When WEMP (101.9 FM News) New York was in its Thursday afternoon ramp-up to its new format (a five hour news block, before going back to music until the following morning), its overall tenor was far more female/lifestyle-driven than what we’d described a few days earlier on already-launched WWWN Chicago. That feel continued when we heard the station on Friday morning—much more of what the industry had geared itself to expect from WEMP, not just a straightforward all-news station that just happened to do a few more health/hearth/home stories in place of sports or a regular business report.

Since then, the New York version of the format has differed a little at various times, depending on the breaking news, whether there’s one anchor or two (in which case it feels chattier), and on who the anchor is. In a Sunday New York Times story, a day before the station’s official press release, Merlin Media’s Walter Sabo first signaled his intentions publicly, describing the target as “working families,” and decrying “traditional news stations [as] created in Don Draper-land. The odds then were that mom didn’t work. Those stations essentially haven’t changed since then.”

Neither Chicago nor New York could be called low-key in their production. WEMP, when heard on Sunday night, was punctuating its stories with a lot of song clips—something that WCBS-AM has been doing for a while as well. But there was certainly less bombast than traditional all-news stations. The top-of-the-hour positioning statement (“This is New York’s one-and-only FM all-news station”) is given to the anchor, not to the imaging voice. And through the weekend, there were a lot of produced “what to do with your family” vignettes on the Bronx Zoo, various area water-parks and various museums. The copy for some of those pieces borders on advertorial, although there’s no sign that they actually are.

Sabo tells the Times that there have been 100 journalists hired. They’ve been coming from a variety of places—not all of them anchoring an all-news station in their previous jobs. You can hear some hosts straining to keep pace, especially on those segments anchored by one person; it’s not hard to imagine everybody involved in the station going home and having some equivalent version of the “DJ nightmare” about the music running out. That said, there have been a lot of people I’ve enjoyed hearing on the radio (including Gene Michaels on the Sunday night segment heard here).

There were a lot of easier things to do in New York than assembling an All-News station. Country is still open. Alternative predecessor WRXP could have been made bigger. Sabo and Merlin’s Randy Michaels have compounded the challenge by trying to build the format that will make women feel engaged, not patronized. It hasn’t been a problem for Lifetime or “The View,” but it’s been a challenge for stations from WNEW’s “Blink FM” incarnation to the recently departed WWIK (Chick FM) Charleston, S.C., and it’s significant that “working families” are the stated target. The void for that approach on the radio has given other sources—from TV to music radio to scores of blogs—time to develop that content. It’s not unlike trying to finally make “indie rock” work on the radio—some of that audience stopped waiting for radio, too.

Here’s WEMP as heard just before 6 p.m. on August 14. (The station made its “official” launch announcement on Monday, but had effectively been in its format through the weekend.)

