[RadioInsight] WAPL Morning Host Len Nelson Suspended For Limbaugh Facebook Comments

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RadioInsight

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WAPL Morning Host Len Nelson Suspended For Limbaugh Facebook Comments

Posted: 18 Feb 2021 12:42 PM PST
https://radioinsight.com/headlines/205132/wapl-morning-host-len-nelson-suspended-for-limbaugh-facebook-comments/



Woodward Communications Rock 105.7 WAPL Appleton WI has suspended morning
host Len Nelson for comments made on his personal Facebook page about Rush
Limbaugh.

In a statement on WAPL.com, Woodward wrote, Recently we were made aware of
a social media post placed on a personal Facebook page by one of our
employees, Len Nelson. His personal views are not reflective of the core
values of WAPL nor of Woodward Radio Group. We are deeply committed to
being good people. We appreciate our listeners, sponsors and advertisers
and want to assure each of you this matter is being addressed swiftly.
Thank you for reaching out to us with your concerns, we are listening.

While the original post has been deleted, a listener took a screenshot of
it alleging he personally attacked him in comments and called on others to
call the station. Nelson would write a lengthy apology in part stating, As
you might surmise, my actions have come with a personal cost. Ive been
indefinitely suspended from my job on the WAPL morning show and its
possible, after further consideration by the company, that I will be
terminated. I understand their decision but I hope in the coming days to
work together with management to find a resolution which will allow me to
continue to serve WRG, a company Ive greatly enjoyed working for, by doing
the job Ive loved for decades. I remain willing to take whatever steps that
might entail and I look forward to the opportunity. That my foolish and
incendiary Facebook activity has jeopardized that is a hard shot to take
but its one with which I must and will deal. To those of you with whom Ive
admittedly sparred too harshly, I sincerely apologize. I should have had
more respect for each of you. To those of you who have supported me along
the way, thank you. But please do me a favor and take a moment to do what I
have done here. We should all reconsider how we interact with those with
whom we have differences. There must be a better way than the path Ive too
often tread. I wish I had done such self-reflection earlier but I believe
we can all learn from our mistakes. Ive taken a look into the mirror and
what I saw is not the best person nor the best employee I can be. I pledge
to try harder and be better.

Nelson is on his second long stint in mornings at WAPL alongside Rick
McNeal. He and McNeal originally were part of the stations morning show
together from 1985 until 1999 and returned in September 2003.





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The Lost Factor Comes To Country

Posted: 18 Feb 2021 09:00 AM PST
https://radioinsight.com/ross/204862/the-lost-factor-comes-to-country/





A guest appearance on one of 2019’s most phenomenal songs. A daughter who
became a successful multi-format hitmaker. A renewed interest in the hits
of the ‘90s, including some that had been off the radio for a while. None
of these were enough to put Billy Ray Cyrus and “Achy Breaky Heart,” the
No. 1 Country song of 1992, back on the radio. When I wrote about Cyrus two
years ago during his renewed success with Lil Nas X’s “Old Town Road,”
“Achy” was getting 37 spins a week, according to BDSRadio. Last week, it
got fewer than 30.

So it should be no surprise that when we brought our “Lost Factor”
calculations to Country hits for the first time that it’s two of Cyrus’s
follow-up singles atop the list. “Lost Factor” measures the distance
between hit status then and obscurity now by calculating year-end chart
points divided by the number of spins a song received over the last seven
days. So far, we’ve used it to look at the songs on Billboard’s Hot 100
between 1960 and 1995.

Over the last 10 months, we have been asked how “Lost Factor” would look in
Country. That format, with its “rotating door” at the top and fewer
opportunities for older titles to be exposed on the radio, compared to Top
40 oldies, would seem to be a likely generator of lost hits: songs that hit
No. 1 for a week, but never really seemed to be No. 1, now proven by time
not to be real hits. And yet, when we looked at Lost Factor for Billboard’s
Top 75 Country songs of 1993, spurred by the arrival of Country Radio
Seminar next week, we found that it didn’t look so different from the Hot
100 hits for that year.

We chose 1993 because it was the epicenter of Country’s early ‘90s boom
years. The explosion of second and third Country stations in a market was
just wrapping up. Mainstream Top 40 was on the ropes, buffeted by
Alternative and R&B/Hip-Hop radio as well. As Country gained stations, many
markets lost their only Top 40. We also went for the ‘90s because Classic
Country stations are more focused on the ‘90s; in the ‘80s, between Urban
Cowboy and Garth Brooks, Country’s audience is smaller and songs are less
likely to be known, even from the wellspring year of 1987.

I wondered if there would be enough Classic Country airplay for the
measurements to work. Even on current Country reporting stations that play
library, there’s little airplay for the early ‘90s. But when I measured
airplay at BDSRadio’s U.S. reporters for the previous seven days, I found
nine songs getting more than 100 spins. Only eight of the Country top 75
were getting no airplay; by comparison, eight of the year-end top 100 pop
songs (meaning all genres that made the Hot 100) had no airplay.

