104.3 The Flounder

[MarkW]

Can someone please explain to me how this steaming pile of garbage remains on the air? I guess finishing in 21st or 22nd place on a regular basis is considered acceptable by Entercom? Hey - at least they are ahead of Revolution 93.5 in the ratings! LOL

With stations like 104.3 The Flounder in Entercom's arsenal, it's no wonder the company's share price is in the toilet! Their share price has been in freefall mode for at least two and a half years now.

 

[TheBigA]

Their share price has been in freefall mode for at least two and a half years now.

What seems to be hurting their stock price is the failure to deliver on the $100 million in synergies they promised when they bought CBS Radio. They are starting to work on that now. Plus they're sitting on about $1.8 billion in debt. Neither of those is good for stock price.

 

[davideduardo]

Can someone please explain to me how this steaming pile of garbage remains on the air? I guess finishing in 21st or 22nd place on a regular basis is considered acceptable by Entercom? Hey - at least they are ahead of Revolution 93.5 in the ratings! LOL

With stations like 104.3 The Flounder in Entercom's arsenal, it's no wonder the company's share price is in the toilet! Their share price has been in freefall mode for at least two and a half years now.

Investors don’t look at the performance of one station out of 400... they look at PE ratios, debt to equity, leading cash flow and all kinds of metrics like beta, insider transactions and the like. What one station does is irrelevant particularly in a market that is not even in the top ten.

Miami is rather special as over half the population is Hispanic and that makes programming hard. Add in the fact that advertisers in Miami know that the Hispanic market is the most affluent and has the highest CSI per household and it makes it hard to program any format that principally appeals to non-Hispanic whites.

And Entercom may be happy with performance since the demos complement the cluster and they don’t look too bad in male demos... at least not as bad as in 6+.

 

[davideduardo]

Can someone please explain to me how this steaming pile of garbage remains on the air? I guess finishing in 21st or 22nd place on a regular basis is considered acceptable by Entercom? Hey - at least they are ahead of Revolution 93.5 in the ratings! LOL

With stations like 104.3 The Flounder in Entercom's arsenal, it's no wonder the company's share price is in the toilet! Their share price has been in freefall mode for at least two and a half years now.

Upon further examination, in the target of 18-34 males, the station has gone from a 2.7 in December to a 3.4 in Holiday and then it has been 4.5, 5.4, 5.9, 6.2 and 5.4 in the 5 last months. It is currently 4th in the demo, with the three ahead of it being African American and Rhythmic CHR options.

Since Miami has no significantly performing sports station, WSFS is likely a first choice in reaching young adult males.

 

[MarkW]

How many white males aged 18 to 34 in Miami-Ft. Lauderdale spend appreciable time listening to FM radio in active fashion? My guess is few. So, The Flounder has decent ratings in a demo that constitutes only a fractional share of the overall ratings pie. This likely explains why a 100% improvement in ratings performance in that cell has translated to negligible movement in ages 6+.

If I wanted to reach young adult white males, FM radio definitely would not be my advertising vehicle of choice!

 

[davideduardo]

How many white males aged 18 to 34 in Miami-Ft. Lauderdale spend appreciable time listening to FM radio in active fashion? My guess is few. So, The Flounder has decent ratings in a demo that constitutes only a fractional share of the overall ratings pie. This likely explains why a 100% improvement in ratings performance in that cell has translated to negligible movement in ages 6+.

If I wanted to reach young adult white males, FM radio definitely would not be my advertising vehicle of choice!

In Miami, 92.7% of 18-49 men and 89.8% of 18-34 men used radio each week.

18-34's average 9:30 hours a week with radio and 18-49 Men average 10:30.

Radio is a very cost efficient way of reaching that demo.

If you take out the Spanish and the urban stations, WSFS is in a tie for 4th in 18-49 men. And 2nd in 18-34 men.

 

[itsTheRolyPoly]

Since Miami has no significantly performing sports station, WSFS is likely a first choice in reaching young adult males.

And that's because Miami, despite having four sports teams, is not a sports town IMO. I know because I used to live in Miami for the first 21 years of my life. Only 5 championships since I was born, compared to 12 in Boston since 2000.

When Miami's teams don't do well, it showcases in Miami's radio ratings. It doesn't do well anyways, even if teams do well during a certain stretch.