5:58 – Produced health piece from JoAnn Genette (a Chicago anchor) on kids with food allergies;
6:00 – Legal ID, “This is NY’s one and only FM all news station” from anchor Gene Michaels. Headlines:
6:00 – Headlines: Michele Bachmann, Indiana State Fair tragedy, “Be careful what you sell at garage sales,” the day’s massive rains and flooding, Weather teasers and temperature check;
6:01 – News continues: Airports backed up because of record-breaking rain;
6:02 – Michele Bachmann and Iowa win, report from ABC’s Steven Portnoy
Tim Pawlenty pulls out – an actuality from political science professor
6:03 – Indiana State Fair tragedy with SFX of screams, actuality from an audience member
6:04 – Mystery briefcases outside John Boehner’s office with spokesperson from local municipality;
AP reports that New York Governor Andrew Cuomo made 12 personal flights on state choppers;
6:04 – Blimp breaks free from Ohio State University airfield and lands in a 94-year-old woman’s backyard, punctuated with a clip of the Fifth Dimension’s “Up Up And Away.”
6:05 – Traffic/Weather on :5s. Traffic with a McDonalds sponsorship. Weather with references to Asbury Park, Orchard Beach, and Montauk
6:07 – Produced featurette on the Bronx Zoo;
6:08 – Produced featurette on the Skyscraper Museum;
6:09 – “Your one and only FM news leader,” then a story about repairs on Frank Sinatra Drive in Hoboken punctuated by a clip from “That’s Life”; a report from Bob Brown on Hebrew University scholars revising the Bible and a response from somebody coming out of church;
6:11 – A vaguely Hip-Hop-flavored stager that refers to the station as “just fabulous”;
6:11 – SPOT: One of those fake news reports about the government liquidating houses that promises “more music coming up”;
6:12 – Hilary Duff and her husband celebrate their first anniversary with the birth of a child, uses a song clip; the story teased at the top-of-the-hour about the woman who sold an old suitcase at a yard sale without removing the mementos from her late husband;
6:13 – A woman in Idaho is charged with felony for stealing a $1.50 beer at a convenience store;
6:14 – The New York Times reports that standardized tests for eighth graders are changing;
6:14 – In a “look at what’s happening around the world,” a rally for peace in the U.K. Then an update that the fatality count has changed in Indiana;
6:15 – Traffic;
6:17 – Weather;
6:17 – Produced featurette on waterparks;
6:18 – Produced feature: reporter Lisa Dominique’s “Animal House”: Why is your dog barking for no reason?
6:19 – Update on Robyn Gardner, missing in Aruba, and suspect Gary Giordano;
6:20 – Hunt for missing 3-year-old in Missouri ends sadly with an actuality from the sheriff’s office;
6:21 – Produced bumper, “FM News 101.9”;
6:21 – Produced cooking tip;
6:21 – Produced featurette: New York Hall Of Science ;
6:23 – ABC News report on science and robotics championship hosted by Will.i.am;
6:23 – Tease traffic coming up in 1-1/2 minutes;
6:23 – 54 year old Don White bitten by bull shark in North Carolina
6:24 – Brooklyn police nab thieves who rob wireless store. Employee finds them on cellphone’s GPS;
6:25 – Traffic (sounder sounds like the bell that rings when you pull up to the pump)
6:27 – Weather;
6:27 – Another produced cooking tip;
6:28 – Promo: Sign up for free chocolate from Jacques Torres by taking a survey on the station site. The free chocolate dates back to the station’s stunting period (and, by extension, to the “Chocolate FM” format that Sabo syndicated in the mid-’00s);
6:28 – Produced promo for week-long series on kids, cellphones, and hearing loss;
6:29 – Another anchor-read liner: “New York’s One and Only FM All News Station, 24 Hours a day, seven days a week”;
6:30 – Tease: Indiana State Fair, Boehner scare, “Rise Of The Planet of the Apes” wins weekend box-office, weather teaser;
6:30 – Indiana State Fair—how social media played a role;
6:31 – Power outage the day before at Six Flags Great Adventure;
6:32 – Boehner scare—different actuality from same official;
6:32 – Ohio State blimp story repeats;
6:33 – Weekend movie boxoffice; two local men finish cross-country bike trip for charity;
6:33 – Bachmann/Iowa straw poll—clip of her from “ABC This Week”;
6:35 – Pawlenty drops out—same expert, different clip;
6:35 – Traffic;
6:37 – Weather;
6:37 – Produced featurette: New York Renaissance Fair (“sure it’s a bit kitschy”);
6:38 – Produced featurette: Museum of the Moving Image;
6:39 – Protecting your cellphone from hackers;
6:40 – MIT researchers say ice-free summer in Arctic is coming four times sooner than UN estimate; Hudson River OK again after sewer main break fixed in Westchester County;
6:41 – Jacques Torres promo again
6:42 – Produced Featurette: Bronx Zoo
6:42 – “This is your one and only FM News leader”—Gary Giordano story repeats
6:44 – Report: Drill sergeants who are also single moms;
6:45 – Traffic & Weather

Have you listened to WEMP? Please leave a comment.