Atlanta Radio, Really

[TheBigA]

I still listen to WSM AM on a regular basis via skywave. That format is totally unworkable on any other station but it consistently pulls a Nashville 2 share. It is truly, "The Legend."

It operates mainly to attract visitors to the Grand Ole Opry and stay at the Opryland Hotel. The advertising money is secondary, and the streaming website actually loses money. In their case, aiming at an older demo is a good thing, because they are prime customers for the Opry.

If it was owned by anyone else, they wouldn't do that format.

 

[davideduardo]

It operates mainly to attract visitors to the Grand Ole Opry and stay at the Opryland Hotel. The advertising money is secondary, and the streaming website actually loses money. In their case, aiming at an older demo is a good thing, because they are prime customers for the Opry.

If it was owned by anyone else, they wouldn't do that format.

Totally agreed. It averages well under a 1 share in 25-54, and is around 15th in revenue. While the top station bills just under $9 million a year, WSM does just over $250,000. Were it not for the ongoing promotional value of the station and its format, it would not exist.

WSM and WNVL, the Regional Mexican station on 1240, are tied as the highest rated AMs in 25-54.

Nashville, with its dreadful ground conductivity, is one of the poorest AM markets with a 12+ total share for the band of around 4%, and less than 2% in the under-55 demos.

 

[davideduardo]

They're doing basically the same thing in Atlanta with The River. I suspect that between that station and WSB, they've got the older demo covered. I wonder where The River stacks up in billings.

Supposedly it is 9th, in a virtual tie for 7th with Hot and Power which bill a tiny bit more than The River does.

 

[TheBigA]

While the top station bills just under $9 million a year, WSM does just over $250,000.

Which is about what you said WHPY bills...interesting that the posters in this thread are attracted to stations that bill poorly. Makes them great customers for public radio.

 

[littlejohn]

"Then again, I doubt very many country music listeners live downtown, yet Atlanta has two very successful country stations.'
There's a pretty good number of them and PPM shows it. We used to see guys on the freeways headed downtown in their BMWs and Mercedes tapping their fingers to Y - but they'd roast in hell before they'd admit it. Comes PPM and it gets listed.

Remember, the diary paradigm is 'partisanship' to a great extent, while the PPM paradigm is totally 'exposure'. Consequently a diarly market will likely be programmed somewhat differently than a PPM market.

 

[davideduardo]

Which is about what you said WHPY bills...interesting that the posters in this thread are attracted to stations that bill poorly. Makes them great customers for public radio.

And as mentioned, the top biller in the market does just a tad under $9 million, and total market billing is around $63 million a year. WHPY has a 0.4 share of local revenue and a .2 power ratio.

 

[davideduardo]

LOL, thanks, just the way I feel. I am so sick of hearing that this format will not work, etc, etc, Yes POLKA would not work, but hell we need some excitement on this dial. Music of my era, 60s, 70s was some of the best original real recording artists that had TALENT, unlike the morons today that basicaly have thier music done for them in the studio.

Two simple points to consider:

1. The listeners that 60's based oldies attracts are all around 60 or over. Advertising money is just not available for that age group. Individual stations or "better sellers" can not change that.

2. Today's pop music for today's teen and young adult is every bit as good for them as the 60s stuff is/was for you. Saying that one era of music is better than another is like saying that you have better taste than younger generations when what is really true is that each generation has different tastes.

 

[max100]

1690 is about to get a translator too. This is a true "hobby" station owned by a guy who inherited about 500 million from his father. He has 25 million in two lame AM stations but hey, what's another couple hundred thou when you have that kind of piggy bank.
It is known mostly because the owner plays bird calls mixed with opera, country, rock, and Yiddish. It's quite esoteric! It never shows in the ratings but has a good bit of local business because the guy who runs the place can sell ice to Eskimos. Probably very similar to WHYP.

Awesome, where will it be?

 

[davideduardo]

As for research, what do you mean? I think the research has been available for decades and it doesn't really change by year. You just have to keep the train moving as time goes on. No wheels to invent.

Freely available research does not exist, unless you mean copying the playlist of a station you know does research.

Gold based stations have to research regularly... twice a year is best, but even once a year will work in less competitive markets. Songs that got played more may need to be played less... or not. Some songs that have rested a while may be able to come back. Some newer songs may now be prime for the target demo.

