L.A./Riverside-San Bernardino Radio Ratings: September 2013

[pjc1961]

Los Angeles: http://ratings.****************/cgi-bin/rol.exe/arb003
Riverside-San Bernardino: http://ratings.****************/cgi-bin/rol.exe/arb379

Overall age 6+ publicly released data for Nielsen Audio subscribing stations for the September 2013 survey period covering Thu. 8/15/13-Wed. 9/11/13.
Next survey period will be for October 2013 (covering Thu. 9/12/13-Wed. 10/9/13) with the data release date being Mon. 10/28/13.

AllAccess PPM Ratings Analysis with demo breakouts for September 2013 (scroll down for Los Angeles):
http://www.allaccess.com/net-news/a...rch-director-inc-presents-exclusive-sept-ppm-

 

[32james]

just a couple of observations, KOLA is down, during the last 4 books it has slipped every book, also KCXX is at its worst showing in years at 1.0, also KFI Continues to slip away from the top 10. maybe get cars for kids out of the commercial line-up and get more decent commercial spots, like tv network spots or food commercials, better off with that then the crummy, non profit companies that have littered KFI for who knows how long, not that im against Kars for kids, but please there has got to be more ad sales out there than just them. oh and another note in the IE, KRQB is racing up the chart, going from 2.9 in June, to now 4.6, its now in 3rd position behind KOLA, will it eventually overtake KOLA overall in the ratings? only 1 way to find out stay tuned over the next couple of months, and watch what happens.

 

[32james]

i would just make 1039 FM KCXX a repeat station for KATY FM out in the Temecula valley, KATY has a really nice playlist similer to KOST, except it sometimes has Hot AC artists mixed in with some AC artist.

 

[Thomps2525]

During its first few years as a top-40 station (1958-62), KFWB often had 40-50% of the listening audience. Now KFWB is a mix of news and sports talk and infomercials and is ranked 39th with a measly 0.4% share. I wonder what kind of audience KFWB would have if they played 1950s-60s-70s MOR hits (similar to KMPC's short-lived "Unforgettables" format in the early 1980s) and brought back the old "Color Radio, Channel 98" jingles. I'll pause now so David and Michael can tell me that advertisers and radio stations don't want older listeners.

 

[oldies76]

KOLA down in the last 4 books, according to the above post. Hmmm, what could be the cause of that? Too many 90's on a classic hits station (maybe people aren't ready for "newer" oldies yet..) Too much repetition (the same songs heard weekly, maybe not rotated timely..) Eliminating too many 60's and early 70's too soon? (long time listeners near 50+ weren't pleased with this outcome and dislike the 90's and many 80's...), Short playlist (we've been over this 167 times this year, but could it be a cause in ratings drop, as more and more upper demo listeners want to hear classics previously played on KOLA and are no longer hearing them?)

It's gotta be something.....Any ideas? Could KRTH be next with their playlist change after the Labor Day countdown? Maybe listeners will not embrace the idea of only 70's and 80's on KRTH.

We shall see!

 

[Thomps2525]

KRTH regularly plays only four pre-1964 songs: Shout, Do You Love Me, Louie Louie and Stand By Me. David and Michael frequently point out that radio stations (and their advertisers) do not want older listeners. Indeed, most oldies/classic-hits stations no longer play 1950s or early '60s. But I have a theory that the majority of people who want to hear oldies from the 1990s and early 2000s are listening to Internet stations and not to FM. Mister oldies76 could be right: KRTH will eventually be just 1970s-80s.

 

[davideduardo]

just a couple of observations, KOLA is down, during the last 4 books it has slipped every book,

In 25-54, KOLA is bouncy. It's range is 4 to 5 shares there, and it is currently at the low side of its range after two very high months. And September is a Summer book... it ended on the 11th.

KRQB is racing up the chart, going from 2.9 in June, to now 4.6, its now in 3rd position behind KOLA

It's simply back in the same position it was in in March in 25-54. Four of the top 6 stations in the IE are in Spanish in that demo.

will it eventually overtake KOLA overall in the ratings?

It already did in the sales demos.

But KOLA and KFRG are pretty much tied in first place in billing... and with average numbers in the same range as last year. So nothing is going to change unless the billings change, and at current ratings levels, KOLA looks very good.

