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if radio 1045 is losing money like everyone thinks...
- Thread starter Gunsmoke
- Start date
I don't know where anyone has said they're "losing money." I think what we've concluded is they're not making as much as they should given their ratings.
But people constantly post, they are the lowest biller, they should change format, even though they have good ratings they cannot get good advertisers and on and on...its like they are a failure, yet they sound live, local, informative and format committed all day and night, more than most FM''ers on the local band.
104.5 is probably thrown in as a bonus buy to advertisers on the other i-Heart Stations.
I'm friends with someone who owned a Country themed night club and her radio advertising was done exclusively with i-Heart's Country station in my market. When they launched a new FM sports station on a move-in signal they told her for "a few bucks more" they'd air her commercials on the new ESPN station too. She didn't tell me how much "a few bucks more" was, but she turned them down.
I'm friends with someone who owned a Country themed night club and her radio advertising was done exclusively with i-Heart's Country station in my market. When they launched a new FM sports station on a move-in signal they told her for "a few bucks more" they'd air her commercials on the new ESPN station too. She didn't tell me how much "a few bucks more" was, but she turned them down.
Once again you realize there's a difference between being a low biller and losing money, right? iHeart has a reputation of being cheap. They get called "Cheap Channel." Yet some of their air talent makes millions of dollars. That's not cheap. I don't know anyone is saying they should change format. In the context of the cluster, they're serving a useful purpose. You keep wanting another station in that format, and that's not going to happen. Just enjoy what you have.
Plus, let me add that 104.5 is huge with 18-25 year olds like myself. I love alt rock as many my age do, and 104.5 is on so many of our cars presets. Philly cannot do without an alt rock station, and just look at how many go to their birthday parties and concert events. 104.5 is the most successful its been in years.
Bingo. That right there is the reason why iHeart keeps this format. That younger (mostly male) demo is very hard for FM radio to attract. It may not make a lot of money, but there are some advertisers who really want to reach this group. So as I said it serves a useful purpose. Having several stations that divides this audience would shrink that demo pool, and dilute its value.
Not disagreeing with you, Big A ; merely adding another factor ....
104.5 Philadelphia has had more format changes over the years than Radio Belgrade. None have stuck, ratings-wise, until the WRFF entity.
They once had been INSTRUMENTAL COUNTRY. That was back before Clear Channel got 'hold of them
They tried a form of (at the time) Hot A/C, with Don Cannon as the PD. As great a DJ as he was -- and he was terrific -- the competition was a real logjam
They tried to go against 101.1, making the 4th station in the market to do soft A/C. 'Eeeeeewwwwww ...(boom)'
I sort of liked their Alice thing, until I realized that the songs I'd heard one afternoon driving back here from Philly were the same ones I'd heard that morning
Their attempt to go after 101.1 again was a tragedy. Some here might remember their stunting, when 'Here Comes The Sun' and the sound of a bee being swatted went on for a week.
So the 'alternatives' -- no pun intended -- for a different WRFF format are, well, kind of limited. 104.5 seems to've tried them all.
Their power-ratio might be whistling in the woods as far as advertisements go, but the listeners seem to be there. And they are the desired YOUNG listeners, too. The audience is not 75+ and set in their ways. If sales can't cultivate that younger-demo, that's not the fault of the listeners.
104.5 Philadelphia has had more format changes over the years than Radio Belgrade. None have stuck, ratings-wise, until the WRFF entity.
They once had been INSTRUMENTAL COUNTRY. That was back before Clear Channel got 'hold of them
They tried a form of (at the time) Hot A/C, with Don Cannon as the PD. As great a DJ as he was -- and he was terrific -- the competition was a real logjam
They tried to go against 101.1, making the 4th station in the market to do soft A/C. 'Eeeeeewwwwww ...(boom)'
I sort of liked their Alice thing, until I realized that the songs I'd heard one afternoon driving back here from Philly were the same ones I'd heard that morning
Their attempt to go after 101.1 again was a tragedy. Some here might remember their stunting, when 'Here Comes The Sun' and the sound of a bee being swatted went on for a week.
