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April Chicago Radio Ratings
- Thread starter Dr Wayne
- Start date
No more (live) Limbaugh shows is clearly hurting 890 WLS.
Rock 95.5 is an absolute dumpster fire and should change direction immediately. I predicted from day one that their trainwreck playlist would fail miserably. Whose foolish idea was it to put that tangled mess of rock songs together?
Speaking of dumpster fires - holy crap, B96 sure is underachieving.
Rock 95.5 is an absolute dumpster fire and should change direction immediately. I predicted from day one that their trainwreck playlist would fail miserably. Whose foolish idea was it to put that tangled mess of rock songs together?
Speaking of dumpster fires - holy crap, B96 sure is underachieving.
Not by much. They also had a change in morning show a few months ago. They replaced Mancow with Bruce St. James, who came in from Phoenix and doesn't have the local fan base Mancow had.
US-99 has their work cut out for them. One of the few major market country stations to see a drop this month, just in time for the debut of their new morning show. This was once a Top 5 station in Chicago. Not any more.
They stopped serving the only growth demo in the market, Hispanics. The market is 23% Hispanic, but in 18-49 it is nearly 33% Hispanic. They don't seem to know that.
Stopped listening entirely. If they're not gonna play anything new and continue with that burnt out playlist, I'm done.
Here is Robert Feder’s response.
www.robertfeder.com
Chicago radio ratings: Victory repeats itself for V103 | Robert Feder
www.robertfeder.com
I'll let it go if & when iHM delivers a decent product to the rock audience of Chicago. Not sure why you are so bothered by my criticism of a radio station.
Because so many corporate radio types are arrogant and stubborn, I suspect little meaningful change to the playlist will occur anytime soon.
Milwaukee, Rockford, South Bend, Kenosha / Waukegan, and Quad Cities all have outstanding hard rock stations. What does Chicago have? Rock 95.5, programmed by a guy who probably hates listening to rock music on his own time, unless it's something from 40+ years ago.
Remember the song snippets featured in the launch video? Talk about bait-and-switch...
Want to hear what a great contemporary hard rock station sounds like? Check out 104.9 The X in Rockford; they're one of my favorites these days. I've noticed the small & medium market stations often sound better than their major & large market counterparts from a music standpoint especially.
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Chicago Radio hasn't been the same since the late 1960s with WLS and WCFL. What's better, a large percentage of the US and Canadian population could listen, at least at night, without unreliable internet connections.
And the reason for that is 3 letters: PPM. Actual listening of rock stations is much lower than diary markets reflect. The closest we get to great, SUCCESFUL rock stations in PPM markets are WRIF in Detroit, WMMR in Philly and KUPD in Phoenix. Listen to any of them and they are predominantly gold based, only giving currents less than 20% of the spins on the station. And the Golds they play are extremely recognizable mass appeal staples like GnR, Ozzy and Linkin Park that to many core rock fans are burnt to a crisp.
It's all because in PPM you have to be mass appeal. The moment you play something someone doesn't recognize and they tune out you feel the effect. Badly. Programmers in diary markets have the luxury of being able to be more adventurous and build that loyalty with the P1s. Because when those Rockford P1s get a diary they write down "WXRX" at the top of the page and draw an arrow to the bottom, saying they listened all day nonstop. We all know that doesn't actually happen. Diary is all about brand loyatly, PPM is all about actual listening...how frequently (mostly) and for how long (somewhat).
PS. I highly recommend you stream K-Bear in Idaho Falls (KCVI) if you want a great, aggressive rock station. It's spectacular.
The growth of FM in the 70s killed the big signal AMs, and the loss of those stations changed the emphasis in radio from big blasters with fast talking DJs to narrowly focused formats with DJs who spoke like real people.
Speaking of WBMX, seems like they're the only surviving major market station to consistently manage high ratings with a throwback format. I wonder what the other classic hip hop stations elsewhere could've done different to not decline. And BTW WBMX needs a new image VO; the current one does not match the format at all. Maybe someone like St John from SF would do. IJS.
Don't forget WGN, WMAQ and WBBM. Chicago had more signals that could be heard long distance in much of the United States than any other city.
Even in the 1970s, WLS was the top 40 at night for much of the rural Midwest and South. WMAQ's overnight country show with Fred Sanders was (along with WWL, WSM and WBAP) important to truck drivers even in the 1980s.
Franklyn MacCormack's all night WGN show is still talked about among the few fans today of easy listening/standards. Later Great Music From Chicago with Jay Andres continued that tradition on WGN until about 1981.
WBBM's Music Til Dawn was an important outlet for classical/semi classical in the 1960s and before WCFL went top 40, their overnight jazz show with Sid McCoy and Yvonne Daniels was probably the most important jazz program in the country.
And now people say Rockford has better radio than Chicago. What a change from the 1960s/1970s. I remember a Larry King show where he did a special about radio broadcasting and the guests all agreed that Chicago had the best radio of any market including New York and Los Angeles.
Well stated. And I’d add that the PPM revealed that certain formats had “phantom” listeners who did not write them in the diary as the were second choices or not foreground stations. AC got good increases because of this.
Smooth Jazz was killed by the PPM. The format had nothing beyond the core, and core listeners tended to think the listened all day, even in bathroom breaks, lunch hour, while on errands or on the phone. The PPM showed that TSL was much lower.
Rock was in the middle with PPM and, while TSL per person was much lower, there was secondary listening. And, as !you say the diary “voting for my station” was eliminated.
LOL, this makes me wonder if I've had sarcastic comments made at my expense too.
Many thanks for the tip! I'm giving it a listen now.
A personal favorite of mine is Q106 in Lansing, MI, a station that has gone much heavier within the past 12 to 18 months.
Music log: Q106 On Air Playlist
OK - so the third song in on KCVI is "Bohemian Rhapsody" by Queen. Not a fan of that band and definitely not a fan of the song. Ever since that stupid movie, classic rock stations here in Michigan and even some active rock stations have been playing the living heck out of Queen. I did like the first two songs I heard, though.
Yes, large market radio is disappointing, especially compared to the midsize markets
These are my two favorite go-to rock stations. Although KUPD may not play a significant amount of new tracks per hour, at least they do play new songs, unlike our local (boring) rock station WCHI. If WCHI at least played as many current tracks as KUPD, it would be a major, imo, improvement to the listening experience.
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