I've read that they plan to do some local outreach at some point, and maybe they'll re-subscribe after a year or so once the awareness builds. There is a lot of demographic data one can get from looking at Nielsen books. Not just bottom line ratings. Even non-coms want to know WHO is listening in order to fine tune the presentation.
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WPLJ K-Love ratings too low to show?
- Thread starter kevtronics
- Start date
I've read that they plan to do some local outreach at some point, and maybe they'll re-subscribe after a year or so once the awareness builds. There is a lot of demographic data one can get from looking at Nielsen books. Not just bottom line ratings. Even non-coms want to know WHO is listening in order to fine tune the presentation.
I don't disagree with you, but remember there was a time when stations could transition to maintain their heritage, without sacrificing the music. They always had someone in the wings ready to take over, or didn't have the entire station based around a single personality, and they always were grooming new talent. They allowed the talent to be creative, and allowed them to "bond" with the community, so that sure it sucks when your morning guy retires, but that afternoon guy slid right into his place, and now I can build a new relationship with the night guy who is now in afternoons. This happened, many times, on these legacy stations.
When you have a legacy car that is starting to rust, you take care of the rust, you don't start parting it out right away. If you don't take care of the rust, eventually it is no longer worth restoring, and then you are better off getting a new car. The same can be said of these stations. But, corporate radio doesn't leave room for that. You need to get on the air, read your promo cards, sell the next track, and MAYBE have a second or two for something else, at best. And that's assuming you aren't outright voice-tracking, in which case everything is pre-planned out. I am not advocating for a full free-form playlist, but maybe give 1-2 songs an hour out to requests (within formats). Give people a reason to tune in, and a reason to come back, which really has gotten lost in corporate radio.
That's not how things work in New York. When you look at WPLJ, they had three different formats: Rock, Top 40, and Hot AC. Through most of those changes, the talent was pretty consistent. But when the format changed, so did the audience. You talk about it being a heritage station, but the biggest heritage was the rock period in the 70s and 80s. And when you talk about corporate radio, the king of all corporate radio was ABC. I worked there, and I can tell you it was far more corporate than anything we have today.
What I have seen talked about is more in the area of music events. It’s the equivalent of old style camp meetings with a message and music and other things to do.
For that sort of activity, they likely measure any increase in donations as well as wanting to know if the events in any way drive ratings.
In the Washington DC and middle Atlantic area I hear a profound difference in sound between stations known to be using PPM encoding and stations that are most likely not.
Is a Voltair causing the hollow presence band digital delay sound, or is it caused by enhanced CBET PPM encoding? I don't know. What I know is it sounds awful and it results in me turning off the radio and driving in silence. Some of you listeners in non-PPM markets may not realize how lucky you are.
Is a Voltair causing the hollow presence band digital delay sound, or is it caused by enhanced CBET PPM encoding? I don't know. What I know is it sounds awful and it results in me turning off the radio and driving in silence. Some of you listeners in non-PPM markets may not realize how lucky you are.
My impression it is the sum of the Voltair operating at too high a correction setting (shades of "11" from Spinal Tap) and the Nielsen CBET "enhanced" encoding. To me, the sound is the sort of thing I associate with dueling algorithms in different digital compression sources.
That could very well be true David. Once Voltair is bought and installed, in most places it will take a major change to remove it. A high hurdle of psychology indeed.
The term is "paranoia".
Good evening gentlemen thank you for your all your input to my comment. I was merely saying I dont think that if they were to publish their ratings for the current klove wplj I dont think it would be anywhere near the old wplj ratings. I am aware that the programming is syndicated coming out of California much like radio disney use to be. However they still do take up a market share even if they dont publish ratings. And I believe they get some of their money not all from donations even though that is where the majority of it comes from.
I should just bite my Southern tongue, but this is too unbelievable to remain quiet. Do you really believe that "all" the money comes only from the south? Did the south just "up and pay" for all those churches in NYC or Boston? Oh that's right, the Kennedy family is from Miami. All those folks on the Mayflower landed exactly where? Atlanta! Never had a wealthy minister in the NE? Stereotyping should not be acceptable on here. Keep your bigoted comments up norf. David - I will delete, if need be. But, sometimes you just have to do more than shake your head when someone, who is generally not at all a bad person, fires off completely unwarranted comments. And FTR, I have never donated a penny to EMF nor have I listened for more than probably ten minutes. It's not my cup of tea. I don't see many people making negative comments about other formats or groups of specific listeners that flat out insult a section of the population or country.
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I'm sure you know your stuff, so I am not looking to argue here, just trying to figure out how radio adapts in this landscape as someone who was a huge fan, and still listens to news radio daily on NPR.
