Houston-Galveston 6+ Ratings: November 2015

[purpledevil]

http://ratings.****************/cgi-bin/rol.exe/arb033

Not much irregularity, however I'll certainly note that "The Buzz" is beginning to fall into some pretty dangerous territory in the all monthly beauty pageant. Makes you wonder how 94-5 is faring in their targeted demographics? There's wobble, and then there's cliff diving. With "The Buzz" as the only game in town for Alternative Rock, or New Rock, or whatever the genre is called these days, the slide is even more puzzling. Are the 20-30 somethings trading in The Buzz for the only other rock outlet in town, The Eagle? Not many of them, apparently, as KHPT & KGLK have been trending only slightly up.

Is Alternative simply hitting its twilight as a format?

Edit to add: Has anyone else noticed that pjc1961 has been absent for the last couple of books? He has always been very reliable in posting these when they're released. I sure hope he is doing well, and that it's not something serious keeping him away from the site.

 

[KF5JMD]

Wow, being a noob I would have not guessed that KTBZ would be so far down on the list, and KRBE, and for AM KSEV and KPRC. But I am probably a little out of touch, out of all of those the only listening time I have spent would have to be either KPRC, or KUHF. A little surprised to see KUHF so high on the list, where is KPFT? I don't listen to them really at all anymore, since I have found KUHF. And KODA #1? Wow, I guess so.

As for what's up with that steady decline for KTBZ, man I really couldn't tell you, I quit listening to 94.5 way back in the day. I am 40+. I never liked them much anyway, even back in the day, it was mostly KLOL for me, not KTBZ...

Also a bit surprised to see KSBJ so high on the list...

When I say I love radio, I love listening and the technical aspects of it, I have never looked at ratings, this is indeed interesting.

 

[KF5JMD]

I made a oops in my observation. When I said KPRC, I meant KTRH in all instances, for some reason I was thinking the call letters for 740 AM were KPRC, but no, that's 950, which is understandably way down the list from KTRH. I listen to KTRH, not much to KPRC, although about 10 years ago I pretty much split my time evenly between the two, format changes drove me away from KPRC.

 

[b-turner]

The ratings that you can see for free are the overall ratings for stations with listeners ages 6 and older. These figures are not important to stations. Each station has a target audience and it is important they obtain high ratings with the age and sex of the group they are targeting. A station can look like it is doing very poorly but might do well with a certain group they are targeting. Sports Talk stations tend to be near the bottom in many markets but mostly they do well with attracting the male audience within the right age group.

Another factor is not every station participates in the ratings. In a PPM market, not every station has the required 'device' that allows the station to be 'registered or deciphered' by the PPM. Then, stations who do not take part in the ratings, as a subscriber, is not listed.

 

[davideduardo]

Not much irregularity, however I'll certainly note that "The Buzz" is beginning to fall into some pretty dangerous territory in the all monthly beauty pageant. Makes you wonder how 94-5 is faring in their targeted demographics? There's wobble, and then there's cliff diving. With "The Buzz" as the only game in town for Alternative Rock, or New Rock, or whatever the genre is called these days, the slide is even more puzzling. Are the 20-30 somethings trading in The Buzz for the only other rock outlet in town, The Eagle? Not many of them, apparently, as KHPT & KGLK have been trending only slightly up.

Both The Buzz and Eagle had good numbers in the middle of the year in the core 18-49 and 25-54 demos. They are both off since October. But October is the month when Nielsen adjusts population based on the US Census' ACS data, so some changes may be due to the slightly higher Hispanic population percentages. Since we know that Hispanics under-index for usage of rock stations, this may be part of the reason for a general decline.

On the other hand, in 18-49 The Buzz just had a very weak December.... all 4 individual weeks were soft, so it was not necessarily a momentary wobble, either.

 

[davideduardo]

Another factor is not every station participates in the ratings. In a PPM market, not every station has the required 'device' that allows the station to be 'registered or deciphered' by the PPM. Then, stations who do not take part in the ratings, as a subscriber, is not listed.

While there are a few stations that do not encode for PPM, they are very few in number since Nielsen gives the encoders at no charge to every station in a PPM MSA (stations outside the MSA that want to be included can rent an encoder for little cost). But lots of stations don't subscribe to the service as they have no use for it, so they don't appear in the beauty contest release of 6+ numbers. But stations that subscribe and the ad agencies that get the books can see every station, subscribed or not.

 

[rageradio]

I left the buzz way back in 1997 when they softened up to rival 102-9 The Planet. I couldn't handle their wimpy playlist. I only listen now in the mornings and flip away during the songs

 

[TheBigA]

A little surprised to see KUHF so high on the list, where is KPFT? I don't listen to them really at all anymore, since I have found KUHF.

KPFT probably doesn't subscribe. Although they may also be below the threshold.

 

[Huff]

KPFT probably doesn't subscribe. Although they may also be below the threshold.

KPFT does not subscribe, but they are encoded and do register. I cannot print their share, but in Persons 6+ they finished 34th among the 41 stations that showed up in the December book.