Wednesday, March 04, 2009

WINZ of change?

It's already been a month since credible rumors began to surface regarding the fate of Miami progressive talker WINZ (940AM). Word is that Clear Channel is ramping up a flip to the company's FOX Sports Radio, possibly by early March.

March is now here, and there's still no official word from Clear Channel on the flip to sports. In fact, the station has made one change, ditching the syndicated Don Imus for the morning Air America feed of Rachel Maddow's show. Never mind that it's only an hour long. WINZ is currently airing the entire four hour repeat feed.

Now, this strange move could, in fact, mean that a change is coming. It is quite likely that Imus was dropped (at the beginning of the month, no less) because of a potential flip, and the Maddow marathon is essentially a placeholder. Likely, the dropping of Imus could be some kind of contractual issue. The switch to sports could happen this month.

Again, no word yet on when (and/or if) this will happen. And certainly no affirmation that sports talk will be more successful on WINZ than their current format. In the overall ratings for Fall, WINZ topped the top sports station in the market, WQAM, 1.5 to 1.4. Granted, sports talk-formatted stations tend to rely more on much narrower demographics. But needless to say, with several other sports stations in the market already, and the fact that WINZ has built up a rather solid audience over the past several years, isn't this wholesale move to canned network sports talk a little half-baked?

3 comments:

Unknown said...

If this is true, it sucks. I listen to WINZ to catch Lionel in the evening in case I missed him live. Of course, he's preempted by the Miami Heat a lot, but it's better than nothing. I think CC is looking at sports formats more now because they are attractive to potential advertisers, and radio is desperate for advertising right now. Plus, they are cheap and easy to put on.

Lu Cifer, @Lu666Cifer said...

This AGAIN comes back to the OWNERSHIP issue. Liberal talk is being KILLED by these defacto monopolies like Crap Channel who are all owned by reichwing Nazis that can't even stand having what little liberal talk there is out there, witness what happened in San Diego, Sacramento, Atlanta, Boston, Philly, etc. Market after market after market gets liberal talk radio, and then it gets killed off. One thing Obama HAS to do immediately is start enforcing the Sherman Anti-Trust Act again.

Lu Cifer, @Lu666Cifer said...

And may I add that EVERY station that's flipped to sports (WFAN flopped. "790, The Ticket" is currently crapping the bed. And WINZ included back around 2001-'02) has FLOPPED because 560 WQAM freakin OWNS the Miami/Ft. Lauderdale market when it comes to that format! (Mind you, I have ZERO interest in sports, ok, other than women's beach bikini volley ball...hey, at least I admit it!) Neil Rogers ALONE puts that station over the top, despite QAM's overall not even being close to #1 in overall ratings, he OWNS that market from 10 AM to 2 PM every weekday, CASE CLOSED! WQAM is the #1 MONEY MAKING station in the Miami market! Therefore, it would be absolutely beyond RETARDED for WINZ to flip to ANY other format. What they need to do is keep the line up they have now (other than the 4 hour loop of Rachel!), get off their ass and do some PROMOTION!!! http://Lu666Cifer.blogspot.com


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