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WBOS

Just a few years ago, this station was alternative. It got a 1 share. It flipped to classic rock and the ratings tripled. You can't keep changing formats every few years. It's simply not good for building audience and it costs money.
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Your recollection is off.

The last several surveys as an Alternative station were all in the mid & upper 2's in ages 6+. Yes, when the station was horrendously programmed and burned a bunch of music from the 90's to a crisp and refused to play anything newer than 15 years old as an Alternative station, the ratings were god awful. They never sunk quite as low as a 1 share, but I believe the worst survey was around a 1.4 or 1.5 share - still rotten.

The station made major revisions to its playlist in its final several months as Alt 92.9 and saw a very nice ratings rise. True, shortly after the flip to Classic Rock, the ratings grew even more. The ratings for Rock 92.9 are now off by about 50% from their peak in the AQH share department - despite the fact WAAF is dead - and are significantly lower in 6+ than the last several surveys as "Alt."

I'm not proposing a format change; you are mischaracterizing what I wrote earlier. I'm proposing a format evolution/tweak. It's not expensive. Beasley Media has plenty of rock radio programming expertise in house.

They need to get on the front end of the format and reach out to their audience. Adding music from a different format isn't going to help. It'll just confuse and alienate the listeners. They need to double down on what they are.
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I could not possibly disagree with you more (regarding your suggestion that more recent rock music is from a "different format"). It's all guitar-driven Rock music. Seems to work GREAT for stations such as 94HJY and Rock 101 WGIR.

How should they "double down" ? By playing even more Journey, Europe and Bon Jovi? (Gag me.)
 
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Meaning getting rid of whatever "dinosaur" tracks they are still playing and sticking to '90s and '00s to draw a greater distinction between themselves and WZLX?
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Not sure what you mean by "sticking to 90s and 00s." 92.9 plays extremely little material from the 00's. Its focus is 80s and 90s.

Lately, they seem to have scaled back on the percentage of song slots devoted to the 90s and have bumped up the percentage devoted to 80s. It's still the same set of largely burnt song titles the station has played from day one, though.
 
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They're being out-programmed by iHeart. This is nothing new. It's happening in other cities.
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Comparing weak signaled 98.7 in Tampa to 100,000 watt 98Rock is pretty unfair.

Where else is iHM outprogramming Beasley? Last time I checked, WCSX (Beasley) was kicking the crap out of WLLZ (iHM) in Detroit. I am not a very big WCSX fan personally; cannot stand the afternoon DJ on that station. However, year after year, it is a ratings beast in Detroit. They and sister station WRIF are almost always in the Top 5 in persons 25-54 for the week, and quite frequently, both stations appear in the Top 3.

Their success at WRIF is why Dave & Chuck are now syndicated to Boston and other markets.
 
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MarkW said:
I'm not proposing a format change; you are mischaracterizing what I wrote earlier. I'm proposing a format evolution/tweak. It's not expensive. Beasley Media has plenty of rock radio programming expertise in house.
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Have you compared the playlists at WHJY and WBOS? There are absolutely NO songs in common. It's a total format change to a much different audience. It's expensive because you've got to tell your current advertisers that you're changing formats and the research on the new audience won't be available for six months. And you're doing it at a time when Covid has already played havoc with your Nielsens. And you're proposing that they play songs in a market for which there's no apparent demand. Bad idea.
 
TheBigA said:
Have you compared the playlists at WHJY and WBOS? There are absolutely NO songs in common. It's a total format change to a much different audience. It's expensive because you've got to tell your current advertisers that you're changing formats and the research on the new audience won't be available for six months. And you're doing it at a time when Covid has already played havoc with your Nielsens. And you're proposing that they play songs in a market for which there's no apparent demand. Bad idea.
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The goal is expand the audience and entice the audience to listen for longer; you're wrong about the audience being completely different. Do you believe the WBOS audience is mutually exclusive from the audience who listens to The Sports Hub, WEEI, and WZLX, too?

Why on earth would the station "tell the advertisers" it is changing formats under such a scenario? It's a rock station now. It'd still be a rock station. The morning show would stay the same. The DJs in the other dayparts would stay the same. Heck, they could even keep the same V/O artist (which just happens to be the same V/O artist used by Alt 92.9).

Did KLOS raise all those red flags when they quietly transitioned from classic rock to a mainstream rock outlet whose median song age still skews old? I strongly doubt it.

Where I *might* agree with you is waiting several months to see if inoculations, etc. have an impact on listening patterns. My gut, though, is song burn out is the primary thing weighing on 92.9 numbers. Yes, it's only a "gut" feeling.

As for being no demand for the songs, how do you explain a station from flippin' Manchester, NH regularly scoring a 1 share in Boston market ratings? If you were to look at the zip codes where WGIR's signal strength is 60 dBu or better, I bet their ratings are as good or better than those of Rock 92.9.
 
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MarkW said:
Why on earth would the station "tell the advertisers" it is changing formats under such a scenario?
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Because it's bad business to lie to advertisers. Playing currents on a station marketed as classic rock is a format change. If you don't tell the advertisers, and all of a sudden they see a difference in the demos, you will have some 'splainin' to do.
MarkW said:
Did KLOS raise all those red flags when they quietly transitioned from classic rock to a mainstream rock outlet whose median song age still skews old? I strongly doubt it.
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There was an ownership change involved, so I would expect they did. They told everyone else, including the trades, so why wouldn't they tell the people footing the bill.
MarkW said:
As for being no demand for the songs, how do you explain a station from flippin' Manchester, NH regularly scoring a 1 share in Boston market ratings?
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Is that station selling to Boston advertisers? That's what I care about. Are the demos in Manchester the same as the demos in Boston? No. Remember: Radio stations are in the business of selling their audience to advertisers. We're not in the music business.

