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WROR Boston Only Plays Two Black Artists--Michael Jackson and Prince

Gregg. said:


I figured I'd look at two other large markets in northern cities that have fairly low minority populations. KQQL is tied for #2 in Minneapolis, KJR-FM is #4 in Seattle, similar to WROR, #3 in Boston.

At first, KQQL, over the last 10 hours, follows the same pattern as WROR, only Michael Jackson and Prince. For most of the day it was Jackson (Black or White, Wanna Be Starting Something, Billy Jean, Thriller) and Prince (When Doves Cry, Little Red Corvette, I Would Die for U, Purple Rain) and a duet with Prince & Sheena Easton (U Got The Look). But if you go back to this morning, you see an assortment of African-American artists, Deniece Williams (Let's Hear It for The Boy), Whitney Houston (I Want to Dance with Somebody) and Billy Ocean (Get Out of My Dreams, Get Into My Car). And sure enough, KQQL also spins You Spin Me Round Like A Record. (I think that's a cool song, but how does it go over with middle aged white guys who grew up with AOR music?)

And in Seattle, KJR-FM was quite amazing. Not only did the station play a large assortment of African-American artists, it even aired 1960s hits from Aretha Franklin (Respect) and Otis Redding (Dock of the Bay). For that matter, I saw one Beatles song (Get Back). You don't see Classic Hits stations go back that far. KJR-FM had a few Michael Jackson (Thriller, Beat It, Billie Jean) and Prince (1999, When Doves Cry) songs. But it also had a long list of other artists. Tina Turner, Kool & The Gang, Donna Summer, Whitney Houston, Electric Avenue by Eddie Grant and I Can See Clearly Now, not Johnny Nash's version but Jimmy Cliff's cover.

So again, how can these songs all test well for KJR-FM but WROR only can play Michael Jackson and Prince? Something else is going on here.
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Boston is racist and programmers play to the stereotypes of the Boston area. It’s not much deeper than that. The black folks don’t have much disposable income so they’re disregarded. The white folks in Boston don’t really want to hear black music-even if it was popular when they were young.

Boston 35-54 year old demographic is not lacking for African Americans. Especially not compared to Minneapolis and Seattle. The raw numbers of black folks is also way higher here because it s a much larger metro, so the markets big. We don’t need to dance around the elephant in the room.
 
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You mean what was once-believed-lilly-white WJIB plays a lot more black music than WROR? (WJIB: Stevie Wonder, The Manhattans, Stylistics, Mills Brothers, Nat King Cole, Charley Pride, Supremes, Toys, Four Tops, Temptations. Louis Armstrong, Roberta Flack, etc etc).
 
UrbanTeenager said:
Boston is racist and programmers play to the stereotypes of the Boston area. It’s not much deeper than that. The black folks don’t have much disposable income so they’re disregarded. The white folks in Boston don’t really want to hear black music-even if it was popular when they were young.

Boston 35-54 year old demographic is not lacking for African Americans. Especially not compared to Minneapolis and Seattle. The raw numbers of black folks is also way higher here because it s a much larger metro, so the markets big. We don’t need to dance around the elephant in the room.
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Seattle has a higher percentage of African Americans than Boston does. And Minneapolis is within about 1%, but on the lower side.

The Seattle MSA is nearly as big as Boston's radio metro, and Minneapolis is still a top 15 market. Boston is not a growth market, while both of the others are: Seattle has three times the growth rate of Boston, for example.

And ad rates are set by a combination of market size and individual station performance. A GRP in Boston is going to be worth nearly three times as much as one in Cleveland. But the fact is that you can't compare markets like that.

The point is whether a station that is more Urban would get big enough numbers to compete with other stations in the same market. If an Urban station is ranked 7th in 18-34 and 10th in 25-54, it won't get on many (if any) buys.