In a world where I can get news and weather from my phone, and music discovery happens on my Spotify account months before anything is even touched on radio (because they need to test the music to make sure it has mass appeal) I am not sure what "niche" radio plays. News, talk, and sports all seem like logical contenders. I know the local Christian station here (KTIS) does really well, even often finishing in the top 5 12+, but when I listen for the "difference" between that and a K-Love affiliate, all I hear is local talent engaging with the community they serve (one way that KTIS differentiates itself musically is to have each station programmed locally for the community they serve, rather than be syndicated).
The music still isn't my cup of tea, but looking at other stations that are successful in MN, they have local, personality driven, drivetime shows. (KSTP FM is another example of this, they have finished #1 in dozens of recent books). That said, WCCO which is also live and local, doesn't fair as well. But you are definitely right, Minneapolis is NOT New York, and that is really my point of reference when I talk about radio, because I grew up here.
And nowhere did EMF state that they wanted to compete with WPLJ's former audience size with the new format. So there is no point to this comparison. EMF bought the station to bring their message and mission to NYC, and that's the extent of it.
K-love is not a "syndicated" format. It is an in-house production of EMF for its own stations and a few LMAs and the like. That is not the definition of "syndicated".
About 90% of EMF income comes from donations and from interest or gain on investments. Some comes merchandise sales and event attendance at concert events for individual stations, what a commercial station would call "NTR". A small amount comes as donations from businesses that like to participate in Christian events that EMF presents.
http://www.klove.com/uploadedFiles/K-LOVE_New/Content/About/EMF-FS-Final2017.pdf is a full 2018 financial report. They are very transparent.
Again, stations don't publish ratings if they are not subscribed, as that would be a copyright violation. And Nielsen releases the "beauty contest" 6+ or 12+ numbers to certain publications under a written agreement.
I find your response fair. I empathize with your ire.
I did not like, as a poster and not a moderator, the tone of the comment about Christians and evangelicals. But I'd feel the same way should a Jewish station or a station targeting Hindus or Muslims or Catholics be maligned with no evidence or compelling argument.
The moderators of this site are not going to stop every post with harsh words or unsubstantiated opinion. After all, a listener does not demand "proof" that they should listen to one station or another... it's just a feel of which one is the "best" in their world.
As long as ad hominems (personal insults for those without a lawyer in the family
) and profanity or calls to violence or threats are not involved, a certain degree of tolerance will be the guideline. However, anyone making a statement such as the one you responded to should know that those who disagree will and should make a rebuttal. It's a fine line between opinion and trolling. In this case, I think you balanced the scale. But we won't tolerate obvious trolling, either. So let's say that both sides have been heard from and we are done with this subset of the subject. That means one of the moderators will delete any "revival" of this aspect of the discussion. OK?
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Wrong. Stations don't test new songs prior to play. A song has to be played often enough for the average listener to have heard it 4 or 5 times before it can be even considered for research. We generally start testing currents 3 to 4 weeks after starting to play them. If testing a song for appeal before it was played for an audience, record labels could do the same thing and only release hits, cutting releases by about 95%. Of course, there is no way to really, reliably, research whether a song could be a hit.
And songs are added to radio station playlists based on programmer evaluation of their potential, fit and, of course, available slots on the playlist. It's pretty much an educated, trained gut feel.
And nearly all labels release on Fridays now. Many songs are added by radio they very day they drop, particularly if they are by the biggest artists or follow-ups to several big its by a newer artist.
Unknowns often have to be discovered in some other way... there are just too many new songs each month in each genre and radio can't play them all and listeners can't assimilate more than just a few. So if one of those dark horses starts to trend in other media, radio may pick it up. Then again, it might not.
And, of course, a huge percentage of radio listeners don't seek new music discovery at all... they come for classic rock, oldies / classic hits, soft AC and other formats that play few if any current product.
there was a time I despised new music.
During 2011-2014, PLJ Played some of the most boring, and even a little depressing new songs (now I kind of think that was Todd intentional to drive people off).
After Scott left, the music mysteriously got a little lighter, and better sounding.
Now, I like to keep up with at least some of the current hits. Although I avoid fame seekers like Taylor Swift like the plague.
But, for the most part, my wheel house is 'oldies' . I like the sound of the 50s-80s. and places like Verizons Music Choice has the variety that the old XM did. hit songs, with stuff I never heard before. when IWant new music, that's where I usually go.
It's not like K-Love is broadcasting Southern Gospel (which, believe it or not, has fans in the north). Evangelical churches and evangelical believers are everywhere, maybe not a majority in places like NYC or Boston, but they are indeed there. It's like the news media deciding they have to go to a diner in some far-flung midwestern or southern enclave to find a Trump voter in their native habitat. Uhhh....no there were Trump voters in New York City, just not as many as there were Hillary voters.
That's not how new music discovery works. Each week, record labels release new singles. They announce those releases in the trades, such as Billboard. The songs have release dates set by the record labels. For example, the new Miranda Lambert had a release date and time of Wednesday at 7AM. At that time, the song was made available digitally to radio stations through direct download. The stations immediately jumped on the song, and within hours, it was charting in the national airplay charts. That was the designated radio airplay single. Since then, the record label has released selected "grat tracks" for fans through streaming sites. Those are additional album tracks designed to create interest in the album. They are not intended to distract from the single release, which is still working its way up the charts. Right now her radio song is in the airplay Top 20.
