WMAX brings two stations into fold, boosting coverage

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It took 21 months for WMAX-FM to show a profit after going on the air nearly four years ago.
The station has been broadcasting in the black ever since and reports advertising revenues jumped 19 percent in 1995.
WMAX general manager Alan Bishop said its revenue growth rate is more than three times faster than the station average in the Rochester market.
And now, parent company Auburn Cable Vision has expanded its coverage area by adding two more FM stations to its WMAX family.
WMAX (106.7) added the 102.3 frequency out of Canandaigua on Jan. 7 and two weeks later picked up WRCD Smooth FM (107.3), a station in Honeoye Falls that features new adult contemporary music. Both stations were acquired under a lease-option agreement, Bishop said.
“We’ll be doing something unique in the market: regionalized editions of WMAX,” he said. “We can run a commercial on 106.7 and run the same commercial at the same time on 102.3.”
Bishop said deregulation of commercial radio made the acquisitions possible.
“Three years ago you could only own one FM station in a market,” he explained. “That put us at a disadvantage. Now the playing field is more level.”
Bishop said the days of small, isolated stations thriving is past.
“Three large companies,” he said, “control 85 (percent) to 90 percent of the advertising in Rochester: the Lincoln Group (WHAM, WVOR, WPXY and WHTK), American Radio System (WCMF, WRMM and WNVE) and Heritage Media (WBEE, WKLX and WBBF).
“Get bigger or get out’ is the latest phrase in radio. And our first goal was to get level with the other players.”
Bishop said WMAX was 11th overall among local stations in the October-December Arbitron ratings, but that was before picking up the Canandaigua station.
“Rochester ratings are done over six counties,” Bishop said, “and we didn’t have a strong signal in Ontario and Wayne counties. We were at a disadvantage in not covering the entire area with WMAX. That’s 160,000 people we weren’t reaching.”
Country music station WBEE-FM was the Rochester market leader with an 11.1 share in the most recent ratings.
Is WMAX on its way to becoming a major player in this market?
“I define “major player’ by the bottom line,” Bishop said.
In his opinion, all stations will have similar ratings in the next two to three years.
“The range now is from a 2 share to a 12 share,” he said. “Our stations will come up and the higher stations will come down. The majority will fall between 4 and 7 (shares). The days of the huge ratings, a 15 to 16 share, are a thing of the past.”
Jeff Howlett, station manager and program director at WHAM-AM, said “there has been some consolidation of ratings the last couple of years.”
William Cloutier, general manager of the Heritage Media stations here, agreed, but only to a point.
“I think you’ll see parity among the top stations,” he said, “but I think there will be second-tier stations who are limited because of the strength of their signals.”
And those two groups, he predicted, will remain noticeably apart in the ratings.