Do cars with plastic bodies, like the Saturn, give bad radio reception?

As a kid I rebuilt old tube radios and shortwave and AM DXing kept me occupied evenings. (my grade 8 science class in '64 was rebuilding a radio from the chassis up using Radio College of Canada schematics from the local library. IIRC the radio was manufactured in 1938

There was nobody doing maintenance but that was the thought that chilled me -- somebody had to climb that tower. Flying around in a Tomahawk, no problem, thinking about hanging off the tower, sympathetic acrophobia.

When I was a kid we did some AM DXing but it was mostly 50KW clear channel stations at night. I had a 100' long wire in the back yard and a 5 bottle (AAS) table radio. It was still plenty to listen to Dick Biondi on WLS or those Les Nessman hog reports on WOWO.

I can't fathom wanting to handicap a clear channel station just to make some smaller station go 24 hours... that seems like one step forward and two steps back.

What is the significance of telling us that WLIB is a black-owned station?

How does that enter into the telling of the business strategy that they employed?

Hypothetical:

The small town clear channel doesn't have a substantial audience so its not worth much. (Very little advertising, etc.) However, due to skywave propagation, clear channel's 50KW signal is stomping your NYC signal at night and in the early mornings Your listeners - and advertisers - are walking away. The NYC listeners don't want to listen to the hog belly reports on the clear channel, but they can't listen to your station, so they go to one of your NYC competitors - not just during the nights and evening hours, but all day too.

Stations in NYC have a much bigger audience, therefore advertising revenue is proportionally bigger, probably way beyond proportionally bigger than the revenue garnered during the hog belly futures reports. So you buy out the clear channel, knock their power down and get your frequency back at night. Maybe you are taking a loss on the clear channel, but you grow your NYC station by more than enough to make up for it.

In other words, you are protecting your frequency at night by preventing anyone from overpowering it.

The fling with Air America was typical. A local FM station tried Air America. As a liberal friend said 'I really should listen to the station but I can't stand Randi Rhodes'. It lasted about a year with very few advertisers until it reverted to the tried and true country format.

Yes, I am familiar with WLIB's checkered past, having lived in NYC during the Malcom X era. (Did you see what I did there? Checkered, black & white. Get it? Gawd, I am hilarious!)

However, that history lesson link doesn't answer my question.

You said: "WLIB, in NYC, is a black-owned station that is also on 1190 AM."

Would the story of the WOWO purchase have been any less interesting or the strategy employed been any less creative if you had simply said "WLIB, in NYC, is a station that is also on 1190 AM."?

What did the use of the words "a black-owned" add to the story?

WOWO used to come in as strong as Hamilton Ontario's station here in the Waterloo Ontario area during the winter evenings back in the '60s.

It's a factual statement.

"WLIB became black-owned in the 1970s after activists picketed the station and demanded African Americans be given a chance to purchase it."

Apparently the Novik brothers caved.

I know it's a fact. No argument. However, my question still stands.

Why did you include that fact in your story about the purchase of WOWO?

Let's try it another way...

You didn't tell us how many employees WLIB had. That would have been a factual statement unrelated to the story about the purchase of WOWO.

You didn't tell us the address of WLIB. That would have been a factual statement unrelated to the story about the purchase of WOWO.

You didn't tell us the name of any of the DJ's. That would have been a factual statement unrelated to the story about the purchase of WOWO.

You told us that it was a black-owned station, a factual statement unrelated to the story about the purchase of WOWO.

Why did you choose that single unrelated fact when you told the story?

That's my only question, nothing more. Just curious.

Do you think that may have something to do with the FCC approving the purchase of a station for the sole reason of moving it from a Class A station to a Class B?

Thank you for finally answering my direct question.

So you are saying that the FCC would have discriminated against a non-black purchaser and denied the purchase, correct?

On Fri, 23 Jul 2021 12:30:09 -0400, Clare Snyder posted for all of us to digest...

Mickey (sic) should have used the word produce instead of give.

On Sat, 24 Jul 2021 11:16:54 -0400, micky posted for all of us to digest...

Could be because of Sunspot cycle 25

"So you buy out the clear channel" Maybe I missed something. Did WLIB buy WOWO?

Way back in '94. Well, technically it was Inner City Broadcasting Corporation (ICBC) that bought WOWO after ICBC bought WLIB in '72.

Dunno I haven't listened to AM radio since the Johnson administration. Does anyone?

''Would' is too strong but I believe it is possible a minority owned business would be given preferential treatment by government agencies.