Fall 2015 GSP Ratings

awp69 · Jan 5, 2016

Ratings came out yesterday for GSP and it has some interesting moves. The top stations continued to dominate, but JAMZ scored its best 12+ book in a while with a whopping 10.6.

Another noteworthy observation is that Hot 98.1 took a pretty surprising jump to edge B93.7 slightly (5.5 to 5.6). Entercom's new translator, 96.3 The Block, didn't launch until October so probably didn't factor much into this book so it'll be interesting to see if the Winter book knocks Hot down.

After a one book reversal, Magic completely obliterated My 102.5 this book (5.2 to 2.8). You have to wonder if the writing is on the wall for MY. I think that's the lowest rating ever for the station.

EARTH also took a surprising dip from 4.1 to just 2.4. It's competitor Chuck rebounded a bit .9 to 1.3, but it could be the rise in Magic that took the largest portion of the ratings loss having similar age demos.

The Planet was down a half-share to 3.2 (it's lowest in the past year) with X98.5 rebounding from a bad book to 1.1, which may be offsetting one another. WROO's change from classic rock to a mix / active leaning "Man Up!" does not seem to be helping it. It was down to a .7, also it's lowest of the last year.

Of course these are all 12+, so I'm sure the specific money demos probably show a different picture, but some rocky times for a few stations.

vchimpanzee · Jan 6, 2016

While this doesn't mean anything for WROO, the Man Up approach gave a big boost to WVBZ in Greensboro, NC. That station is full-power though not as strong as most of the other stations in some areas of the market, and it was getting WROO numbers with alternative. So the format is working for someone.

awp69 · Jan 6, 2016

vchimpanzee said:
While this doesn't mean anything for WROO, the Man Up approach gave a big boost to WVBZ in Greensboro, NC. That station is full-power though not as strong as most of the other stations in some areas of the market, and it was getting WROO numbers with alternative. So the format is working for someone.

Is the Greensboro station as active leaning? And if there is no active station like The Planet there that may be the difference.

AMRocks · Jan 6, 2016

I still find it strange that there is no mainstream CHR station in the market like a Z100 NY, KISS in LA or Power 96 Atlanta. I realize it's a much smaller market, but there's no reason that B93.7 can't sound like those other great stations.

vchimpanzee · Jan 6, 2016

awp69 said:
Is the Greensboro station as active leaning? And if there is no active station like The Planet there that may be the difference.

WVBZ was the active station before it was alternative. It sounds active a lot of the time but there's plenty of classic rock too.

awp69 · Jan 6, 2016

AMRocks said:
I still find it strange that there is no mainstream CHR station in the market like a Z100 NY, KISS in LA or Power 96 Atlanta. I realize it's a much smaller market, but there's no reason that B93.7 can't sound like those other great stations.

Completely agree. I still listen to Charlotte stations if I want CHR.

tylerSC · Jan 10, 2016

awp69 said:
Completely agree. I still listen to Charlotte stations if I want CHR.

Both 95.1 and 96.1 are good hit music stations. Hopefully they won't allow any LPFM stations on their same signal like WLNK. WLNK used to be the strongest Charlotte signal in Greenville County. Now it is 96.1. And 95.1 now has sometimes static interference from adjacent signals.

awp69 · Jan 11, 2016

tylerSC said:
Both 95.1 and 96.1 are good hit music stations. Hopefully they won't allow any LPFM stations on their same signal like WLNK. WLNK used to be the strongest Charlotte signal in Greenville County. Now it is 96.1. And 95.1 now has sometimes static interference from adjacent signals.

Yes, I like both stations but slightly prefer 95.1. The occassional static tends to push me to 96.1 though.

I don't listen to CHR a lot but those two are much better than B93.7. Quicker on new music and more consistent in their playlists and overall sound. Part of the problem is that B at times has tried to be more rhythmic to fight off Hot and it doesn't work. Ends up sounding like a mess. Maybe having "The Block" will help give B some more room to establish itself more as a true CHR, but until then the market really doesn't have a quality mainstream Top 40 station.