 

[MarkW]

In Miami, 92.7% of 18-49 men and 89.8% of 18-34 men used radio each week.

18-34's average 9:30 hours a week with radio and 18-49 Men average 10:30.

Radio is a very cost efficient way of reaching that demo.

If you take out the Spanish and the urban stations, WSFS is in a tie for 4th in 18-49 men. And 2nd in 18-34 men.

A fourth place tie in Men 18-49 *after* removal of all the Spanish & Urban stations is actually a rather pitiful performance when one considers the other options on the local dial. That means they are likely losing to CHR/Pop and AC stations, and I suspect, losing mightily to Big 105.9 as well.

In Miami, 92.7% of 18-49 men and 89.8% of 18-34 men used radio each week.

18-34's average 9:30 hours a week with radio and 18-49 Men average 10:30.

So, 18-34's average about 80 minutes with radio a day. That means by & large they are not listening at work. Is the 9:30 for Adults 18-34 or Men 18-34? I suspect women use radio more.

 

[tbolt909]

Mr. E is good at spinning numbers. #4 in demo after removing Spanish & Urban? That's like saying we're the #1 station on our frequency. It's absurd.

Reality is that the station sucks salt water. It's an Epic Fail. The Alternative station in Buffalo is another glaring failure. That station has averaged a 1.3 in the 5 years it's been on the air. It has no advertisers and no ratings.

David Field must have some stubborn attachment to the ALT format. They think hip young 18-35 year olds should like it. It's just a ruse to try to con the ad agencies. It's failing miserably...

 

[davideduardo]

A fourth place tie in Men 18-49 *after* removal of all the Spanish & Urban stations is actually a rather pitiful performance when one considers the other options on the local dial. That means they are likely losing to CHR/Pop and AC stations, and I suspect, losing mightily to Big 105.9 as well.

No, they lose to WMXJ, WPOW, WLYF and tie with WFLC. Two of them are less than a half share above, which is essentially within the margin of error of the survey.

So, 18-34's average about 80 minutes with radio a day. That means by & large they are not listening at work. Is the 9:30 for Adults 18-34 or Men 18-34? I suspect women use radio more.

The numbers are for men.

Women actually listen a bit less than men. Weekly 18-49 TSL to radio for 18-49 women is between 9:30 and 10:00 hours a week (it wobbles each month due to things like number of holidays, weather, etc) and for men it is 10:30 to 11:30.

We find in PPM that people who say they "listen all day" at work actually listen about an hour and a half to two hours on average. Remember, the average includes those who listen 3, 4 hours at work and those that listen perhaps a half hour to one hour. The PPM redefined at work listening, since people do not listen non-stop. They have breaks, they take phone calls, they go to lunch and the bathroom. They talk to other staff members. They get out of the truck to deliver things. They leave the stockroom to put stuff on shelves. They talk to customers.

Overall the PPM showed about 40% lower listening to the radio than the diary, and that is because it is much more precise.

And, since agencies buy ratings, not share, consider this.

There are 2 stations with a 0.5 rating in 18-49 men. Both are in Spanish.
There are 2 stations with a 0.4 rating in the same demo. One is Spanish, the other is Urban.

There are 11 stations with a 0.3. WSFS is one of them.

 

[davideduardo]

Mr. E is good at spinning numbers. #4 in demo after removing Spanish & Urban? That's like saying we're the #1 station on our frequency. It's absurd.

No, it is not. Buys are very often weighted for ethnic factors... if the campaign has Spanish creative, they will split some money in proportion to the Spanish dominant population.

And, as mentioned above, only 4 stations have a higher rating in 18-49 men. And WSFS is tied with 10 more stations all with the same rating after those 4.

Reality is that the station sucks salt water. It's an Epic Fail. The Alternative station in Buffalo is another glaring failure. That station has averaged a 1.3 in the 5 years it's been on the air. It has no advertisers and no ratings.

WSFS, for an English rock format that underindexes among Hispanics, does quite well.

The Buffalo station puts a 65 dbu signal over only about 15% of the metro. It's a very inadequate facility. It's a poor comparison for this discussion as there is no way that the station can effectively compete in the market based on it OTA signal. On the other hand, the Miami station has essentially a parity signal with the better stations in the market.

David Field must have some stubborn attachment to the ALT format. They think hip young 18-35 year olds should like it. It's just a ruse to try to con the ad agencies. It's failing miserably...