So radio is part of music discovery. However, the reality is people use other sources and platforms IN ADDITION to radio. There have been personal music devices for 50 years. Personal streaming playlists are no different from making personal mix CDs or cassettes. People have been doing that for 50 years. Radio's role is to be part of that. The artists know and appreciate that. Garth Brooks released his latest duet with Blake Shelton exclusively to broadcast radio. It's not on Spotify. He does all of his concert promotion strictly through broadcast radio, not Pandora or Sirius. Garth's only digital partner is Amazon Music. That's it. If you're a fan of Garth's you listen using his selected platforms. The artists and labels control the music people hear.
Yes the listening environment has changed. There are lots of ways to listen to music and get information. You seem to be forcing radio to operate as it always did. You talk about heritage radio stations. Listeners don't care about heritage when choosing what to listen to. K-Love didn't exist 50 years ago. It does now. It's an option for people who want that kind of music. What's wrong with that?
I'll admit that K-LOVE is evangelical, but for the most part they stay non-denominational and non-political.
Thank you for clarifying that for me. I did not know that was how things were done, and I appreciate the insight into how the industry works today.
I can definitely understand that there is just too much new music out there, and that stations have to have some "familiarity" to them to catch people's attention. I'm not sure if I just live in a bad market with PD's less willing to take a chance on songs that aren't already being played in larger markets (I'm in the Minneapolis market) or if the general trends of this market are such that people don't adapt to new music as quickly, but it seems to me that it takes a few weeks at least for a song that I discover through other means to hit the airwaves. That being said, I also don't listen to these stations 24/7, so perhaps they are playing them in dayparts (midday, night) that I am less likely to hear them before the songs start trending to being a regular part of the rotation.
I know our local rock station at one time had what they called the "cage match" where they would put two songs up against each other and listeners would vote for the one they think should move on. I am sure at some point they would hit a threshold with how long a song stayed on the Cage Match before it entered regular rotation. One such song I can remember from that "Cage Match" segment was Sublime - Date Rape, which has since gone on to be a staple of the alt rock format.
I am definitely a radio "realist". These are expensive "sticks" people are using, and have to appeal to the masses. Lose the appeal, and the station may no longer be profitable and have to flip formats or be sold to other companies. It's a delicate balance to make the majority happy, and I have no doubt that it has become even harder in the last 10 years as Podcasts and streaming music have started to compete with the limited time most people spend with audio entertainment, over say videos or books. It's fun to blame the large corporations, and I do believe they had a hand in the demise of the relevance of radio, but at the same time I do always question whether or not smaller operators even have a chance to compete in today's landscape. Sure, it would be fun to go back to 2 or 3 Top 40 stations fighting it out, but could that just as easily today lead to all 3 stations losing just enough revenue that NONE of them are viable?
I also get that some people don't turn to radio to discover new music, but what happens as those people age out of the demos? We are already seeing classic hits stations dipping into the 90s for hits, a decade where most still discovered music through radio. What happens when classic hits starts to include music from the 2000's or 2010's (aside from me feeling even older and yelling at kids to get off my lawn because radio no longer targets me)?
Thanks again for the conversation, and for pointing out that I was wrong. Great learning opportunity for me, and it will allow me to stop spreading misinformation.
I'm not saying there is anything wrong with K-Love, other than taking away a local option for a national one. You are right, new listeners don't care about heritage. Older listeners do, because it's a habit, but that doesn't attract new listeners, which I agree will eventually lead to a station failing.
Where I do have to disagree with you is in saying that Spotify is no different than a mixtape. Where Spotify, and now others, succeed at, is learning what an individual's music taste is, and then finding that new music for them. So for people seeking to discover new music, Spotify makes that REALLY easy, which is something that no other personal music player was able to do. Sure, I could burn a mix CD back in the 90s and pass it to my friends to have them discover new music, but radio served as a much more dominant force 30 years ago than it does today. Machine learning has changed the music discovery game in ways that no other personal music player could have in the past. Even the iPod with smart playlists was limited to music you KNEW because it had to be yours to even be on your iPod.
As far as Garth Brooks, that may be true, and would be a mistake. But someone should probably tell his record company to stop cutting checks to Sirius if he is exclusively working with FM Radio, because he has a full channel there that is also supposed to do that. Not releasing stuff to streaming platforms is, IMO, a mistake, as many do now rely on that for primary music discovery, myself included (Radio doesn't cater to the type of music I prefer, and even where I crossover with radio (Active Rock) I do tend to hear more new stuff on streaming music services than on my local "rocker".
As I stated in another post, I am glad that I was wrong about music discovery, but it would also be nice to not have to rely on record companies to tell me what's good.
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