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December PPMs

radiodx10

radiodx10

https://ratings.****************/content/arb007

Some highlights- one is obviously B101 remains solidly the king of christmas music in Philly.
Two- WHYY 90.9 coming with possibly some of their highest ratings yet- a 5.7
Three- minor dip for KYW/WPHI- from 5.2-4.6
Four- WXTU with maybe their lowest numbers in a while at a 3.5
Five- & the biggest point- WRFF Alt 104.5 with easily their worst ratings I've ever seen, below WPEN and WXPN at a dismal 1.8. This is one of the only books I remember seeing 88.5 beating 104.5 in alternative rock. Yes, this is just the holiday books, it's always different and I'm sure the numbers for everyone will rebound to their usual areas, but just having some fun.
 
radiodx10 said:
https://ratings.****************/content/arb007

Some highlights- one is obviously B101 remains solidly the king of christmas music in Philly.
Two- WHYY 90.9 coming with possibly some of their highest ratings yet- a 5.7
Three- minor dip for KYW/WPHI- from 5.2-4.6
Four- WXTU with maybe their lowest numbers in a while at a 3.5
Five- & the biggest point- WRFF Alt 104.5 with easily their worst ratings I've ever seen, below WPEN and WXPN at a dismal 1.8. This is one of the only books I remember seeing 88.5 beating 104.5 in alternative rock. Yes, this is just the holiday books, it's always different and I'm sure the numbers for everyone will rebound to their usual areas, but just having some fun.
Click to expand...
The December book is separate from the Holiday book. The Holiday book will become public at 5pm on January 25.
 
Miguelito said:
The December book is separate from the Holiday book. The Holiday book will become public at 5pm on January 25.
Click to expand...
Good point! The reason Christmas music does not get as huge a seasonal boost in diary markets is that the whole diary system goes “silent” for the four weeks that are called “holiday” in the PPM. The PPM continues tabulating and “pushing” the panel during those weeks because if the suspended, they would lose a big piece of the ongoing panel.
 
Radio 104.5 looks bad. But i don't know what they can replace the Alternative format with so the station is here to stay. Maybe the ratings go up after the holiday book
 
Cannot help but wonder if the Woody Show is dragging down 104.5's numbers. My gut feeling is putting that programming on 104.5 was a poor decision. Is 104.5 at or near all time record low AQH share with the current format?
 
MarkW said:
Cannot help but wonder if the Woody Show is dragging down 104.5's numbers. My gut feeling is putting that programming on 104.5 was a poor decision. Is 104.5 at or near all time record low AQH share with the current format?
Click to expand...

You can look back 5 years and you'll see that WRFF consistently drops in the winter. Regardless of who did mornings.

Do you know who Woody replaced? John Allers. Do you know where John is now? Dallas. Is he on the air there? No.

BTW when Woody was added in the summer of 2020, the station improved in 18-34 ratings.

Mornings are not important to ratings in this format. We've been saying that for years. Check back in April.
 
Yes, the station tends to drop in the winter. But 104.5 has NEVER posted a 1.x share at any time of the year as an Alternative station. The ratings also aren’t recovering to the numbers that they used to post. I’d say a lot of this is the erosion that Alternative is seeing just about everywhere. That being said, outside of LA, none of the stations running Woody are doing all that well. Heck, the ratings for KDKB/Phoenix have seen a nice jolt since dumping Woody. This leads me to believe that Woody is likely contributing to 104.5’s decline.
 
chrocket87 said:
I’d say a lot of this is the erosion that Alternative is seeing just about everywhere.
Click to expand...

Correct. Should have stopped your post there.

There are dozens of alternative stations that don't air Woody that are similarly losing share. Bottom line is iHeart is not hiring local talent for an alt station in Philadelphia. It's simply not happening.
 
TheBigA said:
Bottom line is iHeart is not hiring local talent for an alt station in Philadelphia. It's simply not happening.
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Why not?
If you take the local talent away, aren't you then taking what makes radio radio away?
And by this I mean the traditional local media.
Yes its cheaper.
I suppose one could argue that listeners don't know or care.
But has anyone really asked listeners if they know DJ names or if it really matters?
Or did these big groups decide this is what they'd do so that they'd get more money for their shareholders without consulting radio listeners.
Here's another thing. Sure we live in the everything is connected now age where DJ's don't have to know music like they used to, but if a listener is listening in a car, and they are driving, they can't exactly look that up...
Or did iHeart decide that the local talent belongs on CHR WIOQ instead.
Yes I know WIOQ has talent locala lot of the day.
So then that brings up another questions which is do listeners to CHR engage more?
Are they easier to sell?
Do they listen longer?
Guess this is why we have PPMs ?
In my case its questions, not so much an ax to grind.
Having said that I always liked local talent.
It feels like its missing something if not, to me. but I'm not a normal radio listenre either I'm sure
John
 
BigA, 104.5's numbers were on a downhill trend before winter. The station historically earned larger shares than its format counterparts. Now, it's in the toilet just like its format counterparts.

