WCOA – the station Cumulus strangled

WCOA is Pensacola’s first radio station, the second oldest in Florida. Four years ago this month, Sena Maddison and I took over the morning show with “Real News with Rick Outzen.”

• The goal was to have newsmakers on the air and help listeners connect the dots on local and national news stories. And we quickly won over long-time WCOA listeners and those who had tired of loudmouths pontificating about local issues they didn’t understand.

Our first show included Mayor Grover Robinson, former Florida State football players Clay Ingram and Dennis Green talking about playing for the late Coach Bobby Bowden, former City Council president Jewel Cannada Wynn, Commissioner Jeff Bergosh, TDC chair David Bear and Quint Studer.

The ratings were solid until the summer of  2023, when Cumulus subtly began to pull its support. The FM signal did not work much further than the Cumulus parking lot; promises to put it on the main tower were forgotten.  The company delayed repairs to the station without telling us and reduced our wattage. Listeners had to find us on the internet, but Cumulus still struggled to keep the station on the air.

• We kept a record on a dry-erase board in the studio of the days the equipment failed. Sometimes we would be off the air for weeks, not days. The company appeared to want our audience to drift away, giving them a reason to shut down the show. Yet we persisted and kept our audience, much to their dismay.

Cumulus put Mobile, Ala., manager Don Boyd over both markets in July 2023. Boyd had little interest in Pensacola. When we celebrated our anniversary at a live remote event at Atlas Oyster House in August 2023, he was too busy to come and meet Sen. Rick Scott and many of the top Pensacola leaders.

• Plus, Boyd hired one of the most incompetent sales teams I’ve ever met. Our live remotes were hugely successful, but the sales team didn’t capitalize on the exposure. We’ve since learned that advertisers bought placement on our show, but their ads were placed in other time slots, further diminishing our value to Cumulus headquarters. I would leave copies of our Best of the Coast, Power List and Rising Star issues in the sales room, and not one salesperson would contact any of our advertisers.

In November 2024, we asked to meet with Boyd. Instead of working to fix all the issues with equipment and signal, Boyd said Cumulus wanted to cut all live programming for “budget reasons.” We were the only live programming at all the Pensacola stations, so we were pulled off the air.

• Next February, WCOA will be a hundred years old. We will celebrate it without Cumulus or having a live show on WCOA.