Ad agencies use numbers to buy. They set a cost per point, and if the station meets that goal, they get bought. You can't con an agency. They have pretty knowledgeable folks planning and buying campaigns and they go by the numbers and the only variable is in the area of support, such as "activations" (we used to call them "remotes") and promotions.

Not every station in a cluste is going to be #1. The concept of cluster ownership is being able to package several stations together to get a buy, with each one lending synergies to the pitch.

When I owned a 9 station cluster back in the 60's, I learned that even my lower rated stations could be very profitable if I packaged them for combo sales. One of the nice things of owning a cluster is that you can do a range of complimentary formats that includes lower performing ones because there are creative ways of selling.

 

[tbolt909]

Saying that the signal is "inadequate" is a cop out. The previous Lake format in Buffalo had far greater success on the same weak signal.

Your last post confirms the ruse. Companies try to muddy the waters with different data. The unsellable station gets thrown in as "added value" in an agency buy. Buy 3 and get one free...

 

[MarkW]

I would like to thank Mr. Eduardo for the additional info!

So, WSFS doesn't really stand out from the pack as far as non-ethnic stations go. It's not a good performer, but it's not quite as terrible as I thought, either. I do think a broad based rock station (a la WMMR Philadelphia) would be more effective at reaching a larger audience and would also perform better within Men 18-34, but perhaps the thinking is some of the advertisers who buy space on multiple Entercom stations as a package would be spooked by advertising on an edgier sounding rock station? Tough to say.

I wonder how WSFS's performance among Men 18-49 compares to alternative & rock stations of the past - such as 94.9 Zeta and 93 Rock? (93 Rock was a very low budget station.)

 

[davideduardo]

Saying that the signal is "inadequate" is a cop out. The previous Lake format in Buffalo had far greater success on the same weak signal.

Quite a bit has change since the previous Lake format was on the air, including a general decline in the performance of younger leaning rock stations, a considerable decline in individual listener time with radio due to alternative devices and the lack of good product from the labels.

When the previous Lake format was extinguished, the smartphone was only about 3 years old, and still had fairly limited penetration. Listeners who wanted that music were more numerous and they were willing, for lack of other options, to put up with a bad signal. Not so today.

Add in nearly a decade of further fragmentation of alternative into polarized subsets, and there is no possibility that The Lake could come close to its pre-2011 performance.

Your last post confirms the ruse. Companies try to muddy the waters with different data. The unsellable station gets thrown in as "added value" in an agency buy. Buy 3 and get one free...

Lower rated stations are not unsalable. They simple get lower rates. Good operators package up the ones that won't get consideration alone by selling them together with a must-buy station at a combo rate. This kind of technique allows what would be a very unprofitable stand-alone to ride along with bigger cluster members and make decent money.

 

[davideduardo]

I wonder how WSFS's performance among Men 18-49 compares to alternative & rock stations of the past - such as 94.9 Zeta and 93 Rock? (93 Rock was a very low budget station.)

The further back in time you go, the lower the Hispanic percentage of the market is. What has changed the dynamic in Miami is the general decline in rock, the rhythmic nature of the market and the now-majority influence of Hispanics in the market. Marketers can't ignore Hispanics, as they have the highest income levels of any of the major groups in the market.

 

[djl]

Why did they ever move 104.3 as WEAT from WPB? Wasn’t. WEAT doing well in WPB? They had an incredible signal (as good as WRMF) and easily reached Miami.

 

[adambaer2879]

David, do you think the same male demo in the palm beach area could work on an underperforming station, and if yes which one up here?

 

[davideduardo]

Why did they ever move 104.3 as WEAT from WPB? Wasn’t. WEAT doing well in WPB? They had an incredible signal (as good as WRMF) and easily reached Miami.

No WPB station has or ever had a usable signal in most of Miami Dade. While you can hear a few of the stations, nobody listens. The reception is too much in the fringe area.

The station moved to the Miami market because there are several times the available revenue in Miami. A low rated Miami FM bills more than a top rated WPB market FM.

 

[djl]

Doesn’t WRMF have decent coverage in Miami-Dade? I live in NY but used to come down to South Florida so please forgive my ignorance.

 

[adambaer2879]

David, what I was asking do you think an alternative station could
Work on a WPB radio station.