WLS-FM made a mistake last night

[TheBigA]

Yes, and they sell for 10 cents on the dollar (syndication truism with a few exceptons), and they only have to fill a couple dozen slots, usually with a dozen advertisers or fewer. A radio station, by contrast, has to fill 800 slots q week, usually with 100 or more advertisers.

In addition, those shows are syndicated by companies that combine those older audiences with shows that sell to younger audiences, for a mix that gives advertisers the variety they seek. A local station that does just that format 24/7 doesn't. Having said that, I've been seeing that syndication companies that sell national spots only have been struggling a bit more than local radio in this current advertising marketplace.

 

[RickStarr1]

Syndication again

for the sake of argument..how would an agency buy for a "News/Talk' station, say WLS am with a demographic of older Males be any different than a buy for an oldies station?

Because the rules are slightly different for news and news talk. The income levels of listeners to those stations are usually higher (much!) than oldies stations, so they are more desirable ears to advertisers. The formats are also like "foreground", meaning listeners are *actually listening* rather than having music jumbling along in the background so again, the listeners are more valuable. That said, there is still a serious prejudice at the agency level against older listeners (not matter what.) I ran news and news talk stations for many years, and we faced it every day.

PS: Even selling at 10-cents on the dollar can be good - if you get 10 stations you are selling for a dollar. If you get 100 stations you can do very nicely. It's not a perfectly linear relationship, because if you only have 20 stations nobody will bother with you, and if you have only B and C counties the Nationals won't either, but if you make it in to the Bigs (A counties, major markets) you can be extremely profitable.

PPS: There are lots of oldies stations because it is a super cheap format to run. A music library is easy to find, no music director needed to meet with record guys or figure out what to play, a few voice tracks and/or live morning man and you're good to go.

 

[RickStarr1]

"Musicradio" a la 1974 woked very well, and does not imply anything other than music and radio.
No need to "call" the music anything.

And in 1974 all you had to say was "Coke is it" and you were done. Marketing has moved on, and now the consumer wants to know something about the product before bothering to even look at it. *Diet* Coke. Coke *Zero*. Bud *Lime*. Pepsi *Free*. Doritos. Ruffles. It's no longer enough to say "Soda" or "Beer" or "Chips". That's why you try to find some unique identifier that will get people to respond. Even though all it takes is a twist of the dial, most people don't do that to discover new stations. You have to pry them away from what they had before, otherwise you lose.

 

[davideduardo]

Because the rules are slightly different for news and news talk. The income levels of listeners to those stations are usually higher (much!) than oldies stations, so they are more desirable ears to advertisers. The formats are also like "foreground", meaning listeners are *actually listening* rather than having music jumbling along in the background so again, the listeners are more valuable. That said, there is still a serious prejudice at the agency level against older listeners (not matter what.) I ran news and news talk stations for many years, and we faced it every day.

Those are sales stereotypes or misconceptions.

Rather than stating an opinion, I ran the date. I used LA, since there is a strong talk 25-54 station there while New York City and Chicago have no such station. KFI's audience is 38% in the upper two income levels in Nielsen, while KRTH has 30% of its audience in the upper two groups. But since KRTH cumes about 25% more people in the upper income groups than KFI, it is a better "reach" buy against upper income. In fact, in LA there are 16 stations that reach more upper income people including CHR; AC, Hot AC, Alternative, Adult Hits, Rhythmic AC, CHUrban, AOR, Classic Rock, All News, Spanish contemporary and Country.

(Note: KRTH is a classic hits station, not oldies. But I used it for comparison since there are pretty much no significant oldies stations left anywhere and LA does not have one).

The foreground / background issue is seldom considered by buyers. Stations have tried to use it for decades without much success, likely because it raises the "environment" issue of being placed in the middle of controversial issues.

As to "prejudice at the agency level" there is really no such thing. There are directives from clients on the target age of a campaign, but agencies generally are just following the orders of the client. And clients essentially never target 55+ in their radio campaigns.

PPS: There are lots of oldies stations because it is a super cheap format to run. A music library is easy to find, no music director needed to meet with record guys or figure out what to play, a few voice tracks and/or live morning man and you're good to go.

Talk is expensive if you do much live and local programming. That is the case with some talkers, mostly in major markets. Most stations, however, use a lot of syndicated programming that comes in via barter. And most talkers run 4 to 6 minutes more commercial time an hour than the leading music stations in their market, so they make up the difference.

And at a classic hits station (again, there are no significant "oldies" stations left) "record guys" are not consulted for programming... listeners are via expensive regular music research. While any music format is likely (although not always if there is a high profile morning show or team) to cost less than talk with some local shows and news, any competitive music format is going to have significant costs.

 

[davideduardo]

And in 1974 all you had to say was "Coke is it" and you were done.

In radio, in 1974 about 70% of listening was to AM still. As FM grew, listeners had a much broader array of stations to chose from, so differentiating became a harder marketing challenge.

Even though all it takes is a twist of the dial, most people don't do that to discover new stations. You have to pry them away from what they had before, otherwise you lose.

Actually, listeners do that all the time. The average person in a PPM market uses 6 stations in a week, and it's up to about 8 in a 2-week period.