So, really, this is about the revenue. To succeed, a station has to have a demo and audience that advertisers want. That is determined by the advertising community, both agency and direct accounts. Stations simply program to the audience that advertisers want to reach.
 
DavidEduardo said:


Seattle has a higher percentage of African Americans than Boston does. And Minneapolis is within about 1%, but on the lower side.

The Seattle MSA is nearly as big as Boston's radio metro, and Minneapolis is still a top 15 market. Boston is not a growth market, while both of the others are: Seattle has three times the growth rate of Boston, for example.

And ad rates are set by a combination of market size and individual station performance. A GRP in Boston is going to be worth nearly three times as much as one in Cleveland. But the fact is that you can't compare markets like that.

The point is whether a station that is more Urban would get big enough numbers to compete with other stations in the same market. If an Urban station is ranked 7th in 18-34 and 10th in 25-54, it won't get on many (if any) buys.

So, really, this is about the revenue. To succeed, a station has to have a demo and audience that advertisers want. That is determined by the advertising community, both agency and direct accounts. Stations simply program to the audience that advertisers want to reach.
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The Seattle area is 4% black and the city is 7% black

Boston area is 8% black and the city is 23%. And the Boston area is larger.
 
UrbanTeenager said:
Boston area is 8% black and the city is 23%. And the Boston area is larger.
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Still, for purposes of this conversation, it's not likely that the size of the black population has any effect on the playlist.

This decision is strictly about reaching the target audience, and in that way, WROR's music choices appear to be good ones based on the ratings. You can set personal quotas if you want, but that's not what radio programming is about.
 
TheBigA said:
Still, for purposes of this conversation, it's not likely that the size of the black population has any effect on the playlist.

This decision is strictly about reaching the target audience, and in that way, WROR's music choices appear to be good ones based on the ratings. You can set personal quotas if you want, but that's not what radio programming is about.
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I don’t disagree here. WROR is doing what fits the Boston area music tastes. It’s only WJMN I take issue with. I just couldn’t pretend Seattle has a larger black population than Boston in any way-it just doesn’t.
 
UrbanTeenager said:
Boston is racist and programmers play to the stereotypes of the Boston area. It’s not much deeper than that. The black folks don’t have much disposable income so they’re disregarded. The white folks in Boston don’t really want to hear black music-even if it was popular when they were young.

Boston 35-54 year old demographic is not lacking for African Americans. Especially not compared to Minneapolis and Seattle. The raw numbers of black folks is also way higher here because it s a much larger metro, so the markets big. We don’t need to dance around the elephant in the room.
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Well, since you brought the race card directly into the conversation about prejudices, let's be fair and realize that Jammin's target audience is suburban White Teenagers.

Now WKAF was a decent station in my humble opinion, however after being divested to Iheartradio, which is a very profit driven company. Simple logistics suggested that the station would make more money as The Beat Of Boston. In which ironically, does fill a market hole!
 
BTW, the irony of WROR is that they are still more or less the same station as before. They just play a hell lot more 80s than before.

Now personally, I did not think that such a shift would work, however it did!
 
UrbanTeenager said:
The Seattle area is 4% black and the city is 7% black

Boston area is 8% black and the city is 23%. And the Boston area is larger.
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The Seattle MSA is 6.6% Black while Boston is 8.4%.

I was looking at the wrong market in quoting Seattle. My bad. But it does not matter, as you can't compare ad markets of different sizes directly.

For advertising, nobody cares about city limits. They care about the metro.

National advertisers focus on reaching determined percentages of the total population. They use a PPM version of "reach and frequency" to find the optimum reach of a campaign with the desired average number of impressions at the most desirable cost. That generally means looking at a variety of stations that each deliver a reach that is not duplicated by other stations on the buy. So one country and one AC are better than two AC stations.

It does not matter which city (meaning MSA in radio circles) ((and meaning Nielsen Metro Survey Area, too)) is larger. Advertisers set a rate for reaching each 1% of the population, called Cost Per Point. They compare stations on the CPP, and buy the most efficient options to reach the CPP goal for each market.