I long ago quit trying to "outguess" the research as there is no way a person in a radio station can guess the current perception of hundreds and hundreds of songs. And if you miss-guess on just a few, you may be playing several tune-out quality stiffs an hour, which is death in a PPM market.

 

[TheBigA]

1690 is about to get a translator too. This is a true "hobby" station owned by a guy who inherited about 500 million from his father.

That's the only way these kinds of stations exist. Rich benefactors. Paul Allen is pumping money into KEXP in Seattle. Dan Snyder uses the money he gets from owning the Washington Redskins to fund a group of AM stations in DC. Listeners live off the largesse of the rich. Jeff Bezos bought the Washington Post with his own money. Nice when you can do that. It's not easy to run radio stations or any traditional media as a stand-alone business.

 

[davideduardo]

On the format execution, I ask because when I lived in St Louis, regardless of format (excluding the CHR station owned by iheart), all stations, regardless of format, were mostly local and generally deeper.

Atlanta is nearly 50% ethnic, between African Americans and Hispanics. St. Louis is about 22% ethnic. It's much "whiter" and much more traditional middle America. More rock stations, less rhythmic. Stations reflect the market composition. And St. Louis has a higher median age than Atlanta, thus the different balance in 18-34 targeted stations vs. 35+ focused ones.

St Louis radio is primarily ran by medium and local size companies.

The major billers, other than locally owned KTRS, are CBS, Clear Channel, Emmis, Radio One and Hubbard. All are major group broadcasters. Of the 18 stations that bill over $1 a year, 17 are not locally owned.

So I'm wondering if both demographics (something that can't be controlled) and ownership contribute to Atlantas poor performance OR is it a situation where the grass appears greener on the other side.

No, it is a situation where the stations reflect the composition and tastes of the local market.

I'm also wondering when rim shots will become more popular with the demographic and population mix around Atlanta.

A rimshot is a station outside or at the very fringe of a market shooting inwards, usually with imperfect coverage of the whole metro survey area. Since the Atlanta MSA has 20 total counties, no station except those licensed to transmit from somewhere near the center of the market can cover it all. If they can't hear you, they can not listen.

Majority of your 50 plus white men don't live in the city (I know some do but I'm speaking general). If in town signals are focused on the ITP residents, well that may explain the lack of variety and the focus on millennial and hip
Hop oriented radio.

Radio does not "sell" city listening. It sells market area listening. As said, 20 counties in the metro. There are four counties in the MSA with over 700,000 persons... so you have to have a signal that covers a log of territory to be successful.

 

[b-turner]

Funny thing, my Dad, going on 87, talks about so many in Basic Training during the Korean conflict talking about WSM AM when he'd say he was from Nashville. Truly a legend built around the Grand Ol' Opry.

About generational music, my Dad hated top 40 and especially AOR that I grew up with. He never identified it as music then. He told me, as a kid, to just wait, that my kids would like music I didn't understand or get and I'd be just as perplexed as he was at how they found it so appealing. As a joke one day about 12 to 15 years or so ago, I was going with him on an errand. He wanted to know if I wanted to listen to some hip hop or rap on the radio. He glanced over and grinned. He cranked up The Phoenix (we were in Nashville at the time).

If you want to talk low billing stations, there are many just outside Davidson County/Nashville, that I doubt crack $100,000 a year. In fact, one owner told me I made just a little more in my paycheck managing an AM daytimer in a major market than he billed on his station daytimer that reached parts of Nashville.

 

[davideduardo]

If you want to talk low billing stations, there are many just outside Davidson County/Nashville, that I doubt crack $100,000 a year. In fact, one owner told me I made just a little more in my paycheck managing an AM daytimer in a major market than he billed on his station daytimer that reached parts of Nashville.

There are about 11,000 commercial stations in the US dividing $17 billion in revenue. That averages out to 1.5 million per station. That is slightly higher than the average gross sales of a Pizza Hut.

But take out the top 10 markets where about 30% of the revenue is produced (just over $4 billion) and you have an average gross for the remaining stations of about $900,000.

8,000 of those stations (including low billers in the big markets) bill under $500,000. And many are much, much lower.

 

[wavo]

Which is about what you said WHPY bills...interesting that the posters in this thread are attracted to stations that bill poorly. Makes them great customers for public radio.

How am I a "great" customer for public radio?? Why do you find it "interesting" that there are those who enjoy stations which bill poorly?

 

[wavo]

Awesome, where will it be?