So the 'alternatives' -- no pun intended -- for a different WRFF format are, well, kind of limited. 104.5 seems to've tried them all.
Their power-ratio might be whistling in the woods as far as advertisements go, but the listeners seem to be there. And they are the desired YOUNG listeners, too. The audience is not 75+ and set in their ways. If sales can't cultivate that younger-demo, that's not the fault of the listeners.
The iHeart cluster has no sales problem, as the other stations in the cluster demonstrate. The issue is the format. It is a harder sell, and the fact that it leans so heavily on 18-24 and 18-34 males in a market where WIP wipes out most of advertiser's male budgets, leaves little money on the table. It's just a difficult format in that market.
The entire premise as stated by the OP is deliberately wrong and misconstrues, once again, what has repeatedly been said.
This may be a stupid question as I'm not in the radio business but, if radio 1045 shifted their playlist to more 90s alternative based along with their currents that they already play, wouldnt that attract the slightly older demo of 25-44 which probably bills better than 18-24 while still holding the younger audience with the currents? I understand that may split the listeners up but would the younger listener actually tune out knowing that a current would be coming up? And if so couldn't the try to target the older end of the demo by featuring a 90s alt themed program nightly or weekly? Sort of based on the success of the SiriusXM Lithium station?
A lot of alternative stations around the country do that for that reason. And yes, the younger listeners complain about the older stuff.
As I said earlier, my guess is that iHeart wants the younger male audience they're getting, despite lower billings. That's why they do it.
So would you say them going after the 18-24 Male is more based on their position as a cluster with their other stations in the market as opposed to if they were a stand alone station? because that's how it seems, they can come at different demos with different stations rather than trying to attract as much as they can to one station, its hard to look at it that way when you just think if the individual stations but I guess that makes some sense when you view it as a multi headed monster
It was? Sunny 2.0 was on for four years and, IIRC, they were making money by running things on the thinnest of dimes. Pretty sure it went off because the brain-trust at Clear Channel Philadelphia were somehow duped into believing the market would support Spanish on FM (talk about a tragedy).
I don't quite understand why advertisers here don't want to buy Alt Rock (of course, I don't obsess over it) but I do sometimes wonder whether an inexpensive Soft AC, a la Sunny, would rake in a few more dineros for the cluster.
That's my guess. They have lots of alt stations around the country, so if they wanted an older demo, they know how to get it. It's not a hobby station. They're professionals.
There seems to be 2 reasons. It can be packaged with WUSL and WIOQ as complete coverage of young adult demos, and the thinking that older males are locked up with the two sports stations along with WMGK.
Great plan, but a station on 101.1 is #1 18-34. Philly must be the only market in America with just one CHR where said CHR is not top 6 18-34 right now. Radio 104.5 WRFF is 6th in this demo but seems to be improving.
Man, I can’t even remember the order of formats on 104.5 for certain without looking it up anymore. I did like Alice, I remember that.
@ Miguelito:
>> ' It was? Sunny 2.0 was on for four years and, IIRC, they were making money by running things on the thinnest of dimes. Pretty sure it went off because the brain-trust at Clear Channel Philadelphia were somehow duped into believing the market would support Spanish on FM (talk about a tragedy).
I don't quite understand why advertisers here don't want to buy Alt Rock (of course, I don't obsess over it) but I do sometimes wonder whether an inexpensive Soft AC, a la Sunny, would rake in a few more dineros for the cluster.' <<
Nice riposte, Miguelito. And touche', by the way.
* * * * * *
I've not lived nor worked in Philly for the better part of two decades now. So my update 'seminars' for the market are tethered mainly to this interesting forum. I do get some Phila stations on FM up this way regularly and quite well (WOGL, 104.5, 106.1). And for my jazz moods, WRTI has a translator that's easily picked up from Pottsville's 99.1 relay. But the commercial reception is not interesting enough, programming-wise, for me to hang around for more than an idle half-hour.
