WCLT prospers under family ownership

A few decades ago the competition for news between the Advocate and the radio stations was pretty hot, at least as viewed from behind the walls of the newspaper. Fur was bound to fly on rare occasions when Advocate reporters got scooped.

All that faded, at least as far as has been evident to newspaper readers. The Advocate apparently gave up on being timely when the deadlines and press times shifted. WCLT wasn’t offering much news anyway, judging by its on-line news summary.

The return of Bill Clifford, WCLT reporter from the old days, may turn up the heat on the big boys at the Advocate. Bill is now the station’s News Operations Manager and since his return I’ve noticed a change in the number of local stories being broken on radio rather than print.

Bill’s many years of news experience and community involvement also place the station at an advantage in recognizing trends and the historical backgrounding of current events.

Though Bill heads a 2.5-person news department, it is very aggressive, he says. “I love competing in the news business. As long as I am at WCLT, my friends at The Advocate should look over their shoulder now and then ... we’ll be there.”

I like that.

I also like the fact that Spencer family members are among owners of WCLT. Brothers Frank and John Spencer who owned the Advocate when I worked there, started WCLT in 1947. Frank died and John sold the Advocate to Thomson Newspapers, which sold it to Gannett.

But the family held onto WCLT, though they’ve had numerous offers to sell to big corporations, which would likely cut staff and expenses to the bones. This is the link to an FCC report that lists WCLT owners.

WCLT FM is number-one position in listeners in Licking, Muskingum, and Knox counties, according to Clifford. WCLT sales are about $3 million according to Manta.com.

I can’t locate the official Aribtron ratings for WCLT as compared to five years ago, but the Advocate’s circulation went from about 22,000 copies a day five years ago to 15,585 as of 3/31/09, according to Clifford and the Audit Bureau of Circulations. It was more than 25,000 in the early 60’s, when I first worked there.

I’m glad Bill came back. Not only can he find the news, he gives us information we don’t get elsewhere.