 

[Thomps2525]

And KOLA is no longer playing those horrible old records by the Beatles and Beach Boys and Supremes and Lovin' Spoonful. Now KOLA plays the good songs, Why, just this afternoon they played Mambo No. 5, It's Raining Men, Super Freak, Funky Cold Medina and I Would Die 4 U. ( http://kola.tunegenie.com/onair/ )

"Sarcastic"? Me?

 

[michael hagerty]

Well, let's take a whack at this:

KFWB was #1 for 5 years. It lost the crown 50 years ago. That audience (let's say they were 16) would be in their mid-late 60s now.

Now you want to take music that originally appealed to an even older audience and play it with "Color Radio" jingles.

And all this would be going out over KFWB's woefully inadequate signal.

You asked what kind of audience they'd have. Certainly older than the one they have now. And quite possibly smaller.

By the way, KMPC got 10 years out of their nostalgia revival...most of them with very good 12+ ratings. They got out because the audience was too old for advertisers .

That was 21 years ago.

They didn't get any younger. And there are fewer of them because a lot of them got deader.

 

[LKellerIII]

Well, let's take a whack at this:

KFWB was #1 for 5 years. It lost the crown 50 years ago. That audience (let's say they were 16) would be in their mid-late 60s now.

Now you want to take music that originally appealed to an even older audience and play it with "Color Radio" jingles.

.

I'm 61, and I pretty much missed the heydey of "Color Radio" KFWB. I started paying attention to music on the radio in 1963 because i liked the Beach Boys, and Beatles a year later. I was 11, and there was KRLA and KFWB, though IIRC, KRLA was the go-to station by the time the Beatles hit. Then, of course, KHJ started to dominate a year after that, and there were 3 stations for kids until KFWB threw in the towel in 68.

But really, KFWB played a fairly minor part in my radio upbrining.

The time for a KFWB nostalgia station would have been the 80s. In fact, KYA here in the Bay Area did just that when they switched to Oldies in the 80s - playing jingles and formatics from their 50s-60s heyey, before KFRC dominated. But even that was short-lived, when 1260 AM became just an AM repeater signal for "Lite Rock" KOIT sometime in late 80s, maybe earlier.

 

[Thomps2525]

So how do you guys think KFWB would do with a format of MOR and AC hits of the 1960s-70s-80s? They would be the only Los Angeles station playing Anne Murray, Barry Manilow, Bobby Darin, Bobby Vinton, Brenda Lee, Herb Alpert, Neil Diamond, Johnny Mathis, Perry Como, Nat "King" Cole, Dean Martin, Helen Reddy, Gordon Lightfoot, John Denver, Matt Monro, Tom Jones, Frank Sinatra, Crystal Gayle, Dionne Warwick, Henry Mancini, Kenny Rogers, Barbra Streisand, Ferrante & Teicher, the Carpenters and the 5th Dimension. And before you say that the audience would be in their 60s and 70s, keep in mind that KRTH has a younger audience and plays those same three decades...and I bet a lot of their listeners would love to hear those artists again.

 

[michael hagerty]

So how do you guys think KFWB would do with a format of MOR and AC hits of the 1960s-70s-80s? They would be the only Los Angeles station playing Anne Murray, Barry Manilow, Bobby Darin, Bobby Vinton, Brenda Lee, Herb Alpert, Neil Diamond, Johnny Mathis, Perry Como, Nat "King" Cole, Dean Martin, Helen Reddy, Gordon Lightfoot, John Denver, Matt Monro, Tom Jones, Frank Sinatra, Crystal Gayle, Dionne Warwick, Henry Mancini, Kenny Rogers, Barbra Streisand, Ferrante & Teicher, the Carpenters and the 5th Dimension. And before you say that the audience would be in their 60s and 70s, keep in mind that KRTH has a younger audience and plays those same three decades...and I bet a lot of their listeners would love to hear those artists again.

You're joking, right, Steve?

This is essentially what K-Lite played. It was getting too top-heavy in the demos (55+), so they blew it up for Pirate Radio.

That was 24 years ago.

24+55=79.

And before you question that, I'll just point out that the music you're describing is essentially what the "America's Best Music" satellite service runs. It was on KOY in Phoenix until recently. KOY's average listener was 78.

They took KOY out behind the barn and shot it a few weeks ago.

