Posted on 08/01/2011 5:47:13 AM PDT by Sybeck1
I was listening to Andrew on WREC Memphis Saturday afternoon, and he was saying it was his farewell weekend. He said tune in Sunday in the 2 o'clock hour for details. Well listening Sunday, it was a Rush weekend show. Does anyone know what happened to Andrew? He is a strong black conservative to those who do not know him, who was doing a Saturday and Sunday show in Memphis TN.
I had no idea it was his last weekend. The Memphis area desperately needs black conservative voices, so this isn’t good news. Maybe he will reappear on one of the new conservative stations (98.9 or 990) ala Ben Ferguson.
Nothing in the Commercial Appeal.
Ya could just see it coming.
I learned just yesterday trying to look at this, that Tim Spencer the GM has been gone a month. 600 seems to be slipping away, and minus Rush (and I listen to him either out of New York or Atlanta now anyway) it is kind of hard to care. Oh and Ben is on 98.9 FM now.
Thanks. I can’t stand Ben so...........
I miss that old Mike Fleming myself.
Mike is my neighbor.
ping
You hit the nail on the head, he’s a black conservative, an Uncle Tom, and the libs didn’t like his telling the truth. I stopped listening when the station sent armed security guards to ‘escort’ Mike Fleming out of the building when they fired him because he was their highest paid local talent and over 50 to boot, in their supposed rounds of personnel cuts.
I listened to Andrew on and off when he took over.
Tell him I said hi from Gail in Millington, he will know who I am. I miss his wit. He does have a web site up.
http://mikeflemingonline.blogspot.com/
WREC is a mess, as are half the stations in Clear Channel’s Memphis cluster. I grew up in the Mid-South and still know some folks in local broadcasting circles; a couple of years ago, they tell me, Clear Channel got 50 cents of every radio advertising dollar in the market; now, their share is closer to 40 cents on the dollar—and slipping. That’s a big reason that Tim Spencer got the boot as the Memphis group manager.
The biggest problem with WREC is that Clear Channel lived up to its reputation as “Cheap Channel.” Mike Fleming was deemed “too expensive,” so they jettisoned his contract in favor of the more affordable Ben Ferguson. A few months later Ben was gone, too. Now, with the departure of Andrew Clarksenior, there is no local talk in Memphis, just the obligatory morning news block, and the usual line-up of syndicated hosts.
Memphis is something of a tough market for conservative talk; minority listeners make up about 40% of the market and most of them aren’t tuning in to Rush or local hosts. Still, WREC was pulling a 4.0 rating (or better) just a couple of years ago and I believe it could again, under the guidance of a good market manager and program director, and with at least one talented, local conservative host.
However, I’m not sure that Clear Channel will try to fix its struggling Memphis stations. It has three FMs (urban and gospel-formatted) that are doing well; the remaining stations, WDIA-AM, WEGR-FM and WREC have been drifting for a couple of years. CC may elect to sell those properties and concentrate on the stations that are doing well.
Unfortunately, there’s no guarantee that some of the prospective buyers would do any better running WREC. Citadel (which has four stations in the market) has just emerged from bankruptcy and is in the process of merging with Cumulus; Entercom has a history of mis-managing successful talk stations (WRKO in Boston is a case-in-point) and local broadcaster/physician/politician George Flinn wouldn’t invest any serious money in the station.
One indication about the future of WREC is how quickly Clear Channel names a new market manager. Spencer has been gone for about a month, and there are plenty of folks within the company who could be promoted to the post. Apparently, there’s no rush to fill the post, and the stations keep drifting. In fact, I’ve heard that WDIA is still broadcasting on low power because of issues associated with the spring flooding in Memphis. If that’s accurate, it would suggest that the long-time dominant urban station in the market is up for sale, along with WREC and WEGR.
And that’s too bad, because WREC could be fixed. I’d find a stronger crew for the morning news block, bring back Mike Fleming in the afternoons and simulcast talk programming on WEGR. As a format, classic rock is dying, and conservative talk is gravitating to FM, as evidenced by simulcasts of such stations as WSB in Atlanta and WBAP in Dallas. Memphis has a couple of FM talkers, but they’re struggling. Putting WREC’s programming on the FM band would save CC some money, and build a foundation for the future of conservative talk radio in Memphis.
Andrew was a big part of my weekend afternoons old in the garage and such. Sad to see him go.
I listen mainly now to Rush podcasts, and Mark Levin coming even out of Washington DC or Atlanta on the way home. Local talk radio might never return here. Think about it. What is left to start about now with Willie Herenton gone and the Ford Dynasty basically defunct?
I concur...Rock 103 had been on life support for years, and basically expired with the untimely demise of Bad Dogg. In fact, the Wake Up Crew lost something when they canned Bev Hart during the first round of cost-cutting a few years back.
