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Biggest ratings declines you've seen?
- Thread starter tall_guy1
- Start date
All the talk stations in big markets that used to be #1 until PPM came around.
How about The Fish in Atlanta?
Those really high 6+ ratings for The Fish last year were weird. My wife listens to them. They never made any big changes (format, music, or on-air talent) before the extra points showed up and they didn’t big changes before the points went away. I suspect there was big changes in folks wearing the PPMs. Of course, there will be the annual Christmas music jump for 104.7 but 94.1 also went all Christmas so that will be interesting to see.
If you go back about 30 years, Q105 in Tampa went from about a 25 share to roughly a 4 almost overnight after WFLZ 93.3 became The Power Pig. That’s the biggest decline I can remember. There were probably similar declines on long running AM top-40 stations when an FM finally picked up the format.
Wow wonder what happened. Did they lose some personalities or something.
The Power Pig assault on Q105 was more gradual. It began focusing on teens, which the won in little more 90 days in the Fall book of '89.
The GM of Q had allowed the station to be very broad, and it was highly dayparted, being pretty much what today we call Hot AC in the daytime. Teens found the Pig to be much more aggressive and they quickly defected.
Q105 tried to change the music mix to be more attractive to teens and 18-24 (more important then than now) and succeeded in causing an erosion of adults.
In the Winter 1990 book, WRBQ was still considerably ahead of WFLZ in 25-54 and 18-34 women, but had been beaten in teens and 18-34 men.
By Spring, 18-34 men and women went to WFLZ, but WRBQ was still ahead in 25-54. It was 4th in 25-54 men, but WFLZ was lower. By Summer, WFLZ had los #1 in 18-34 and 18-49 to WYNF, which moved up do to Q's fragmenting WFLZ somewhat in adult demos. But WRBQ had lost 12-34 pretty badly and was behaving as an AC, not a CHR.
By Fall of 90, WRBQ lost its hold on 25-54, dropping considerably as it tried to regain the younger audience. They just did not realize that their heritage would have allowed them to be a huge modern AC station.
WRBQ at its highest in the 4 books prior to Fall of 89 had a 14.9. They did not have a 25 share, and they did not drop to a 4 share.
So the WRBQ fall took 5 books (after which the Q105 manager made a number of additional mistakes dooming the station to a format change).
WRBQ had double digits in Summer, 1989, in 12+. They then went 8.8, 8.9, 7.1, 5.9, 5.7. They had remained in the top 5 or 6 positions for those 15 months. WFLZ did an 11.6, 10.1,8.3, 8.3 and a 7.4 in its first five full books.
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I remember Q105's decline as being very rapid, but you likely have access to information I didn’t at the time.
I do remember, though, that Lite Rock 96 hired most of the staff away from Q105 that WFLZ didn’t. I also remember hearing Mason Dixon on Y-95 in Dallas waiting for his non compete with Q105 to expire so he could join the rest of his former co-workers at 95.7, which became WMTX “Mix 95.7” shortly before he arrived. That was really the final nail in the coffin for the old Q105 as it closed the wide open lane Q105 had to take the Hot AC reins while leaving Power Pig with hard-to-sell younger demos.
Of course, the battle between Q105 and Power Pig was a lot closer than it sometimes looked. Q got a handful of books after getting beaten, which may have been the justification for trying to get that younger audience back.
I do remember, though, that Lite Rock 96 hired most of the staff away from Q105 that WFLZ didn’t. I also remember hearing Mason Dixon on Y-95 in Dallas waiting for his non compete with Q105 to expire so he could join the rest of his former co-workers at 95.7, which became WMTX “Mix 95.7” shortly before he arrived. That was really the final nail in the coffin for the old Q105 as it closed the wide open lane Q105 had to take the Hot AC reins while leaving Power Pig with hard-to-sell younger demos.
Of course, the battle between Q105 and Power Pig was a lot closer than it sometimes looked. Q got a handful of books after getting beaten, which may have been the justification for trying to get that younger audience back.
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