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September radio ratings

Could WKTU be considered a rather unusual station? I haven't heard quite the same format in other places.
WNEW appears to be a far more mainstream Hot AC.
And SiriusXM's Hot AC channel the Pulse, with a national audience, plays more Country crossover songs than stations in this area. The Hot AC format apparently has a number of flavors.
 
I miss a classic hiphop/disco/funk station with oldschool jams. For a city with the roots in disco music with clubs as Studio 54 and the city where hiphop/rap was born that music it's really missed on the air.
 
CassChopper96 said:
I would cosider WKTU a rythmic CHR and WNEW an actual HOT AC station. Are there any missing radio formats in NYC?
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Soft AC is missing, perhaps? Though Lite FM would sometimes play typical Soft AC fare alongside some uptempo tracks.

WKTU has plenty of throwbacks, even if they play newer music. Rhythmic CHR is very tilted towards hip hop, nowadays. And WKTU, with its ample amount of pop/dance tracks, is not lopsided towards hip hop.

WNEW tends to attract listeners residing in affluent outer suburbs and parts of Manhattan.

I’d say WKTU and WNEW are both Hot ACs, but KTU tends to attract a more “city” audience.
 
Barry said:
Could WKTU be considered a rather unusual station? I haven't heard quite the same format in other places.
WNEW appears to be a far more mainstream Hot AC.
And SiriusXM's Hot AC channel the Pulse, with a national audience, plays more Country crossover songs than stations in this area. The Hot AC format apparently has a number of flavors.
Click to expand...
Norfolk and Atlanta both have “rhythmic AC”, but the problem with Movin’ and Star 94 is imaging that sounds less natural (A bit of “pandering”, so to speak).

I kind of am baffled on Hot ACs being a bit heavy-handed on the pop rock and country pop, considering that Modern AC is no longer a viable format and generic public tastes have become more rhythmic over time.

SiriusXM is truly serving Middle American tastes. Hits 1 is notorious for ignoring many big rhythmic hits and playing a lot of pop punk when the genre itself is on its way out. The Pulse sounded more like a traditional modern AC and less like a station like, say, the late WPLJ.
 
The question isn't what's missing. The question is who gets blown up?

The weakest link ratings wise is WEPN, and they're not flipping to anything. We've already addressed WNSH and WNYL.

The question gets asked over and over, and the answer continues to be: I don't see anyone flipping.
 
TheBigA said:
The question gets asked over and over, and the answer continues to be: I don't see anyone flipping.
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The biggest issue is the cost of a flip. For a full flip, and not just a fine tuning or modification, a station loses nearly all revenue and agency buyers will wait until there are many months of growth or consistent, reliable ratings levels to place a buy at full rates.

Some local advertisers will be offered... and accept... very cheap packages under names like "early adopters" and "pioneer package" headings. But those are really low cost ways of getting a bit of revenue and seeming to be prosperous to other undecided advertisers.

No matter how low the billing prior to the flip, it will be erased by the format change and it will take the better part of a year to get back to prior levels even if the new format works. And, like all new brands, a significant portion of format flips do not do as well as predicted.

In times of the pandemic and with high inflation being a forecast of a pending recession, this is not a good time for a format flip.
 
DavidEduardo said:
The biggest issue is the cost of a flip. For a full flip, and not just a fine tuning or modification, a station loses nearly all revenue and agency buyers will wait until there are many months of growth or consistent, reliable ratings levels to place a buy at full rates.
Click to expand...

And KTU is a great example of a station that has tweaked itself a bit here and there, rather than the all out flip.
 
WNBM 103.9 has such low ratings, it seems that Cumulus would have little to lose by flipping it to something else. Perhaps smooth jazz?
 
Barry said:
WNBM 103.9 has such low ratings, it seems that Cumulus would have little to lose by flipping it to something else. Perhaps smooth jazz?
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The audience for smooth jazz is now over 55 in its majority and so that is a dead format. And the real issue of WNBM is its limited signal and difficulty penetrating the high density dwellings in the NYC metro.
 
TheBigA said:
The question isn't what's missing. The question is who gets blown up?

The weakest link ratings wise is WEPN, and they're not flipping to anything. We've already addressed WNSH and WNYL.

The question gets asked over and over, and the answer continues to be: I don't see anyone flipping.
Click to expand...
WNSH is the only country station. And WNYL isn’t going anywhere
 
Theater of My Mind said:
WDHA in NJ and WWSK in Long Island reach some of the suburban fringes but nothing comes close to the central part of the market.
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WSOU plays a lot of active rock. So does WFMU. Right now this format seems better off in the non-com world. No annoying commercials to interrupt the music.
 
TheBigA said:
WSOU plays a lot of active rock. So does WFMU. Right now this format seems better off in the non-com world. No annoying commercials to interrupt the music.
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WSOU is a metal station. WFUV is a Triple-A station that targets older donors. Neither are anywhere close to the Active Rock format, check Mediabase.
 
Theater of My Mind said:
Come on, WFMU is about as far from an Active Rock rock as you can get. Interesting freeform station, sure. But it's the ultimate anti-mainstream radio station in the city if not the entire nation.
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So give us an example of an active rock station doing well in a Top 20 market. How many such markets even have one station in the format these days?
 
Theater of My Mind said:
Come on, WFMU is about as far from an Active Rock rock as you can get. Interesting freeform station, sure. But it's the ultimate anti-mainstream radio station in the city if not the entire nation.
Click to expand...

The problem with active rock is that in order to attract an audience, it needs to either play some alternative or some 90s rock. Both of those other formats are being done, and that leave table scraps for active rock.

If Audacy thought there was money to be made with active rock, they'd have good reason to flip WNYL. Or maybe even go in that direction. But no one else has any motivation at all to play active rock. As I said earlier in this thread, no one is flipping to anything. They may tweak a little bit, but that's it.
 
CTListener said:
So give us an example of an active rock station doing well in a Top 20 market. How many such markets even have one station in the format these days?
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There's tons of them. WMMR, WRIF, WLLZ, WNNX, KISW, WXTB. I already mentioned WWSK in Long Island which is in fact a top 20 market. One of my favorites KPNT, which is classified Alternative but leans heavily toward Active Rock which is a great, forward-thinking way to do it. Plenty of major and medium markets have at least one decent rock station.
 
Theater of My Mind said:
There's tons of them. WMMR, WRIF, WLLZ, WNNX, KISW, WXTB.
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They're all for the most part heritage stations. Heritage helps in this format. New York killed its heritage rock station a long time ago. Fans of the format have made other plans. As I said, the best chance for the format is if WNYL gives up on what they're doing now and shift more towards the rock side.
 
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