Townsquare Media Oldies 1160 WOBM Lakewood Township/1310 WADB Asbury Park, NJ has dropped the format and shifted to Conservative Talk.
Morning hosts Bob & Marianne Levy will remain with the station in mornings from 5:30 to 9:00 as will the brokered talk shows heard in the 9:00 hour. The new additions to the station are Glenn Beck from 10am-12pm, Rush Limbaugh 12-3pm, Sean Hannity 3-6pm, and Todd Schnitt in evenings.
The Monmouth/Ocean market was one of the few in the country without a locally based syndicated talk outlet. Townsquare sister “New Jersey 101.5” WKXW Trenton regularly leads the market, but listeners to syndicated programs had to rely on New York or Philadelphia stations. As Monmouth County is embedded in the New York market, in the past syndicators wouldn’t want a local signal competing with their New York flagships with the same programming.
This one doesn’t make a whole lot of sense. Are that many fans of those syndie shows actually gonna switch from WABC or WPHT to these lesser signals, especially for in-car(you can drive out of 1160’s or 1310’s coverage areas pretty fast) or at-office (where these 2 stations are likely to have bad signals)?
As least with oldies, they are providing a format not as easily available. As for demos, yep, oldies have older demos, but so does conservative political talk.
Monmouth/Ocean is a market with a sizable population over age 50. If they’re retired, they’ll listen at home.
Townsquare Media must have found that people will not put up with noise and static from distant signals.. WOBM blankets Ocean County day and night — its night power is higher than its day power. WADB covers much of Monmouth County by day and coastal Monmouth at night.
And in case you aren’t aware, WABC dropped Limbaugh and Hannity on New Year’s Day.
Typo on my part re WABC—–WOR is the NYC station for Rush, etc.
And WOR’s coverage is http://radio-locator.com/cgi-bin/pat?call=WOR&service=AM&status=L&hours=D compared to WOBM-1160 http://www.radio-locator.com/cgi-bin/pat?call=WOBM&service=AM&status=L&hours=D and WADB-1310 http://www.radio-locator.com/cgi-bin/pat?call=WADB&service=AM&status=L&hours=D So we have local signals among the 3 stations…however:
While true that the 50+ retired crowd who are at home would listen there and not in the car or office, one would expect Townsquare to be trying for a younger (under 50)demo, so why change from a 50+ oldies format to a 50+ talk format.