I should have said in the previous post, "1690 MAY be getting a translator." My original statement is misleading and I apologize.

 

[TheBigA]

How am I a "great" customer for public radio?? Why do you find it "interesting" that there are those who enjoy stations which bill poorly?

You don't think it's interesting? It's great for public radio because they don't program for advertisers, they program for members. Very different approach.

 

[wavo]

You don't think it's interesting? It's great for public radio because they don't program for advertisers, they program for members. Very different approach.

Human behavior is always interesting!
Every station that has ever existed has had at least a few listeners who enjoy their programming so I'm not sure why you find that interesting. Even Brother Stair has fans...

 

[TheBigA]

I'm not sure why you find that interesting..

Because most radio programmers find human behavior interesting. I often find that people who say "there's nothing I like on the radio" have never even tried noncommercial radio. They complain about some stations having too many commercials, yet ignore an entire part of radio that promotes itself as non-commercial.

 

[jabba17]

I'm loving this discussion as well. My basic thinking is that the larger the market, the higher the investment to enter and the fewer gambles will be made with that investment. Nashville seems to have plenty of, for lack of a better term, small market stations, that have much less at stake, so more chances can be taken. Hippy Radio is what I would call taking a chance and best of all, it works for them. This seems especially true on Nashville's AM dial although there's some FMs as well..

I've wondered that myself.

I've wondered why the Atlanta radio market has been so afraid of Adult/Variety Hits (today's equivalent of pop oldies, but centered on the 80s and 90s). IIRC Journey 97.9 did respectable for a translator signal.

I've also noticed that small-market CHRs take more chances. One good example was when 97 WFOX was still in Gainesville and hadn't moved in yet. They took more chances with the playlist than Z-93, with a deeper playlist with more recurrents. Ditto for Wide 107. Go to any smaller market and it's the same.

Then, when Fox moved in and later flipped to oldies, the running gag was "Good Times and Eight Oldies" due to a very narrow playlist. Meanwhile, oldies stations out on the metro fringe like Lake 102 and Sunny 100 played a much more diverse playlist, and a newer one to boot going deep into 1970s AM gold. I'm sure they all flipped due to the format aging out and not bringing the ratings (plus the new owner simulcasts Latino on both stations), but it does show how small-market stations seem to take more chances.

I remember there was a great oldies station, WWFN Fun 100 in Lake City, SC. Again, the more diverse, more chance-taking playlist. Later they sold out to Cumulus and are now 100.1 The Fan with sports off the bird. Probably cheaper to run and easier to sell. But at least they didn't have to change their calls.

 

[wavo]

I've wondered that myself.

I've wondered why the Atlanta radio market has been so afraid of Adult/Variety Hits (today's equivalent of pop oldies, but centered on the 80s and 90s). IIRC Journey 97.9 did respectable for a translator signal.

I've also noticed that small-market CHRs take more chances. One good example was when 97 WFOX was still in Gainesville and hadn't moved in yet. They took more chances with the playlist than Z-93, with a deeper playlist with more recurrents. Ditto for Wide 107. Go to any smaller market and it's the same.

Then, when Fox moved in and later flipped to oldies, the running gag was "Good Times and Eight Oldies" due to a very narrow playlist. Meanwhile, oldies stations out on the metro fringe like Lake 102 and Sunny 100 played a much more diverse playlist, and a newer one to boot going deep into 1970s AM gold. I'm sure they all flipped due to the format aging out and not bringing the ratings (plus the new owner simulcasts Latino on both stations), but it does show how small-market stations seem to take more chances.

I remember there was a great oldies station, WWFN Fun 100 in Lake City, SC. Again, the more diverse, more chance-taking playlist. Later they sold out to Cumulus and are now 100.1 The Fan with sports off the bird. Probably cheaper to run and easier to sell. But at least they didn't have to change their calls.

You're talking about stations which existed 30-40 years ago! (Sorry...it is a cold bucket of water...) I wish radio could be like "The Big 8" or 77WABC" again too. I would listen to it too but advertisers don't care about reaching people my age.
You can hear bits of CKLW or WABC on Youtube. I think 20/20 news was fun radio...it was almost comedic but made that minute and a half a good listen. I wish we could resurrect Byron McGregor (sp?)
Would the kids give a tinker's dang about that kind of shtick?
It's all about youth. We worship youth so the agency buyer buys young.