I hear this all the time about WDHA (another Beasley station). Why couldn't that format work in NYC? Because the demos are different. Dover NJ is a very different market. The suburbs are different from the big cities.
 
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I'm not surprised that you're justifying Rock 92.9's low-rated, failing programming. You did the same thing with 103.3 Amp Radio.

Classic Rock's primary demo target is Men 25-54. Mainstream Rock's primary demo target is Men 25-54. You are exaggerating the difficulties associated with such an evolution.
 
MarkW said:
My whole point is WBOS should consider veering more in a mainstream rock direction. I would drop references to "classic rock" from the positioning statement.
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I think you mean WBOS should consider veering more in an active rock position.
WBOS is already mainstream rock
 
MarkW said:
The goal is expand the audience and entice the audience to listen for longer; you're wrong about the audience being completely different. Do you believe the WBOS audience is mutually exclusive from the audience who listens to The Sports Hub, WEEI, and WZLX, too?

Why on earth would the station "tell the advertisers" it is changing formats under such a scenario? It's a rock station now. It'd still be a rock station. The morning show would stay the same. The DJs in the other dayparts would stay the same. Heck, they could even keep the same V/O artist (which just happens to be the same V/O artist used by Alt 92.9).

Did KLOS raise all those red flags when they quietly transitioned from classic rock to a mainstream rock outlet whose median song age still skews old? I strongly doubt it.

Where I *might* agree with you is waiting several months to see if inoculations, etc. have an impact on listening patterns. My gut, though, is song burn out is the primary thing weighing on 92.9 numbers. Yes, it's only a "gut" feeling.

As for being no demand for the songs, how do you explain a station from flippin' Manchester, NH regularly scoring a 1 share in Boston market ratings? If you were to look at the zip codes where WGIR's signal strength is 60 dBu or better, I bet their ratings are as good or better than those of Rock 92.9.
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Rock 101 has a monster signal in most of the Boston market.
A far more interesting station.
TOO BAD
THEY ARe An iheart proper.....
 
TheBigA said:
Because it's bad business to lie to advertisers. Playing currents on a station marketed as classic rock is a format change. If you don't tell the advertisers, and all of a sudden they see a difference in the demos, you will have some 'splainin' to do.


There was an ownership change involved, so I would expect they did. They told everyone else, including the trades, so why wouldn't they tell the people footing the bill.


Is that station selling to Boston advertisers? That's what I care about. Are the demos in Manchester the same as the demos in Boston? No. Remember: Radio stations are in the business of selling their audience to advertisers. We're not in the music business.

I hear this all the time about WDHA (another Beasley station). Why couldn't that format work in NYC? Because the demos are different. Dover NJ is a very different market. The suburbs are different from the big cities.
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I was living in NYC in the 80s and I listened to WDHA all the time, along with Seton Hall's WSOU.
I'll bet I wasn't the only New Yorker who turned to these two loud stations.
By the way, to counter the provincialism of the Boston area, that part of NJ in WDHA's listening area (Morris, Passaic, and Bergen counties ) are considered the NY area in culture as well as proximity.
 
WBOS-FM should add foreign language programming to their schedule. Bring back Italian and Polish shows weekdays, as well as Jewish programming and Latino music on the weekends. They can also add a live broadcast of the Latin Mass from Mary Immaculate of Lourdes Church in Newton on Sunday morning.
 
MarkW said:
Did KLOS raise all those red flags when they quietly transitioned from classic rock to a mainstream rock outlet whose median song age still skews old? I strongly doubt it.
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Actually, they did. They promoted the fact that the new owners, Meruelo Media, were investing in programming and research, and making the station "bigger and better" to attract more listeners. This was well received by time buyers, who had seen the previous owner selling assets, cutting back on staff and promotion and giving poor service.
 
blackgold said:
WBOS-FM should add foreign language programming to their schedule. Bring back Italian and Polish shows weekdays, as well as Jewish programming and Latino music on the weekends. They can also add a live broadcast of the Latin Mass from Mary Immaculate of Lourdes Church in Newton on Sunday morning.
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That's said tongue in cheek, right?

The members of the Italian and Polish communities who are in sales demos are well beyond the second generation and don't use their grandparents or great grandparent's language.

There are as many or more types of "Latino" music as there are in English. Doing short shows of one kind or another competes, today, with thousands of streams with specific music, ranging from tango to vallenato to ranchera to reggaetón.
 
DavidEduardo said:
That's said tongue in cheek, right?

The members of the Italian and Polish communities who are in sales demos are well beyond the second generation and don't use their grandparents or great grandparent's language.

There are as many or more types of "Latino" music as there are in English. Doing short shows of one kind or another competes, today, with thousands of streams with specific music, ranging from tango to vallenato to ranchera to reggaetón.
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What he was describing sounded suspiciously like WBOS in the 1960s -- WBOS(AM), that is! 1600 is still a leased-ethnic anachronism today, as WUNR.
 
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