Category: Rants a.k.a. Commentary, Radio Geekery || By

One of McKeesport's two radio stations is sinking beneath the waves --- again --- leaving barely an oil slick or a bubble on the surface of the water.

The last local host left on WPTT (1360), Lynn Cullen, did her final show today. On Monday, the station switches to an "all-business" format as "WMNY."*

I'll leave you to decide whether it's appropriate to switch to an "all-business" format on Labor Day, but the likelihood of any radio station switching to an "all-labor" format is about as likely as John McCain french-kissing Rosie O'Donnell.

(Urp. I just threw up in my mouth a little.)

Fun fact: Chicago's WCFL was once owned by the Chicago Federation of Labor, and did program a lot of shows about labor, but that was about a million years ago.

. . .

Now, back to 1360, originally called WMCK and located in the Elks' Temple on Market Street, then known as WIXZ and located in the Wilson Baum building on Long Run Road, and later on Route 30 in East McKeesport. If ever there was a station in need of a reason for existence, it's been 1360 for the last 30 years.

I don't envy anyone trying to run a small business in McKeesport. First, you have to get people from Pittsburgh to not regard McKeesport as somewhere on the far side of the moon.

Then you have to get them past the idea that we're all shooting at each other as we smoke crack and lock 14-year-old girls in our basements and warm up Whizzinators in the microwave at GetGo.

I'm not saying we've got an image problem, but, well, you know.

. . .

But 1360 hasn't made any serious effort to serve McKeesport in many years. The studios moved to Green Tree more than a decade ago. The daytime transmitter moved to Pittsburgh; only the nighttime transmitter remains in Lincoln Borough, near Dead Man's Hollow.

There's only one teensy problem: You can't hear 1360 in Pittsburgh at night. You were never meant to. It was designed, back in 1947, as a radio station to serve McKeesport --- admittedly, McKeesport was a larger, wealthier community then.

Somewhere along the line, the ownership got stars in its eyes and decided it wanted to run with the big dogs in Pittsburgh.

Unfortunately, there are about two dozen other radio stations serving Pittsburgh, and no one was clamoring for another static-filled signal on the AM band, especially one that sounds like a shortwave broadcast from Russia every time the sun goes down.

. . .

If that wasn't bad enough, 1360 never seemed capable of holding together a format for very long. It was country for a while. Then it was country during the day, talk in the afternoons, and oldies on the weekend. Then it was all-sports. Then it went all-talk.

Through all of the format changes, shows have come and gone with little or no promotion, and when hosts left, they were replaced with crap.

Elizabeth Township's Jerry Bowyer was the morning man for a while. He had an erudite, smart talk show that wasn't advertised at all. When he left, management plugged in an audio feed of WTAE-TV's morning news, and Laura Ingraham, who's at best, a third-rate syndicated host.

They didn't even run Ingraham's shows live. They were tape-delayed from the previous afternoon. Sorry to be so crude, but playing 18-hour-old political talk shows is like looking at porn after you have an orgasm. I might as well read last week's newspapers.

Not surprisingly, WPTT has habitually hovered near the bottom of the Pittsburgh ratings.

. . .

A few years ago, WPTT started running on-air announcements that it was going to change format, with a new slogan promising "A Revolution in Talk Radio."

Since WPTT's management didn't invest a nickel in billboards, TV commercials or bumper stickers, only radio junkies knew about it. We tuned in, expecting to hear some exciting new lineup.

It turned out that they were, um, just unveiling a new slogan.

It was enough to give you the distinct impression that no one at WPTT knew what the hell they were doing. (Neither do I, but I admit it.) Or at the very least, that they were too cheap to invest any real money.

Longtime Pittsburgh radio fixture Doug Hoerth lost his afternoon drive slot several months ago --- reportedly the victim of budget cuts --- and everyone assumed that Cullen would be the next to go.

. . .

A few people have speculated that because Cullen is a vocal, outspoken Democrat, WPTT's failure proves that people in Pittsburgh won't listen to liberal talk radio.

Maybe, but Hoerth is a moderate, small-L libertarian, and Laura Ingraham is to the right of Marie Antoinette. On the weekends, WPTT carries NASCAR and high-school football. WPTT wasn't "liberal talk radio."

However, WPTT's failure to score any ratings does prove that people won't listen to a radio station that they've never heard of, that they can't pick up at night, and that has a lineup full of idiotic programming choices.

Seriously, audio from Channel 4 was the best WPTT could do in morning drive? It sure was a thrill to listen to WTAE's anchors describe pictures you couldn't see ... because they were on the damned radio.

. . .

McKeesport's 1360 is not the only local radio station that's gone down the drain because of stupid decisions like this. Did you know Braddock has a radio station on 1550? Or that Carnegie has one on 1590, and Monroeville has one on 1510?

I didn't think so. They're "forgotten, but not gone," wasting electricity and bandwidth, turning their backs to the towns they're supposed to be serving, and broadcasting to no one.

The all-business format is only going to be worse. The daily 3 to 6 p.m. slot is going to be filled by a financial advice program that's paid for by the host. Here's a tip: Generally speaking (but not always) people pay for radio time if they're not good enough to get a show on their own merits. A few people who pay for their own radio time are entrepreneurs and have real radio talent, but a lot of others are done as vanity projects, and it shows.

. . .

Now, about WPTT being technically a "McKeesport" station. As I said, McKeesport has a perception problem, and it would be hard to sustain a radio station that only targeted the Mon Valley.

Yet there are towns in Pennsylvania that are smaller than McKeesport which sustain their own radio stations. You have to carve out a niche and program the station hyper-locally ... local news, local high-school sports, local talk shows, lost dog reports, parade coverage, and all of that other hokum.

Big, Important Radio Professionals sneer at stations that still program that kind of stuff. And yet those stations make money.

Could it be done in McKeesport? It would be a tough slog. You'd have to get people from McKeesport running 1360 --- just like back in the WMCK days. They'd have to get involved in the community, just like Bob Cox and Sam Vidnovic were.

And it'll never happen. After all, McKeesport's other radio station, WEDO, is for sale ... for $1.75 million. I guess that makes WPTT worth $5 million.

So, good luck with your all-business format, 1360 --- your slogan can be, "talk you don't need from a station you don't want."

. . .

Here's another thought: Radio listening across the country is declining. Advertising revenue is plummeting. FM radio is sick, and AM radio is practically at death's door.

If radio stations start dying, remember that they weren't murdered by the Internet and iPods. They committed suicide.

And when the autopsy reports are written, they'll look a lot like the history of 1360 in McKeesport over the last 20 years.

* -- Correction, Not Perfection: The call letters originally mentioned, WPMY, were incorrect; they are assigned to TV Channel 22 in Pittsburgh.