Posted by Bob C. on May 11, 2009 at 20:18:16:
In Reply to: Re: The continued eroding of the WLS news department posted by Annoyed on May 11, 2009 at 20:17:36:
I know, I know. We're living in the past, back when a top 40 AM station in a small market would still have a live and local newscast at 8 pm on a Saturday night. Those days are gone, much to the detriment of anyone who wants to break into this business. As has gone the concept of those newscasts as a necessary service that is provided to the listeners. For one thing, they're not as necessary as they once were. After all, we now have other platforms from which to obtain the latest news.
Still, it's sad to those of us who know better. From the almighty standpoint of dollars and cents, the chopping of all local news service from nights and weekends works well. I certainly can't argue that point - I'd lose.
But, it's still really lame. Yet another way in which the weekend WLS doesn't sound much different than a similarly-formatted AM talker in a place like Peoria or Binghamton. And that's sad.
: This has been talked about to death on this board, since WLS first dropped local news and traffic on weekends back in October.
: To put it bluntly, WLS doesn't make much money from their weekend programming. As with any station, the bread and butter is M-F 6 a.m. - 6 p.m., at the very least. They are doing very well in that spot, so dropping local news and traffic has not hurt them one bit. Yes, I think it's lame, but that's the way it is. WLS, at this point, has no incentive to bring back weekend local news and traffic.