Century 21 which claims 1,400 client stations in 13 formats works in a similar way to Bonneville's CD music system, although Dave Scott, president of the Dallas-based service, says his company works with many stations interested in automated dayparts instead of total auto formatting. We sell our CDs to KISS in Los Angeles. The other logical situation is the non-personality format. If you decide you're going to have 10 hits in a row, those formats sound almost the same automated as they do live. They're looking for cost-effective ways of operating a radio station.
Automation provides that.
It's primarily your medium and small budgets, people who don't have a big upside potential to generate income even if they become number one. It's a matter of scale and economy. But you will find, in large markets, the FM will be live and the AM automated. If you've got a strong FM and an AM in trouble, probably the quickest way to cut costs is to automate. Cost-effectiveness has long been a primary explanation of a station's switch to automation.