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Danbury's B94.5 is now 94.5 The Hawk

CTListener said:
Talk about showing up for a gunfight with a pocket knife ...
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According to a long time broadcast pro in southern connecticut who i wholeheartedly trust.. the translators that Berkshire has have nice signals, the core of the market is pretty concentrated on the immediate danbury area and they dominate revenue and do pretty well in ratings as well. i said the same thing as you CTListener.. but my friend convinced me otherwise
 
SomeRadioGuy said:
According to a long time broadcast pro in southern connecticut who i wholeheartedly trust.. the translators that Berkshire has have nice signals, the core of the market is pretty concentrated on the immediate danbury area and they dominate revenue and do pretty well in ratings as well. i said the same thing as you CTListener.. but my friend convinced me otherwise
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Last two songs played on I-95: Breakdown--Tom Petty, and Every Little Thing She Does Is Magic--The Police. Last two on The Hawk: Sledgehammer--Peter Gabriel and School's Out--Alice Cooper. Musically, they seem to be identical -- there are only so many classic rock tracks you can play without losing the comfort factor and becoming too geeky, and neither station looks like it's going to be taking any chances. Even if Berkshire advertises the hell out of The Hawk, what reason would there be for a listener who's been getting his classic rock from I-95 for 10 or 15 years, or even longer, to give the new station a try, especially if he's going to lose the new station on his car radio before he gets from his office in Danbury to his home in, say, Fairfield or Milford, where he can still get I-95 easily?
 
SomeRadioGuy;6305228...the translators that Berkshire has have nice signals...[/QUOTE said:
I've noticed when driving there that the signals cover the market well. The WLAD-AM tower was placed on a good high spot in Danbury at the edge of Ridgefield, long before anyone ever thought about putting FM translators on that tower.

What's good about all of these signals is that a salesman can go into a place offering a portfolio of Hot AC (Top 40), classic rock, alternative, country and news-talk.

In the Fall book, Berkshire Broadcasting got a total of 19.4.
https://ratings.****************/cgi-bin/rol.exe/arb593
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Bill1820 said:
I've noticed when driving there that the signals cover the market well. The WLAD-AM tower was placed on a good high spot in Danbury at the edge of Ridgefield, long before anyone ever thought about putting FM translators on that tower.

What's good about all of these signals is that a salesman can go into a place offering a portfolio of Hot AC (Top 40), classic rock, alternative, country and news-talk.

In the Fall book, Berkshire Broadcasting got a total of 19.4.
https://ratings.****************/cgi-bin/rol.exe/arb593
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Yes, Bill1820... there is that too... they can offer several different audiences with one buy and probably at rates better then Townsquare Danbury can.
 
I used to get a very faint and choppy signal from WRKI-FM 95.1 in New Britain's south end. Not quite solid enough to always listen to, but at least I knew it was them. Around there heading towards Middletown, you'll only get some of WERB-FM 94.5 from Berlin High School. My ancient 11-year-old Panasonic "Walkman" has 94.5 FM preset only because of prior travels. It's meant for WJMN-FM ("Jam'n 94.5" of Boston).
 
CTListener said:
Irrelevant. The main classic rock competition in Danbury is WRKI, not WPLR.
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If I can get PLR in the clear in Hartford I'm sure I can get it in the clear in Danbury. Just because it's not the same market, my radio dial doesn't know that. I'm going where the best signal is.
 
If we want local radio markets, why do we have booming 50,000 watt stations that can cover 3 states. Cut these stations down to only reach the markets they are in.
 
