For those who choose to attend,
how about a bonus prize if one can prove they actually listen to AM 740? 
 

Have to admit, Zoomer does more than many other Toronto stations put together.  That is the beauty of a smaller independent operator, who can spend money as they see fit. Good on Zoomer for taking part.  I bet we would be surprised at the number of people showing up, although today has been lousy for weather.  Tomorrow should be a good day. 

RadioAaron wrote:

paterson1 wrote:

Have to admit, Zoomer does more than many other Toronto stations put together.  That is the beauty of a smaller independent operator, who can spend money as they see fit.

Or can lose money as they see fit, as is the case here.

That is up to him.  When you go to the Zoomer site it really shows what little effort the big guys put into programming and their cookie cutter and cheap looking on line sites.   Corus and Bell Media radio are profitable??  

But last quarter Corus, Stingray and Bell radio are making money?  Not just picking and choosing certain stations or markets?

Yes they are public but Moses has controlling interest.  Sort of like CHUM use to be.  The Waters family always had control even though CHUM was on the TSX.

RadioAaron wrote:

If you're going to compare radio operations, you have to do it within markets as the economics scale completely differently with size. So if you're going to compare how Zoomer runs a radio station vs. Stingray, it has to be within the same market.

740 is not a successful operation and doesn't have much time left.

So in other words Bell, Corus and Stingray took formerly profitable stations in other markets and turned them into  operations that lose money.  This with less local programming, even prior to COVID, less or no news, years of cutbacks with staff, selling of buildings, no promotion budgets, and in many cases not serving local communities with little local involvment.  So now rather than trying anything, they just want to unload them at super cheap prices.  Nice business plan! 

And if Zoomer is running out of time, why all the effort?  Seems strange that a station coming to the end is not acting or sounding like it.  We should concede when the owner leaves one way or the other, big changes could happen.
 

RadioAaron wrote:

The big companies didn't "turn the stations into operations that lose money." The internet completely turned the advertising market on its head, devaluing the entire ad industry. The results would have been the same no matter which logo was on letterhead.

And if Zoomer is running out of time, why all the effort?  

Ego

The internet has absolutely hurt and the conglomerates saw this coming and did what?  Cutbacks.  Yes do less and take away all the advantages that radio has like being local.  Again, nice business plan. The end result, I argue would have been different if some effort was made.  

Has Zoomer had cutbacks all this time?  Are they doing less?  You can say the end results are the same, but they are not. 

Ego?  Maybe some, but not the real reason in my opinion.  I give Zoomer tons of credit for actually serving the audience and putting out the effort.  They put the others, that have many more resources to be innovative and counter the internet, to shame.

paterson1 wrote:

 I give Zoomer tons of credit for actually serving the audience and putting out the effort.  They put the others, that have many more resources to be innovative and counter the internet, to shame.

And they're failing at it.
 

RadioAaron wrote:

paterson1 wrote:

 I give Zoomer tons of credit for actually serving the audience and putting out the effort.  They put the others, that have many more resources to be innovative and counter the internet, to shame.

And they're failing at it.
 

And the Bells, Corus, Stingrays with their many executives and consultants are failing even worse. 

paterson1 wrote:

RadioAaron wrote:

paterson1 wrote:

 I give Zoomer tons of credit for actually serving the audience and putting out the effort.  They put the others, that have many more resources to be innovative and counter the internet, to shame.

And they're failing at it.
 

And the Bells, Corus, Stingrays with their many executives and consultants are failing even worse. 

Nope. They have stations making money. Zoomer doesn't.
 

turkeytop wrote:

paterson1 wrote:

the internet still doesn't replace local radio, and yes it can offset the transformation.  

Internet is no more like radio than intravenous feeding is like fine dining.
 

Whether or not you call it radio has no impact on the situation.

Libby told listeners during the Friday Free-For-All on Fight Back with Libby Znaimer that she would be present during the a.m. on Sunday's Open House.

RadioAaron wrote:

turkeytop wrote:

paterson1 wrote:

the internet still doesn't replace local radio, and yes it can offset the transformation.  

Internet is no more like radio than intravenous feeding is like fine dining. 

Whether or not you call it radio has no impact on the situation.

Radio, as we know it, won't survive much longer. It's simply a delivery vehicle for content, albeit a charming vehicle. It comes down to how much more time radio might buy itself by evolving with the times. But at the end of the day it will morph into whatever comes next.

Moses is doing some very good things. He's cross-branded and cross-marketed with CARP, and involved Classical 96.3 in the process. I'm struggling to remember the ownership timeline, but the current triad of stations started with 103.1 in Cobourg and added 96.3. I think that was Martin Rosenthal's doing. Then Moses added 102.9 to serve parts of Cottage country (not sure how reliable the Collingwood signal is in the Muskokas). There's some nice interplay there.

But the audience for 740, and to some degree 96.3 et al, is aging. In some respects 96.3 now sounds a wee bit like the original CHAY 93.1, and look where CHAY is now, format-wise.

If I owned AM 740, and the rest of the Moses empire: I'd be thinking about future tweaks and formats. I'd have also long ago begun integrating new communications technologies into the stations. Could be as simple as having a very strong presence on YouTube and a good number of other online platforms - the sky's the limit (as is common sense). The CARP integration weaves completely non-communications activities into the communication ones, and there's a magazine in that mix too, as well (I believe) as thematically related consumer in-person events.

The trick with all of this is cross-branding, creating an entity that touches a desired audience at multiple points. (I also hold that standalone radio could do well enough in a medium size community - Hamilton, London, Windsor, Belleville - if it is hyper local with a literally (but not obnoxiously) in-your-face presence and also engages with some of the above-mentioned kinds of offerings for cross-branding etc.

But I give even these models a decade or two or some kind of soft end-time along those lines - for the radio segment. We can argue for now whether or not electric cars and other new autos should have AM radios. At some point in the not-too-distant future they won't even have FM, or at least what looks like the FM we have right now. Radio, as we know it, will eventually go the way of the horse and carriage. I think we're all afflicted here in SOWNYland with serious affection for radio, but there's the point where the love of our life gets admitted to Extendicare. But for station owners who play it smart, the transition will be more akin to swapping out the radio delivery vehicle for another. Perhaps the greatest possible challenge is finding ways to offer levels of intimacy radio has been so good at.


 

When gas guzzler cars finally exit in favour of electrics et al, there won't be an exception for the 1982 Alfa Romeo my neighbour drives. If Zoomer radio - and Moses' empire - can somehow earn revenues stemming from that great signal outreach, then it potentially becomes more of a secret weapon.

Dicky Doo wrote:

AM 740's morning show gals today discussed the open house and mentioned that a number of people asked about the music -- specifically, how it is selected.     Unfortunately they went off in a different direction and didn't answer that.     

You mentioned that the line up was huge.  Did you go through the tour ysterday Dicky Doo?