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WOBM is a soft rock music station with a focus on Ocean County. They focus on softrock artists such as Billy Joel, the Bee Gees, John Mayer and more. A fuller list will be includedin the playlist section of this report. Although they are mainly a music station they have sometalk including

Delilah,

a nationally syndicated talk show about relationships that features musicas well. They also have a morning talk show called

The Ocean County Breakfast Show

withShawn Michaels and Sue Moll. I will expand on this and other programming in the appropriatesections.

Ownership

WOBM is owned by Millennium Radio Group. They are part of a group which contains11 other radio stations. These stations are New Jersey 101.5, 94.3 the Point, 105.7 the Hawk,1160 WOBM AM, Fox Sports 1030 AM, 96.9 WFPG, 107.3 WPUR, SOJO 104.9, NJ 101.5’sother station in South Jersey 97.3, and ESPN Radio 1450 AM. I think that being part of a larger group is beneficial to WOBM and radio stations in general. I feel this way because if a radiostation is without a group the radio station would see higher costs and need more people workingat the station. With WOBM being part of a group they can save costs in some places.

History

WOBM went on the air March 1, 1968 and is a part of the Millennium Radio Group.They have remained pretty similar to what they were then. They even have one guy, Bob Levy,who has been doing his talk show, Topic A, with WOBM since it was signed on.

Technical Facilities

WOBM has an antenna height of 149 feet above ground level. They also have aneffective radiated power of 1.4. According to Steve Ardolina with WOBM’s signal strength theyare able to go out “30 miles from Toms River” in all directions. These numbers are similar to

what I feel is their big competitor WJRZ, which I will go into more detail in the competitionsection. Attached to this report is a coverage map for WOBM. Looking at this map one couldsee that some of the signal goes out into the ocean. This is not very beneficial because besides boats that might be in the range; they are going to be losing out on listeners and effectivelylimiting their range to less than their power is. To the best of my knowledge there is nothingthey can do about it, which is unfortunate because there location has rendered some of their signal basically useless. The signal extending out onto the beaches and oceans does have oneuseful aspect to it. With their signal reaching the beach area, many people on the beach canlisten to this station easily. Since WOBM brands itself as “Ocean County’s Home Station”,theyare focused on the area. This is a benefit because when tourists come to the beach they mightneed to know the area’s weather or traffic patternsand WOBM can give it to them. Their locationhas this benefit but overall I think that their location is a weakness. With about half of their signal going out to beaches and oceans they really lose a lot of range and potential listeners.There listenership would also dip in the winter when there is no beach activity. However if theyhad a different location for their main antenna it would be possible for them to still hit the beacharea as well as get more listeners inland. Steve Ardolina also realizes that this is a problem aswell stating that the stations greatest liability is the stations “on-air signal” and is trying to findways to get around this problem.

Target Audience

According to Steve Ardolina, the program director, their target audience is “Adults 25-54, with afocus on women in that demographic.” I feel that this demographic is generally represented pretty well. I also feel that while they say their target audience is 25-54, I think 25 is prettygenerous. It seems to me that their real audience is probably a little older, more in the 30-54range. They tend to play a lot of classic soft rock like Billy Joel, Pat Benatar, Rod Stewart,

Bryan Adams and Sheryl Crow which shows a definite focus on the older crowd. Most of theartists they playgenerally fit the older end of the demographic that WOBM is going for. For theyounger listeners, they do feature some more current soft rock artists like John Mayer, CarrieUnderwood and Coldplay. So, I think they do a good job hitting their demographic but they domake some curious decisions for their audience. For example they have played some MileyCyrus on WOBM when I was listening. To the best of my knowledge, Miley Cyrus’ music isgenerally focused towards young teenagers and people even younger. I’d guess their reasoningfor playing her is that they are trying to make use of her insane popularity right now. But, I stillfeel it is a questionable decision because nearly every other artist does generally play towardstheir 25-54 demographic. It seems strange that they would play her because it seems to focus ona totally different demographic. I don’t know any older people who like Miley Cyrus so playingher could even alienate some of their viewers or have them change their station temporarily.

Programming

According to Steve Ardolina “all programming decisions are made by me, the programdirector, based on current market conditions, music research, and audience response.” I see thecurrent market trends reflected a lot in what WOBM. They try to capitalize off of AmericanIdol’s huge success by playing a lot of artists who were once on American Idol. These artistsinclude David Archuleta, Jordin Sparks, David Cook, Daughtry and Carrie Underwood. Theseartists play to the station’s demographic pretty well. Some of them, Daughtry and David Cook,have a more rock edge to them but, that could play well to their lower age demographic.American Idol is very popular with the young audience as well but, unlike Miley Cyrus, theshow is also very popular with WOBM’s target audience. Most of these artists also make musicthat is considered soft rock and is very accessible for the target audience. Combined with the