Don CT said:
If we want local radio markets, why do we have booming 50,000 watt stations that can cover 3 states. Cut these stations down to only reach the markets they are in.
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What you forget is.. the average joe schmoe listener doesnt really realize that.. some folks in danbury prob. know about WPLR but for many... their home market is what and all they know and they listen to whats local to them. Few non radio people or non radio geeks listen to far away signals
 
SomeRadioGuy said:
What you forget is.. the average joe schmoe listener doesnt really realize that.. some folks in danbury prob. know about WPLR but for many... their home market is what and all they know and they listen to whats local to them. Few non radio people or non radio geeks listen to far away signals
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I think the average listener finds the best signal that plays the music they want. A station that won't drop out as they drive 15 miles. A smaller station might sound great at their house but they will lose it on their drive to work. I doubt people even know about radio markets in a state this small.
 
Don CT said:
I think the average listener finds the best signal that plays the music they want. A station that won't drop out as they drive 15 miles. A smaller station might sound great at their house but they will lose it on their drive to work. I doubt people even know about radio markets in a state this small.
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But WPLR doesn't market to Danbury. It's a New Haven station that happens to put a decent signal into Danbury -- Radio-Locator has it at the western edge of the strongest contour. The ratings always show a preference for the home-market station if the formats are the same. WAQY Springfield and WDRC-FM Hartford are nearly identical classic rock stations, and WAQY puts a strong signal into much of the Hartford-New Britain market, but WDRC-FM trounces WAQY in the ratings. The leading classic rocker in Danbury is WRKI. The leading classic rocker in New Haven is WPLR. It doesn't matter that an out-of-market signal comes in fine in the car. The average non-radio geek knows about and listens to the station that's either based in his hometown or targets his hometown in its advertising, imaging, etc. -- ESPECIALLY when there's not a speck of difference in the formats the two stations program other than the personalities, and the personalities on WPLR aren't talking about Danbury stuff.

Oh, and WPLR reception WILL get tougher as the Danbury listener drives west or north, while the WRKI signal will stay strong in those directions as well as to the east. Again, this points to what the ratings indicate: Danbury listeners prefer WRKI, their nominal "hometown" classic rocker and New Haven listeners like their legacy station, WPLR. What we do agree on, though there's a difference of opinion by others in this thread, is that that AM-with-a-translator peashooter is going to have a tough time prying listeners away from WRKI if it's going to do classic rock.
 
Don CT said:
If we want local radio markets, why do we have booming 50,000 watt stations that can cover 3 states. Cut these stations down to only reach the markets they are in.
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For indoor (home and work) coverage, you need about a 65 dbu signal. That barely covers most of today's metro areas.

In fact, there are many radio metro areas where only a couple of stations actually cover the whole metro... New York City and San Francisco are good examples.
 
CTListener said:
But WPLR doesn't market to Danbury. It's a New Haven station that happens to put a decent signal into Danbury -- Radio-Locator has it at the western edge of the strongest contour.
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The effective indoor coverage areas of FMs are about 15% to 20% inside the very approximate Radio-Locator primary coverage maps.

In ratings analysis studies, about 95% of the listening to FM in home and at work is within the 65 dbu signal.
 
Don CT said:
I think the average listener finds the best signal that plays the music they want. A station that won't drop out as they drive 15 miles. A smaller station might sound great at their house but they will lose it on their drive to work. I doubt people even know about radio markets in a state this small.
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With the commuter travel patterns in Fairfield County, lower or upper, is it safe to say that STAR 99.9 and WEBE 108 are really the two local stations that can really cover the market? Then, of course, you have some of the NYC blowtorches.
 
DonMatsen said:
Not so great if you are heading to work toward Poughkeepsie or Westchester County.

https://radio-locator.com/cgi-bin/pat?call=WPLR&service=FM
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The map shows WPLR very strong in Hartford and most of its suburbs. It doesn't show up in the Hartford ratings, at least not the publicly available ones, nor does WAQY. (I'm pretty sure I've seen WAQY in previous Hartford books, bumping along in the 1s and low 2s, though.) So if there are Hartford listeners who prefer a New Haven (or Springfield) station's take on classic rock, there's no way for a non-insider to know how many. I'd be very surprised if the numbers were any threat to WDRC-FM, though.
 
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