And there’s a certain, sad irony in that. The Wake Up Crew played virtually no music and as Rock 103’s ratings began to go south, Clear Channel could have moved that program to WREC and it would have attracted more listeners than the morning news block. In fact, I’m guessing there isn’t much difference in the audience demos for the talk station and Rock 103 these days, since the core audience for classic rock is aging.
It’s also worth noting that Clear Channel has had a fair amount of success in “flipping” rock stations to conservative talk, most notably in Raleigh and New Orleans. So, the precedent is there, just a matter of making the call. But I’m not convinced that CC has any long-term commitment to WREC; they had a very successful talker in Birmingham (WERC) and essentially squandered it; the last I heard, that station had an automated rock format (on AM, no less). So Clear Channel knows how to screw up a news/talk outlet as well.
Personally, I’d like to see Cox enter the Memphis market; they have a very strong track record in news/talk, as evidenced by their success with WSB (Atlanta), WDBO (Orlando), WHIO (Dayton) and WOKV in Jacksonville. But I’m not sure if Cox is interested, or if CC is willing to sell.
One more thought: the history of conservative talk in Memphis is that of stations screwing up and other taking advantage of those mistakes. Rush’s original affiliate in Memphis was WMC-AM, which made a successful transition from country to news/talk. Then, someone decided that Rush was too expensive and they dropped him. WREC (and CC) snapped him up, they blew past WMC in the ratings, and that latter station switched back to country a few years later. It will be interesting to see if one of the FM talkers can parlay WREC’s mistakes into their own success.
I concur...Rock 103 had been on life support for years, and basically expired with the untimely demise of Bad Dogg. In fact, the Wake Up Crew lost something when they canned Bev Hart during the first round of cost-cutting a few years back.
And there’s a certain, sad irony in that. The Wake Up Crew played virtually no music and as Rock 103’s ratings began to go south, Clear Channel could have moved that program to WREC and it would have attracted more listeners than the morning news block. In fact, I’m guessing there isn’t much difference in the audience demos for the talk station and Rock 103 these days, since the core audience for classic rock is aging.
It’s also worth noting that Clear Channel has had a fair amount of success in “flipping” rock stations to conservative talk, most notably in Raleigh and New Orleans. So, the precedent is there, just a matter of making the call. But I’m not convinced that CC has any long-term commitment to WREC; they had a very successful talker in Birmingham (WERC) and essentially squandered it; the last I heard, that station had an automated rock format (on AM, no less). So Clear Channel knows how to screw up a news/talk outlet as well.
Personally, I’d like to see Cox enter the Memphis market; they have a very strong track record in news/talk, as evidenced by their success with WSB (Atlanta), WDBO (Orlando), WHIO (Dayton) and WOKV in Jacksonville. But I’m not sure if Cox is interested, or if CC is willing to sell.
One more thought: the history of conservative talk in Memphis is that of stations screwing up and other taking advantage of those mistakes. Rush’s original affiliate in Memphis was WMC-AM, which made a successful transition from country to news/talk. Then, someone decided that Rush was too expensive and they dropped him. WREC (and CC) snapped him up, they blew past WMC in the ratings, and that latter station switched back to country a few years later. It will be interesting to see if one of the FM talkers can parlay WREC’s mistakes into their own success.
Loved it when Mark Davis was on WMC back in the day. Yes, Mark was the local conservative radio guy back then (late 80’s)
I just called WREC and was told that Andrew had quit and walked out. That was all he was prepared to say, and it certainly isn’t the whole story.
BTW, Ben Ferguson still has a talk show on FM 98.9 on daily from, I believe, 2 p.m. to 6 p.m. but I could have those hours wrong. http://newstalkfm989.com/
Couple of notes:
Lots of reorg going on at AM600... Spoke with Jeff Rademaker this weekend, and the entire traffic group was let go Friday. They are going to give you traffic from NASHVILLE, we assume by looking at traffic cams...
And we DO still have a local conservative voice. Mark Skoda, the founder of the Memphis Tea Party, is on WMPS, AM 1210, FM 87.7 in the afternoons from 4pm to 8pm weekdays. The rest of the lineup are good, too, but not from Memphis.
Thanks for info
I was in the middle of my Air Force career (and away from the Mid-South), so I never heard Mark during his days on WMC. As I recall, his next stop was Washington, D.C. (WMAL?) before moving on to Dallas and WBAP.
BTW, another Memphis refugee (Hal Jay) is the morning anchor on WBAP; he was a DJ at WMC back in its country days and moved on to Dallas in the late 70s, spent a year at another station and then joined the staff at WBAP when it was a country powerhouse. He made the transition to news/talk and recently celebrated his 30th year at the station.
Hal is the highest-paid radio personality in the market and Mark runs a close second, and that doesn’t include his part-time gig filling in for Rush. I often wonder how much he and the “other Marks” (Belling and Steyn) get paid as substitute hosts.
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