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Addition By Translation?

E

Element9

Alt 107.7 is finally moving the needle. It appears the addition of the in-city translator on 104.7 has had a positive impact.

http://ratings.****************/cgi-bin/rol.exe/arb037

Regardless of what you think of WBEN, losing two shares from Spring '15, Persons 12+ is a surprise. Entercom counters by cranking up a big money giveaway on news radio 930. But will this make the ultra-cons listen any longer than they already do?

Once again, WYRK is #1. WBLK is #2. Country and city covered like a rug. But what about Jack and Mix?
 
What about WGR? No interest in sports talk in the summer? Seems like that's an unusually low number considering passion for Buffalo sports. Not that I know much about Buffalo sports.
 
Element9 said:
Regardless of what you think of WBEN, losing two shares from Spring '15, Persons 12+ is a surprise. Entercom counters by cranking up a big money giveaway on news radio 930. But will this make the ultra-cons listen any longer than they already do?
Click to expand...

That's the confounding point: The cons were already listening, so WHY pander to them so dramatically in recent years needlessly making the station unlistenable for anyone not far right politically?

As far as WGR's low summer numbers: They're almost always down into the 3's in the summer book.
 
Element9 said:
Regardless of what you think of WBEN, losing two shares from Spring '15, Persons 12+ is a surprise. Entercom counters by cranking up a big money giveaway on news radio 930. But will this make the ultra-cons listen any longer than they already do?
Click to expand...

It won't make anyone listen anymore than they already have in the past, because this is done every quarter, and not only on WBEN but also 4 other stations in Buffalo and about 100 other stations all across the country.
 
Not sure what ever happened to the WBFO numbers from the Spring, but I'd be interested to know where that station stands. Were they that bad that they conveniently never
 
dand5780 said:
Not sure what ever happened to the WBFO numbers from the Spring, but I'd be interested to know where that station stands. Were they that bad that they conveniently never
Click to expand...
WBFO numbers aren't part of the freebie 12+ numbers published by the trades, but WBFO appears in the official ratings assessment distributed to subscribers who pay for the reports. Reliable sources say the station stands in the upper part of the lower 50 percentile, which is respectable. It's position is not as much a factor as it would be to commercial operators who live and die on a bad book, or a sagging four book average.

In the last twelve months, WBFO augmented its local news operation. It's now arguably the largest radio news force in WNY. This may not immediately thrust the station into the top five, Persons 25-54 or 12+, but two years from now WBFO could be well ahead of WBEN, especially in key 25-49 demographics. WBEN has long been top heavy, Persons 65+ and the erosion is likely to become worse, given the nature of its talk shows, the aging of the local and national hosts and the demise of conservative talk on the AM band. WBFO I'm told, already surpasses WBEN in qualitative listeners, those with college degrees, advanced degrees (the elitists as they are known to the Tea pots) and higher incomes.

What WBFO really needs is a locally produced daily, issues-oriented talk show to augment its line-up of syndicated talk hosts.
 
Instead of debating "beauty contest" numbers post some rankers for money demos - those are the ratings that really matter (with the exception of billing, of course). 6 year olds haven't listened to WBEN since Buehly went off the air.
 
WBEN was in 12th place (25-54) in the Spring report
(Buffalo News article). This Summer book looks even worse.
WBFO probably is ahead of them in that age group and
has a much brighter future.

The strategy of kicking the can down the road has consequences.
Those are being realised now for WBEN.

The ALT format has not reached a 2 share in two years.
That doesn't bode well. KB 1520 must have totally submerged because
they didn't even show up...
 
TheBigA said:
Great idea. Got a local underwriter who'll pick up the costs?
Click to expand...
The statement was rhetorical. And no, I don't. Nor do I suspect it's on Donald K. Boswell's priority list at the moment, although it may have been at one time. That likely changed when he discovered it takes a lot of people to produce a quality local talk show beyond the daily yelp of "repeal the S.A.F.E. Act" and "Obama is the devil."
 