Other metrics are similar, although Billboard’s year-end Country chart was
shorter (75 songs, not 100). The range of Country’s top 15 highest “Lost
Factors” is between a 65 score for No. 1 and a Lost Factor of nine. In pop,
it was a range between 68 spins (No. 1) and eight spins (No. 15). There are
43 Country songs out of 75 above a 1.0 share, our definition of “lost” or
not played proportionately to its success. There are 44 pop songs at a 1.0
or higher.

As with the Hot 100 in 1990-94, Billboard’s Country chart was also several
years into monitored (rather than self-reported) measurement of airplay,
something which seemed to minimize the number of songs proven by time to
have been barely legit in the first place. That said, our “Lost” leaders do
include several songs by superstar artists that now seem to have become
hits largely on career momentum. Then there’s Cyrus, who appears here with
singles from both his first and second albums — songs that were both less
polarizing and less galvanizing than “Achy.”

Here are the top “lost factor” Country hits of 1993, based on points for
their standing for the year divided by the number of plays they receive
now. In parenthesis is the “lost factor,” followed by the number of spins
the songs received in the U.S. according to BDS in the week prior to my
calculations.

Billy Ray Cyrus, “In the Heart of a Woman” (lost factor 65, spins for the
week 0)
Doug Stone, “Made for Lovin’ You” (31, 0)
Vince Gill, “No Future in the Past” (29, 1)
Alabama, “Once Upon a Lifetime” (22,1)
Larry Stewart, “Alright Already” (17, 1)
Billy Ray Cyrus, “She’s Not Cryin’ Anymore” (16, 0)
Garth Brooks, “Learning to Live Again” (15, 2)
Steve Wariner, “If I Didn’t Love You” (14, 0)
Mark Chesnutt, “Ol’ Country” (13, 0)
Doug Supernaw, “Reno” (13, 3)
Hal Ketchum, “Hearts Are Gonna Roll” (13, 4)
Collin Raye, “That Was a River” (12, 0)
Reba McEntire, “It’s Your Call” (11, 3)
Mark Collie, “Born to Love You” (10, 0)
Wynonna, “Only Love” (9, 5)


When we look at “Lost Factor” on the Hot 100 side, we’ve found a number of
running themes — teen idols, female pop stars without rock radio support,
new songs that were meant to sound older, songs by comeback artists. The
common threads are harder to find looking at one year’s Country data, but a
few seem to be worth noting:

Eleven of the top 15 “Lost Factor” songs are ballads — many of them
relatively somber/stately ones;
Only two of the top 15 are by female artists, compared to 21% of the
year-end top 75 overall;
Two of the top 15 are songs with a particularly retro/traditional feel, at
least compared to the mix of new and old that typified many of the biggest
Country hits of that boom era;
Two of the top 15 are by ‘80s hitmakers who were starting to struggle as a
new group of artists became prominent. I’m counting Alabama and Steve
Wariner, but not Reba McEntire, whose currency was at its peak in 1993 and
who remained a chart presence for many years;
Despite the concerns of many a Country PD at the time, there is almost no
representation here of the dreaded “ditty,” the frivolous uptempo
dance-floor filler that thrived after “Achy Breaky Heart.” Only “Alright
Already” can be possibly be described that way. (To be fair, many of 1993’s
numerous ditties were songs that didn’t quite make the year-end charts to
begin with.)
As with most years on the Hot 100, there are major artists represented here
by their lesser titles, including format leader Garth Brooks, who was just
starting to lose his “shock of the new” value in 1993. In the case of
McEntire and Vince Gill, those artists are represented by songs that were
along the lines of bigger, earlier hits. “When I Call Your Name” is more
likely to be the Gill song in a gold library than “No Future in the Past.”


And here are the songs with more than 100 spins that now receive airplay
disproportionate to their year-end placement at the time.

Vince Gill, “Dont Let Our Love Start Slippin Away
Toby Keith, Shouldve Been A Cowboy
George Strait, Heartland
Garth Brooks, Aint Going Down (Til The Sun Comes Up)
Alan Jackson, Chattahoochee




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Madison Morning Host Arrested On Child Pornography Charge

Posted: 18 Feb 2021 08:34 AM PST
https://radioinsight.com/headlines/205127/madison-morning-host-arrested-on-child-pornography-charge/



Jackson Jones, morning host at Mid-West Family Broadcasting Country Q106
106.3 Middleton/Madison WI, was arrested on Wednesday night on a temporary
charge of possessing child pornography..

Mount Horeb Police Chief Doug Vierck told WISC-TV that the department was
“finalizing reports and finishing up the case” and that more information
would be released once there were official charges on Jones.

Jones has hosted mornings at WWQM since 2014 after previously serving as
producer for the stations previous morning show. He has been paired with
multiple co-hosts during his stint in mornings, most recently with Steph
Peters since February 2019.

WWQM has removed all references to Jones from its website and has taken
down the stations social media pages. The company has not released a
statement regarding Jones or the morning show.