I'd submit to you that someone isn't minding the store too well.

You say mornings are "not important" to ratings in the alternative format. I suspect several prominent PDs would disagree with that statement (including but not limited to WWDC, KYSR and KTBZ).
 
JH_Radio said:
Why not?
Click to expand...

Money

MarkW said:
You say mornings are "not important" to ratings in the alternative format. I suspect several prominent PDs would disagree with that statement
Click to expand...

Then why would Hubbard drop Woody and replace it with nothing? KDKB dropped Woody in October at the end of a one year deal. They knew the deal was ending, and dropping Woody meant they re-gained local inventory. Audacy has ben dropping their own internal morning shows at alt stations and replacing them with nothing. If morning drive is important to the format, they would never leave major market stations go unhosted.

I'll throw this idea out there: Suppose iHeart replaced Woody with Elliot in the morning from WWDC? Perhaps that's the new hot show at iHeart. But that might also indicate a tweaking of the format to be more like DC 101.
 
Woody didn't play well in Phoenix, clearly. There are certainly instances where music intensive mornings make sense.

A big problem with airing Woody in the eastern time zone is how the non-live content prior to 8a is structured. It is very canned and very redundant (i.e. spelling and word pronunciation quizzes with the show producer who pretends to be stupid, redneck news stories, etc). Maybe it's gotten better since I last listened.

Elliott might have been a better solution honestly (despite his old age).

BTW, I am not so sure the music intensive morning dayparts will prove to be permanent in NYC, Miami, et al. Time will tell. The cancelled show was so rotten that playing music definitely won't leave those stations any worse for wear. :)
 
JH_Radio said:
Why not?
If you take the local talent away, aren't you then taking what makes radio radio away?
Click to expand...
Not necessarily. The younger members of my family do not consider “radio” a distinct thing. There is music content. Sometimes it comes from the console in a car. Sometimes the smart speaker. Sometimes the phone. By and large, when they want music content they want music. Not chatter, bits, etc.
 
AbrahamJSimpson said:
Not necessarily. The younger members of my family do not consider “radio” a distinct thing.
Click to expand...
One of my grandchildren expressed it with a comparison to the request to "open a window". You might open the one in the kitchen, the living room or the dining room or wherever, but they all achieve the purpose of letting fresh air in. The lines between over the air radio, streams of all kinds and one's other music sources are not distinct and they have lots of perceptual overlap. They are defined by what they do, not by how they work.
 
I would submit here that recently B101.1's Jenn Ryan and Bill Tafrow said in an interview "[N]othing is more vital than the chemistry you have with your listeners. Opening up and sharing ourselves naturally builds a friendship with them. We want our audience to say, ‘I feel like I know them'.”

I believe in that 100%. What I loved about radio was entire stations' personalities, including the jocks telling me interesting things, making me laugh, and even talking to me on the request lines. I chose favorite stations based on that stuff just as much as by what music they were playing. At some point, station personalities began disappearing and I don't honestly think it was because the formula wasn't working anymore. It's cheaper to run a jukebox. And if the other stations in town aren't spending on personality (and personalities), you kinda have to go with that flow. If station "Y" proves they can "get by" with voicetracked talent and very little other than song-after-song, station "Z" (even if they're consistently beating the competition), isn't going to keep spending that money when they can just as easily "get by." There are usually board members to answer to--and they're typically not programmers or consultants!

Everything changes, that's for sure. And there are endless combinations of factors and reasons. But in the case of this particular topic (which certainly comes up a lot!), listeners kinda have to be resigned to personality-less stations because that's all they're being given. And today's young listeners don't even know that radio stations used to be fun. They have no idea that people used to make sure they were listening to a station at a certain time of day because they felt like that DJ was their friend.

Kids today get their music from streaming services and don't even consider radio. If radio offered them something that streaming services don't, would they listen? Who knows? They aren't given that choice.
 
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