Element9 said:
That likely changed when he discovered it takes a lot of people to produce a quality local talk show
Click to expand...

It really doesn't, and if he gets an underwriter, it will pay for whatever staff it takes. That's how budgeting for non-profit radio differs from for-profit.

If you take a ride over to Rochester, they do a daily local talk show on WXXI-AM. It doesn't deal at all with national politics. Most non-com consultants will tell you it's easier to raise money for local talk shows than it is to get sponsorship for syndication. And the local talk show host can pitch for dollars during the regular fund raisers.
 
Element9 said:
Regardless of what you think of WBEN, losing two shares from Spring '15, Persons 12+ is a surprise. Entercom counters by cranking up a big money giveaway on news radio 930. But will this make the ultra-cons listen any longer than they already do?

Once again, WYRK is #1. WBLK is #2. Country and city covered like a rug. But what about Jack and Mix?
Click to expand...


Summer time a lot of people listen to country. Also a lot of unemployed people on their porch til all hours of the night listening to "urban," as the ratings company calls it.

Maybe WBEN could add some country background music during the Bauerle show for the best of both worlds.

What about Jack? Probably one of the better FM stations. Mix, or WJYE as I call it, went downhill 10 years ago.
 
TheBigA said:
It really doesn't, and if he gets an underwriter, it will pay for whatever staff it takes. That's how budgeting for non-profit radio differs from for-profit.
Click to expand...

Isn't any company willing to make a donation (so they could advertise their name) and provide the great listeners of WBFO the pleasure of hearing a talk show? What about an executive taking a paycut? What about the savings from the firing of the blues woman? I guess they are in agreement that there are already plenty of excellent talk shows on the AM dial.

Or they could just add the Mary Davis show to the lineup and at get that off of the sports station.
 
TheBigA said:
Because if they go away, there's only a small audience left, as evidenced by Cumulus talk stations that have eliminated conservative talk.
Click to expand...

Uh, which stations hadn't ALREADY crashed in the numbers before they eliminated conservative talk? CAll letters would help too.
 
flybynight said:
Uh, which stations hadn't ALREADY crashed in the numbers before they eliminated conservative talk? CAll letters would help too.
Click to expand...

Take your pick. Yes they had crashed before, but eliminating the conservative talk didn't solve the problem. The crash has continued. Except at WMAL. But that's an AM-FM.
 
dand5780 said:
Isn't any company willing to make a donation (so they could advertise their name) and provide the great listeners of WBFO the pleasure of hearing a talk show? What about an executive taking a paycut? What about the savings from the firing of the blues woman? I guess they are in agreement that there are already plenty of excellent talk shows on the AM dial.

Or they could just add the Mary Davis show to the lineup and at get that off of the sports station.
Click to expand...

Somebody would have to solicit an underwriter. That won't happen if management doesn't have any interest in a local talk show. Underwriters come and go. It's a little harder to create demand, then shut it down. As far as management taking a pay cut - that'll NEVER happen. And letting Anita West go didn't save any money because they're simply paying Pat Feldballe more to cover the hours that she had.

I doubt that management at WNY Public Broadcasting pays much attention to WBEN as long as they continue to lean far right. It's not a question of good or bad, it's a question of far-right-wingers seeing NPR stations as left-wing anyway. Reality is that they're much more in the politcal middle, but that looks like left-wing when you're so far right.
 
TheBigA said:
Take your pick. Yes they had crashed before, but eliminating the conservative talk didn't solve the problem. The crash has continued. Except at WMAL. But that's an AM-FM.
Click to expand...

Of course the elimination of conservative talk didn't work on those stations: They already drove away anyone not interested in a daily right wing rant. More moderate listeners weren't checking back occasionally to see if the idiocy had ceased, at least not after years of that garbage.

Talk radio has committed suicide and the sad thing is that many people knew this would happen, but couldn't stop the wave of laziness.
 
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