as they could, knowing but ignoring it was a disaster.

 

It was right out of Office Space. I accurately predicted the whole thing and said so.

 

 

 

I never was a radio fan growing up but only in June last few years I started to listen.

 

You must be a very odd little man ;)

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Look at the targeted demos. Radio Disney went after tweens and teens like 8-18, likely predominantly female. ESPN Radio is targeting men 18-49. Who's more likely to listen to over-the-air, mostly AM radio? Exactly. Also, there are 4 reasons why, no matter what the ratings are, that the sports outlet is doing fine...

 

1. E

2. S

3. P

4. N

LOL.
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See, I'm weird. 90% of my music listening is at home or school on Spotify. In the car, on the other hand, I only listen to over the air talk radio. The commercials don't bother me that much (shockingly, they seem very infrequent on some stations), and at any given time on any given day there's at least one program that I'd enjoy on any of 6 talk stations in Chicago. There are more, but there are only 6 that I like, and one of those is only good during one show. Honestly, I consider myself lucky to have these choices...and no, I don't have low standards.

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In our cars, our parents listen to classic rock (99.9 The Hawk, 951 ZZO, 107 The Bone, 105.5 WDHA, or 103.7 WNNJ), our local NPR station, 91.9 WNTI (which instead of news, mainly plays music), or else their CDs; occasionally they'll put on MAX 106.3 and "current" (ie: crappy) music to appease my sister. Mom uses Slacker on her phone, but my dad just got a smartphone two days ago, so he's still trying to learn the ropes.

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Without going OT, what was RD's playlist, how many songs and how many hours without repeats?

 

It's so beyond insane that todays radio stations get away of publishing their playlists and seeing Lady GaGa played every hour, albeit different singles, and it cycles every 2 hours.

 

I stopped listening to radio because the Boston radio market keeps evolving. Every other year, ownerships/license swaps/dial changes/format changes/call sign changes/anything to do with the word change has happened since I was born almost 28 years ago.

 

NYC Radio can't compete to all the changes, except for the last 3/5 years. That market was such a stable market (at least for the major league stations) that I was always in envy.

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I did listen to Radio Disney but the Boston signal was so weak in the 4 digits side of the dial and a station where they could yell out of the window to get an audience (stealing that Howard Stern line when he was on WCBS-TV after getting fired from WNBC radio 29 years ago.) New England AM radio sucks unless you listen to WBZ or WTIC, because they are the only 2 Class A stations in the region, need I say more?

 

On topic, Disney did a really stupid mistake, to be quite honest of not getting rid of the ENTIRE radio business and operations to Citadel. Disney made a ton of cash for that sale, resulting Citadel to merge with Cumulus (whom of which I never heard of until a year ago.) IIRC, Disney sold ABC-owned radio stations, sold the ABC Radio network, but kept ESPN Radio, Radio Disney and another operational unit like ad sales/traffic/dunno. It was really the weirdest sale of radio stations I have ever known of.

There was no way Citadel was going to go for the Radio Disney stations across the board. Too sprawled out and many of which didn't have that good a signal to begin with. Disney is selling the remaining Radio Disney stations on a piecemeal basis, but is shutting them down on the same date in September.

 

The licensing rights for ESPN Radio - per affiliate - are significant and lucrative for Disney. Plus "Mike and Mike" is a must-carry across the board. (The lone exception for years was WEEI AM/FM in Boston; and that ended when owner Entercom leased WEEI (AM) out to ESPN.)

 

As for the legacy ABC Radio Network, it met a fate not unlike the legacy CBS Radio Network. Both have since been Borged into the Westwood One conglomerate, but "ABC News Radio" still exists as a news service just like "CBS Radio News." And ABC is taking distribution for "ABC News Radio" back in-house with assistance from Skyview Networks come January 1.

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As for the legacy ABC Radio Network, it met a fate not unlike the legacy CBS Radio Network. Both have since been Borged into the Westwood One conglomerate, but "ABC News Radio" still exists as a news service just like "CBS Radio News." And ABC is taking distribution for "ABC News Radio" back in-house with assistance from Skyview Networks come January 1.

 

Great so Cumulus' stations will likely switch to CBS, just like their stations dumped all Premiere talk except Rush and put their own programs on...
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