Radio is bought on a market by market basis. The CPP in a market with 1,000,000 persons will be about 20% of the maket CPP for a market of 5,000,000 persons. So saying one city is bigger or smaller is irrelevant to advertisers... what is important is the market CPP for each individual market.
 
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Meanwhile, WCBS-FM is playing:

BILLY OCEAN - Caribbean Queen (No More ...)
MAXINE NIGHTINGALE - Right Back Where We Started...
JANET JACKSON - What Have You Done For Me …
LIONEL RICHIE - You Are
EARTH, WIND & FIRE - Let's Groove
DAZZ BAND - Let It Whip
YVONNE ELLIMAN - If I Can't Have You
BOBBY BROWN - My Prerogative
STEPHANIE MILLS - Never Knew Love Like This...
TRAMMPS - Disco Inferno
STEVIE WONDER - Sir Duke
WHITNEY HOUSTON - So Emotional
CAMEO - Word Up
SPINNERS - Working My Way Back/Forgive Me
DENIECE WILLIAMS - Let's Hear It For The Boy
 
kevtronics said:
Meanwhile, WCBS-FM is playing:

BILLY OCEAN - Caribbean Queen (No More ...)
MAXINE NIGHTINGALE - Right Back Where We Started...
JANET JACKSON - What Have You Done For Me …
LIONEL RICHIE - You Are
EARTH, WIND & FIRE - Let's Groove
DAZZ BAND - Let It Whip
YVONNE ELLIMAN - If I Can't Have You
BOBBY BROWN - My Prerogative
STEPHANIE MILLS - Never Knew Love Like This...
TRAMMPS - Disco Inferno
STEVIE WONDER - Sir Duke
WHITNEY HOUSTON - So Emotional
CAMEO - Word Up
SPINNERS - Working My Way Back/Forgive Me
DENIECE WILLIAMS - Let's Hear It For The Boy
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No surprise there. Rhythmic isn't just a black thing in New York City, never has been. It's played well at CHR for decades there. Why shouldn't it play well at classic hits?
 
This is simply about ratings, personal taste, and target audience. Not necessarily racism. WROR is a classic hits station that leans (not exclusively though) towards rock. They also play very little country music if any at all. OTOH WKAF plays songs from the same general time period that are largely rhythmic pop or R&B. Thus there are more black artists featured on WKAF. FWIW I did hear Electric Avenue by Eddy Grant on WROR.
 
kevtronics said:
Meanwhile, WCBS-FM is playing:

BILLY OCEAN - Caribbean Queen (No More ...)
MAXINE NIGHTINGALE - Right Back Where We Started...
JANET JACKSON - What Have You Done For Me …
LIONEL RICHIE - You Are
EARTH, WIND & FIRE - Let's Groove
DAZZ BAND - Let It Whip
YVONNE ELLIMAN - If I Can't Have You
BOBBY BROWN - My Prerogative
STEPHANIE MILLS - Never Knew Love Like This...
TRAMMPS - Disco Inferno
STEVIE WONDER - Sir Duke
WHITNEY HOUSTON - So Emotional
CAMEO - Word Up
SPINNERS - Working My Way Back/Forgive Me
DENIECE WILLIAMS - Let's Hear It For The Boy
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I think Easy 99.1 plays at least 90% of these titles
 
Radio 1992 said:
I think Easy 99.1 plays at least 90% of these titles
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They play quite a few of them. Their playlist from earlier today (2/24) includes the following songs.

Last Dance by Donna Summer
Running with the Night by Lionel Richie
Theme From Mahogany by Diana Ross
Suddenly by Billy Ocean
Just Because by Anita Baker
Sir Duke by Stevie Wonder
Through the Fire by Chaka Khan
Let's Hear It for the Boy by Deniece Williams
 
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