Some suggestions on how to get adult standards back in the philadelphia market

[TheBigA]

1. Very soft AC. Virtually no currents.

The slower the tempo, the older the demo. No money in it.

That's why the Bee stepped things up.

2. Something like The Bridge on Sirius/XM.

Great idea. For $15 a month, you could have it. For free, you get what advertisers will pay for. That's how it works.

If there was money to be made with standards or soft AC, there are lots of stations that would love to do it. There isn't, so they don't.

 

[John Gallagher]

Easy Listening these days is considered to be: James Taylor, Lionel Richie, Air Supply, Abba, Bread, Olivia Newton-John, Natalie Cole etc.

 

[DG02816]

Sounds very similar to TM Century's "Beautiful Rock" format.

 

[MikefromDelaware]

All of us here, probably have a vision of a great radio station would be. That only works for some extremely wealthy person who doesn't need to make money, and is running a hobby station. They you can air whatever they want and whoever listens, great. Sadly that is not reality as radio is a business and as much as I personally enjoy Radio Dramas, Big Band Music, 50-60's Oldies, and Standards those formats are not sell-able. AM 1290 in Wilmington had pretty solid ratings while doing a Standards format, they just didn't have any advertisers. So it is not an issue of no audience, it is an issue of no advertisers want that audience. They don't want them, because they know older folks have habits, they buy the same soap, toothpaste, laundry detergent, automobiles, etc. Younger folks are still pliable and able to be sold on switching from a Ford to a Toyota, from Colgate toothpaste to Crest, etc. It is what it is.

 

[joshzz]

AntennaTV, I will grant you your wish but it is required of you to be grateful for your standards format which will run a portion of the day. Now, I want you to turn to 1360 AM on your dial. Depending on where you live, it may require that you move from PA to the other side of the bridge. Please listen Mon - Fri, 5 AM - 11 AM.

http://wnjc1360.com/

 

[K.M. Richards]

Of course, I asterisk all of this by considering the Standards a daytime format in modern times (if there still * is * a time for it). My Folks are a small sample, I realize, but with them all through their later 30 years or so it always had been Matlock and Murder She Wrote or a ball game at night. I doubt it was much different in too many other AARP households.

Not only that, Steve, it was the case some 30 years ago ... at least it was in Oxnard-Ventura CA, where I was responsible for a co-owned AM to the FM CHR I was really the PD of. Said AM was running the Toby Arnold "Unforgettable" format and was burning through the library with alarming frequency (lots of shorter songs, very low commercial load, 24 hours in a day). We had the Mutual affiliation at the time, and in addition to adding a second newscast clearance in rush hour and carrying all of the network's "mini-features" -- the combination giving me between two and five additional minutes that the music reels weren't playing -- we added Larry King's overnight program starting with the live east coast segment at 9:00pm, then carrying that segment a second time during the west coast replay at 2:00am. Mutual didn't care if we cleared that twice and with the addition of Jim Bohannon's "America in the Morning" at 5:00am, we gave the music library a nine-hour rest out of the 24. Number of listeners who complained when we started doing that, without fanfare: Zero.

 

[John1]

In agreeing with all the reasons 'standards' will not be returning, it's interesting to note that 1490 AM in Lancaster just dropped ESPN sports for a satellite fed standards format last week. ESPN listeners are being sent to an FM signal on a translator that barely serves Lancaster from Harrisburg. There are standards at certain times on our local 1490 WBCB, too, with Sunshine Lou Powers from the old WWJZ 640. And of course in an even older demo WRDV still plays big band music 12 hours a day - my 90 year old Mom knows she is very lucky to live in a town with a big band station still on the air - not too many anywhere!

 

[K.M. Richards]

There are standards at certain times on our local 1490 WBCB, too, with Sunshine Lou Powers from the old WWJZ 640.

Isn't that part of the Trenton market for ratings purposes? That's market #149 and 1490 would be a 1kW "graveyard" station, so I would bet that they are proving the point ... local station, probably entirely local ads, bringing in just enough revenue to stay on the air ... you said "certain hours" so maybe Sunshine Lou is brokering time from them.

And of course in an even older demo WRDV still plays big band music 12 hours a day - my 90 year old Mom knows she is very lucky to live in a town with a big band station still on the air - not too many anywhere!

