Boston's Newest Radio Format- ERS+

[RadioHal]

Launched on Thursday December 3rd at noon, the new music format has a home at 88.9 FM HD-2 for those with HD-equipped radios. ERS+ is also be available as a stream - online and via an app at www.WERSPLUS.org.

Now, WERS brings its rich past into the present with ERS+. The channel revives The Black Experience and serves Boston's R&B and Hip Hop community with the newest voices, such as Tobe Nwigwe, VanJess, and Durrand Bernarr along with a variety of favorites.

Says WERS Operations Manager Howard “D” Simpson, "What will set us apart from the others that play urban music is what always has – we have great ears for new music discovery and a deep library -- and we're not afraid to use both."

 

[Jimmy128]

Sounds good, Hal. Thanks.

[Edit] This station would get a lot more exposure if it were on the Radio.com app.

 

[UrbanTeenager]

What’s amazing is Boston doesn’t have an urban even though several companies see the need for it.

Meanwhile Springfield just got an urban, 97.3 the Beat.


The station website has listed the other air personalities as WHRK/MEMPHIS’s BIG SUE, PREMIERE NETWORKS/KRRL/L.A's BIG BOY, WJBT/JACKSONVILLE’s T-ROY, and WMIB/MIAMI’s DJ 33 1/3.

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I have confirmed it can be heard as legitimate terrestrial radio. Despite what everyone says the Springfield Metro is just as black as Boston which folks say isn’t black enough for an Urban (this is false see LA and SF).

 

[davideduardo]

I have confirmed it can be heard as legitimate terrestrial radio. Despite what everyone says the Springfield Metro is just as black as Boston which folks say isn’t black enough for an Urban (this is false see LA and SF).

The fact that Springfield has an Urban station is not a comparable data nugget. The Springfield station is a translator, capable only of covering a small zone. The investment in the facility may be as little as $10,000 if they already have a transmitter location they can share (like the top of their building, or an AM or central zone FM tower).

Springfield is only a two-county market, and a translator can cover much of the roughly 40,000 African Americans. There is a secondary audience with second and third generation Hispanics, and the market is about 20% Hispanic... mostly assimilated later generation Boricuas.

Boston has a higher percentage of Blacks, and there are over 400,000 in the 7-county Nielsen MSA, requiring a big signal to work. There are also around 575,000 Hispanics, yet there is no full signal Spanish language station either.

In geographically huge Boston, a translator will not be effective. So it takes a full FM, and the value of that exceeds the potential return on investment (ROI) potential of the Urban format. It's all economics.

San Francisco has an Urban A/C which gets most of its audience from non-Blacks. Yet the city has more African Americans than the total population of the Springfield metro... no comparison. And LA has 900,000 Blacks, and 6.5 million Hispanics, yet it only has one pure Urban and it is a low-billing Class A station, as does a cross-cultural hip-hop oldies station. There are two Churbans, but they are sustained by the Hispanic audience. So both San Francisco and LA are not at all comparable to Boston.

If you buy an apartment building and the mortgage and ROI expected on the down payment exceeds the potential rent payment of the tenants, then it's a bad investment. Same with radio stations.

 

[UrbanTeenager]

I agree with all of that and it shed some light but you totally glazed over SF which has fewer black and a lower percentage than Boston. They’re totally comparable in regard to Hip Hop.

Boston is the largest metro without an Urban in America (Phoenix recently surpassed Boston so maybe in wrong but I’d bet even Phoenix has an Urban). and the largest black population without an Urban. It’s odd Springfield has one regardless of a translator or not. WERS+ should at least be in a translator to cover Boston which has 160k black in a very very small area. That’s unaccounted for in your post.

You don’t need to coer all “7 counties” because most signals can’t and don’t try to. People utilize directional signals all the time-97.7 was doing very well with a directional Boston-Brockton signal and urban format....

You only have to cover Boston and points to the south as that where most African Americans are.

it’s baffling the lack of minority oriented programming in Boston with nearly 1 million black and Latino people. No urban OR Spanish? How is that possible. No doubt it’s truly unique in that respect.

I want some more substantive explanations. Especially regarding SF...

To me advertisers either don’t see the buying pier in the Boston area of those demographics.

OR there aren’t a lot of black/minority businesses that can afford advertising rates that corporate giants charge in the Boston area.