To suggest that KRTH listeners would somehow embrace that music because it's from the same decade.....well, hey, so were Morris Albert and the Sex Pistols.

We can dispense with the inadequacies of KFWB's signal, right? That would be like complaining about how bad the food is...and such small portions.

 

[michael hagerty]

Oh, and if enough of KRTH's listeners would love to hear those artists again....

(say it with me now)

....KRTH would be playing them.

 

[Thomps2525]

So what is the average age of the people who listen to KFWB's many infomercials? And I'm assuming that there are people who listen to KFWB's infomercials.

As for the two artists you named, I like Pretty Vacant but Feelings puts me to sleep. There ya go!

 

[Thomps2525]

I don't want to start another 250-page discussion about KRTH, but when KRTH conducts music tests, do they ever ask "Are there artists who you do not hear on KRTH but who you wish we would play?" A lot of people complain about Sirius XM's 1960s-1970s-1980s Channels ignoring certain artists, especially Whitney Houston, Christopher Cross, Air Supply and the Carpenters. Of course subscribers pay for Sirius XM and they should be able to hear all the hits by all the artists. KRTH, being supported by advertisers, has to stick with the "mass-appeal" hits and ignore any songs that might make several listeners switch to another station. (I could give the excellent example of Funky Cold Medina airing on KOLA but I already mentioned it yesterday.) It could be that a majority of listeners aren't even aware of which artists aren't being played on KRTH.

 

[michael hagerty]

So what is the average age of the people who listen to KFWB's many infomercials? And I'm assuming that there are people who listen to KFWB's infomercials.

Demographics are irrelevant for infomercial buys. The station looks to get as much money as they'd make selling spots in that half hour (or maybe a bit less because they don't have the expense of generating the spot business), and the infomercial company doesn't care how old the person with the credit card calling that 800 number is as long as there are enough of them to mak the half-hour profitable (could be five live ones or less).

No one sits through an info unless they're interested, but people who are, do. And it only takes a few.

With KFWB in a trust, it doesn't have to make a profit, it just needs to not lose money.

With that signal, there probably isn't an English-language format that could survive on spot business driven by ratings. I'm with David. The gold for that station is Asian language once an interested buyer and the trust can agree on price.

 

[michael hagerty]

I don't want to start another 250-page discussion about KRTH, but when KRTH conducts music tests, do they ever ask "Are there artists who you do not hear on KRTH but who you wish we would play?" A lot of people complain about Sirius XM's 1960s-1970s-1980s Channels ignoring certain artists, especially Whitney Houston, Christopher Cross, Air Supply and the Carpenters. Of course subscribers pay for Sirius XM and they should be able to hear all the hits by all the artists. KRTH, being supported by advertisers, has to stick with the "mass-appeal" hits and ignore any songs that might make several listeners switch to another station. (I could give the excellent example of Funky Cold Medina airing on KOLA but I already mentioned it yesterday.) It could be that a majority of listeners aren't even aware of which artists aren't being played on KRTH.

They play them the song samples. The songs that score well? Those artists get played. If an artist isn't getting played, that means none of their songs are testing well enough.

That can change over time. The Monkees were radioactive except for "I'm A Believer". Davy dies and "Daydream Believer" and "Last Train To Clarksville (which was Micky, but go figure) start testing well.

 

[Thomps2525]

"한국 라디오 980." What a catchy radio jingle that will make.

 

[Thomps2525]

Why is it that so many foreign-language stations manage to get no more than a 1% audience share and some just barely get a 0.1%---KCEL, KIRN, KAZN, KYPA, KTNQ, KDLD, KSSE and KWIZ among them---but they almost never change back to an English-language format? How are Korean, Iranian and Spanish stations able to survive with such low ratings?

 

[michael hagerty]

Why is it that so many foreign-language stations manage to get no more than a 1% audience share and some just barely get a 0.1%---KCEL, KIRN, KAZN, KYPA, KTNQ, KDLD, KSSE and KWIZ among them---but they almost never change back to an English-language format? How are Korean, Iranian and Spanish stations able to survive with such low ratings?

First, you're looking at 6+, which is pointless for anything.

Secondly, and David is probably way more conversant about this than I am, less of their revenue is dependent on agency buys. And for some, I'm guessing there's a fair amount of infomercial and barter time, but not being fluent in the languages or frequent listeners, we don't recognize it.