Non-commercial stations are often able to support formats that are no longer viable commercially, at least for part of their broadcast day. I'm glad to hear that this is the case there, rather than having yet another NPR-affiliated news-talker.

 

[Crayoneater]

Get an Internet radio or stream from your Smartphone.

I don't care about 50s-60s, but just as a general comment: A lot of older folks don't have a smartphone. Even I don't, and I'm 40, and, if I did, I'd say bye-bye to radio entirely. Possibly with the exception of some talk.

Seems like radio is a Catch-22: They (and advertisers) aren't making money, so they aren't willing to give listeners what they want. Fortunately, it's not like this is the 60s and there aren't many alternatives.

 

[PTBoardOp94]

Actually the big radio broadcasters operations are quite profitable. Last year Cumulus Media showed a profit of $330 million, before interest, taxes, depreciation and amortization. But, they paid $146 million in interest to lenders and $115 million in D & A and so they just barely showed a profit of $12 million.

The big radio companies would be swimming in cash, if not for their debt loads.

 

[K.M. Richards]

Seems like radio is a Catch-22: They (and advertisers) aren't making money, so they aren't willing to give listeners what they want. Fortunately, it's not like this is the 60s and there aren't many alternatives.

The problem isn't quite that simple. The stations know perfectly well that the Boomers have disposable income, but numerous studies done by the ad agencies show that getting us (I'm 58) to change our spending habits -- either to switch brands or to purchase something we hadn't considered previously -- requires many more ad impressions (or plays) so they have deemed the cost per potential sale to be too high. Television does carry a significant amount of advertising targeted over-55, but that is because the same studies say it doesn't take nearly as many impressions for a TV spot to be effective.

With the national advertising revenue therefore unavailable, any station targeting an audience over 55 is going to have to make-or-break it purely on local ad sales. In most markets, that's just not there, and ad rates are prohibitive in larger markets for local advertisers to get on the schedule.

 

[Bob Eubanks]

I don't care about 50s-60s, but just as a general comment: A lot of older folks don't have a smartphone. Even I don't, and I'm 40, and, if I did, I'd say bye-bye to radio entirely. Possibly with the exception of some talk.

Seems like radio is a Catch-22: They (and advertisers) aren't making money, so they aren't willing to give listeners what they want. Fortunately, it's not like this is the 60s and there aren't many alternatives.

But radio is providing that the listeners want, at least the broadest cross-section of listeners to be financially viable (and for the most part, the owners are making quite a nice chunk of change). No one can, or ever could, provide what every listener wants via broadcast. Satellite expands the possibilities, but even then, there are limits. The Internet and personal collections fill the remaining voids for slivers of the audience--vocal slivers, in many cases perhaps, but slivers--that want something else.

 

[davideduardo]

I don't care about 50s-60s, but just as a general comment: A lot of older folks don't have a smartphone. Even I don't, and I'm 40, and, if I did, I'd say bye-bye to radio entirely. Possibly with the exception of some talk.

Seems like radio is a Catch-22: They (and advertisers) aren't making money, so they aren't willing to give listeners what they want. Fortunately, it's not like this is the 60s and there aren't many alternatives.

It is true that about half of US radio stations have not been profitable going back to the 50's and documented by obligatory FCC financial reports for much of that 6 decade period.

But when you dissect the numbers, we find several situations:

1- Small stations with an owner operator. For tax reasons, the owner often takes everything they can as salary rather than being double taxed on a company income plus a personal income on the profit distribution.

2- Mismanagement. There are always some stations that are just badly run or where bad decisions are made.

3- Bad stations. Many stations, such as quite a few daytime AMs and Class A FMs have no way of making money, but radio has some glamor attached and someone always thinks they are a genius and can turn a dog into a tiger.

4- Bad markets. First are places like Flint or Youngstown or Wheeling where the population decreases, unemployment and overall economy can't sustain as many stations as was possible in the 70's and 80's. And then there are places like Needles, CA, where the town is not big enough to have a business base for a station to survive. Again, some dreamer civic booster always seems to think they can make it work.

On the other hand, smartphone penetration is going to pass 80% this year. It is getting to the point where those without them are the outliers and the market will begin to ignore them.

 

[Ravens]

Get an iPhone. Download iTunes. Download standards songs. Problem solved.