I have not spoken with the owners about this article.I made a point not to.

It is my guess that they would not comment, as they are not interested in a battle with the Lowell Sun.

On the contrary, Clark Smidt and Sam Poulten have been trying to work with the Sun since they took the reigns of the station last fall.

So any opinion here is my own, after feeling out some of the actors and reading a little between the lines

No, the point of Sunday’s jab at the local radio station had little to do with ratings. I’m told that the station is not a paid member of the Arbitron system. They don’t participate in it, and thus do not contract to have thier listening area covered.

The article said that a large percentage of previous listeners as left. This was expected. It was wanted, I think. Those listeners were not the type that local business wanted to attract. Just how much do you think “Paul from Lowell, and everything and all that, ” or even Erica, spent in the local Home Depot or deposited at the MaCom Credit Union?

Face it, the station was heavily focused on the inner workings of the City of Lowell. It was all rumors, gotcha’s and inside local politics of the City Council and School Committee (face it, one of the School Committee members was a regular host, as was a previous City Counselor).

And what did that bring you for advertising? Nothing.

Got that?

No local business wanted to be connected with one side or the other of controversial statements being made on the station. By purchasing time, you were supporting one side of an arguement, or not supporting the other.

Controversy will bring you some listeners, but in that case they were mostly city of Lowell political junkies.. who didn’t spend much in the city.

A large Boston station can handle that kind of a host, but that’s because they draw in listeners from throughout the northeast.. their numbers scaled to a point where ad sales would make up for the lost listeners.

Now we see significant advertising coming into the station. Banks, locally owned multi-generation businesses, Chamber’s of Commerce, restaurants, museums, local sports franchises.. something is working.

Somebody “gets it.”

So, the Sun is threatened by loss of advertising dollars. Competition, that’s what last week’s article was about.

This is easy to show, in that there was no attempt to contact the station to get their point of view or even a statement. There was no news article written, only a sideways attack in the political gossip column.

Its obvious who dug up the information and fed it to the paper, and its sad to see the continuing downfall of the print media. This jab did nothing to help slow that trend.

This mornings Telegraph headlined teens in Nashua arrested for forcing another to fight at gunpoint. Yesterday’s Eagle Tribune focussed on a police officer being arrested for kidnapping and rape while on duty.

The front page focus of the Sun this morning is Red Sox gossip and a Medicaid deal thats been expected to happen for months. There’s more page space given to obituaries and foreclosure announcments than there is to the busiess section… at a time when the economy is the key story throughout the world.

So the radio station is trying a new format that targets a younger, more active audience. They are highlighting cultural events, business events, entertainment and local celebrities (both political and entertainment.. if there’s a difference).

They are also working to expand the audience beyond just the city of Lowell. The signal travels throughout the valley.. they should be taking advantage of that.

No, its not about the ratings. Its about being a supportive and cooperative member of the community. Its about getting local people and local businesses to see that they can work together to make their communities a little bit better places to live and work.

Get it?