It’s weird cuz I was in Baltimore last week and heard an as for a non profit boxing gym. I doubt they have any real funds. But it was a Radio One station....

 

[TheBigA]

it’s baffling the lack of minority oriented programming in Boston with nearly 1 million black and Latino people. No urban OR Spanish? How is that possible. No doubt it’s truly unique in that respect.

That fact that a non-commercial station didn't put this on their main signal says a lot to me. If they felt there was an audience for it, they'd blow up their alternative station and put this on the main signal.

 

[Wimmmex]

Deleted by author.

 

[UrbanTeenager]

That fact that a non-commercial station didn't put this on their main signal says a lot to me. If they felt there was an audience for it, they'd blow up their alternative station and put this on the main signal.

As I said earlier. WKAF was mid 3s with an urban format. So this has to be more about advertisers, purchasing power and businesses than ratings. It billed well. With minimal investment by iHeartRadio and the operator before it.

 

[fybush]

That fact that a non-commercial station didn't put this on their main signal says a lot to me. If they felt there was an audience for it, they'd blow up their alternative station and put this on the main signal.

This.... confuses me.

One of the goals of having HD subs be successful was supposed to be projects exactly like this, no? Launching experimental new formats to see how they'll work without blowing up existing service that's meeting an established need. What's on the main signal is the result of 20-some years of evolution that grew WERS from a fairly typical block-programmed college station, as it was when I was across town from them doing college radio 30 years ago, into a more consistently formatted operation that provides a better public service from one of only a handful of big noncomm FM signals in town.

The evolution of that format blew out "88.9@Night" and some of the other programming WERS had been doing for the Black community. This seems to me like an interesting way to use 2020 platforms - not just HD2 but streaming - to not only restore those formats but expand them.

Why can't WERS both (a) believe there's at least some audience for it and (b) try to find a way to serve that audience without disrupting the (probably larger) audience they've been building for years on the main channel?

 

[TheBigA]

Why can't WERS both (a) believe there's at least some audience for it and (b) try to find a way to serve that audience without disrupting the (probably larger) audience they've been building for years on the main channel?

Because practically speaking, putting a station on HD without a translator confines the potential audience to people who (1) Have HD radios, and (2) Know the format is there. It's the proverbial tree falling in an empty forest. They want to aid music discovery, but in a way that makes it almost impossible to discover the station.

 

[fybush]

Because practically speaking, putting a station on HD without a translator confines the potential audience to people who (1) Have HD radios, and (2) Know the format is there. It's the proverbial tree falling in an empty forest. They want to aid music discovery, but in a way that makes it almost impossible to discover the station.

It sounds like they're promoting it as much as a streaming service as an HD2, which is the smart move. Smart speakers and mobile apps are important platforms for "radio" - we devote as much of our imaging these days to those platforms as we do to our traditional AM and FM signals at WXXI, because we know we're getting an audience there.

Sure, an analog FM presence for ERS+ would be ideal, but not at the expense of losing what they have now on 88.9. I'm willing to give them the benefit of the doubt with what they're trying here.

 

[TheBigA]

It sounds like they're promoting it as much as a streaming service as an HD2, which is the smart move.

The only radio stream that shows up in the ratings is WEEI. I'm not encouraged by the data on streaming HDs, especially for this particular target demo. But yes, it makes for a very nice press release.

 

[Jimmy128]

They obviously have a knowledgeable programmer for this station at Emerson College.
WERS HD2 seems to be more of a deep cut Urban Hot AC station, for the lack of a better term.
I think it will last because they seem to be committed to it. This is a good station.
I still don't understand the reasoning of iHeart to kill off the former WKAF, but , whatever.
BTW, WBQT HD2 "The Vibe" Urban Top 40 is no more.

 

[CTListener]

They obviously have a knowledgeable programmer for this station at Emerson College.
WERS HD2 seems to be more of a deep cut Urban Hot AC station, for the lack of a better term.

Deep cuts in a purely hit-based format with no history of spawning album-track-based variants? Sounds more like a college programmer's wet dream rather than anything a "knowledgeable" person would create and expect to find a substantial audience for.

 

[Jimmy128]

Deep cuts in a purely hit-based format with no history of spawning album-track-based variants? Sounds more like a college programmer's wet dream rather than anything a "knowledgeable" person would create and expect to find a substantial audience for.

It sure is a good alternative to whatever else is out there.