Is it time for some News Talk competion?

Only a few years ago, Erie had two News Talk stations with a lot of local programming. Today, Erie has only one News Talk station with mostly syndicated fare. That station is WJET 1400 which does have a local morning show with syndication the rest of the day without #1 ranked talk show host Rush Limbaugh. Connoisseur Media who owns the station stated that it was too expensive to keep Rush on its schedule. Rush was replaced by fellow Conservative Dennis (That’s the News and I am outta here!) Miller. Of course this led many to tune into other stations over the air or online for the former Jeff Cristie. Jet Radio also cut the services of former News Director Matthew Locke a few years back. He was replaced by newscasts from Jet TV. With two of most formats in the Erie market, is it time for some News Talk competition to Jet 1400? A station with Rush in its lineup. Crosstown rival Citadel could have a great FM News Talk format on either “Z-102.3” or “Country 98”, both stations lagging in the latest numbers to “Rocket 101” & “93.9 The Wolf” respectively. Don’t laugh, this could really happen if the proposed music tax on radio stations is approved. You could see a lot of FM stations across the country drop music formats for Talk or Sports in order to avoid paying the royalty tax. Is Erie ready for such a move? In addition Jet does not stream any of its audio which could be a plus if a competitor decides to stream its audio. Not to mention having an FM signal that would carry much further 24 hours a day than Jet’s limited 1,000 watts which is non existant to most listeners outside city limits at night. Of course you would need a mix of local & syndicated fare on such a station.