I could get huffy and ask why Sunny 2.0 didn't tear apart the A/C market there despite their tenure at the attempt. But my main suggestion was that 104.5 now has a stable audience in 2018 -- and that there's no apparent rationale to change that status.
>> ' It was? Sunny 2.0 was on for four years and, IIRC, they were making money by running things on the thinnest of dimes. Pretty sure it went off because the brain-trust at Clear Channel Philadelphia were somehow duped into believing the market would support Spanish on FM (talk about a tragedy).
I don't quite understand why advertisers here don't want to buy Alt Rock (of course, I don't obsess over it) but I do sometimes wonder whether an inexpensive Soft AC, a la Sunny, would rake in a few more dineros for the cluster.' <<
Nice riposte, Miguelito. And touche', by the way.
* * * * * *
I've not lived nor worked in Philly for the better part of two decades now. So my update 'seminars' for the market are tethered mainly to this interesting forum. I do get some Phila stations on FM up this way regularly and quite well (WOGL, 104.5, 106.1). And for my jazz moods, WRTI has a translator that's easily picked up from Pottsville's 99.1 relay. But the commercial reception is not interesting enough, programming-wise, for me to hang around for more than an idle half-hour.
I could get huffy and ask why Sunny 2.0 didn't tear apart the A/C market there despite their tenure at the attempt. But my main suggestion was that 104.5 now has a stable audience in 2018 -- and that there's no apparent rationale to change that status.
Oh, I'm not suggesting they change formats. (God forbid I poke that bear. And anyway, there's no good reason to change until they find something sustainable that will create more ad revenue. And who knows when that'll come along?) It's more that I wonder: If Sunny had stayed on the air, would it be better or worse for the company (as relates to ad revenue, of course) than what they're getting now? Soft AC goes for the older end of the lucrative AC demo while Alternative reaches (or is supposed to anyway) an entirely different and also lucrative demo. WRFF is penetrating that demo well enough but if ad buyers refuse to respond, I just wonder if iHeart would be getting more buys by hitting those Soft AC targets.
The conclusion should be obvious. Radio, it seems, in this day in age, has its success measured less by ratings and more by how long a format has stayed on and if it's making enough cash to keep the advertisers happy and the lights on. Radio 104.5 has a very dedicated, young, and loyal fan base and fills and large hole in the Philly market. Alternative is a very successful national genre and has regular charting hits. All 104.5 does is do top-40, just with alt rock songs instead of pop tunes. It's not hard to program or run and serves a large group of people with enough of cash to bother advertising to.
I'd greatly miss Radio 104.5 if it went bye-bye and so would so many others, especially their commercial free morning show "alternative mornings w/ johnny" as a great (no pun intended) alternative to the shit show that is morning drive radio on any other given station.
Last point- the only other alternative stations in philly are WXPN 88.5 and WKDU 91.7. Both are some of the best radio philly has to offer, and both are non-comms. XPN does actually chart in the books and they're always underrated in my opinion. WKDU has never charted and never will (because it's ran by stoner kids from drexel so it's not exactly Edward R. Murrow or Art Bell levels of radio) but still are unique as hell. I'm trying to say that anything remotely alternative that makes money is worth keeping on air. Radio 104.5 is gonna stay as is for a long time I hope and reckon.
I'd greatly miss Radio 104.5 if it went bye-bye and so would so many others, especially their commercial free morning show "alternative mornings w/ johnny" as a great (no pun intended) alternative to the shit show that is morning drive radio on any other given station.
Last point- the only other alternative stations in philly are WXPN 88.5 and WKDU 91.7. Both are some of the best radio philly has to offer, and both are non-comms. XPN does actually chart in the books and they're always underrated in my opinion. WKDU has never charted and never will (because it's ran by stoner kids from drexel so it's not exactly Edward R. Murrow or Art Bell levels of radio) but still are unique as hell. I'm trying to say that anything remotely alternative that makes money is worth keeping on air. Radio 104.5 is gonna stay as is for a long time I hope and reckon.
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