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February 2022 Ratings
- Thread starter DMK
- Start date
From Research Director Allaccess: KISW the big winner again across the core demos. KUOW second, KRWM third and KIRO-FM and KQMV rounding out top five. Surprising the 18-34 strength of KZOK?? KOMO mainly 55+ and No sports or Conservative Talk stations in the top 15 but I doubt they care about ratings. KPLZ has pretty much disappeared while KRWM at its highest numbers in over a year.
KEXP really down quite a bit 25-54 too. Nice that allaccess prints the demos that matter, 6+ is kind of pointless.
KISW saw its strong three-book 25-54 surge grind to a halt, but the station was still strong enough to repeat at #1. It was better than a share and a half ahead of the three stations at #2. KUOW remained in place with a small decrease, while KRWM was up from #4 with its highest Frosty-free share in over a year. KIRO had its best book -- period -- in over a year as it moved up five spaces. A flat HUBBARD Top 40/M KQMV (MOViN’ 92.5) repeated at #5 and narrowly defeated iHEARTMEDIA Classic Hits KJR (95.7 THE JET), which climbed up to #6 with its highest number since JULY. FRIENDS OF KEXP Alternative KEXP dropped from #3 to #10 with its smallest share since OCTOBER. It was tied with KNWN-A.
The top two 18-34 stations moved up thanks to some solid increases. KISW made it back to #1 with its best book since SEPTEMBER, while KQMV was up to #2 with its highest score since JULY. This made KZOK’s stint at #1 a very brief one. The station dropped to #3 as it returned a large portion of last month’s huge increase. Three stations were linked together at #4. KRWM remained in place with a modest decrease, while iHEARTMEDIA Top 40/M KBKS (HITS 106.1) was up from #8 with its best outing since OCTOBER
KEXP really down quite a bit 25-54 too. Nice that allaccess prints the demos that matter, 6+ is kind of pointless.
KISW saw its strong three-book 25-54 surge grind to a halt, but the station was still strong enough to repeat at #1. It was better than a share and a half ahead of the three stations at #2. KUOW remained in place with a small decrease, while KRWM was up from #4 with its highest Frosty-free share in over a year. KIRO had its best book -- period -- in over a year as it moved up five spaces. A flat HUBBARD Top 40/M KQMV (MOViN’ 92.5) repeated at #5 and narrowly defeated iHEARTMEDIA Classic Hits KJR (95.7 THE JET), which climbed up to #6 with its highest number since JULY. FRIENDS OF KEXP Alternative KEXP dropped from #3 to #10 with its smallest share since OCTOBER. It was tied with KNWN-A.
The top two 18-34 stations moved up thanks to some solid increases. KISW made it back to #1 with its best book since SEPTEMBER, while KQMV was up to #2 with its highest score since JULY. This made KZOK’s stint at #1 a very brief one. The station dropped to #3 as it returned a large portion of last month’s huge increase. Three stations were linked together at #4. KRWM remained in place with a modest decrease, while iHEARTMEDIA Top 40/M KBKS (HITS 106.1) was up from #8 with its best outing since OCTOBER
That caught my eye. This station makes huge moves up and down from month to month. That tells me there's something inconsistent in the mix. Either the programming, or the people using the meters. Maybe both. It's rare to see this kind of flux in a commercial station.
Yes I know. That's likely why they don't care. But I probably should have mentioned that.
Some people like a certain amount of unpredictability in radio. It's a break from the routine that might be seen as boring. For them, there's KEXP. But this is why commercial radio prefers consistency and predictability.
Probably both. KEXP is just less structured from a programming standpoint. As you know, when sound and talent isn't consistent, it isn't unusual to see large swings. Gotta believe it's even more pronounced with PPM than with diary.
Agree 100%. The cume on KEXP is very small compared to the top 15 stations in the market. They rely on time spent listening to drive ratings so inconsistent programming mixed with luck of the draw when it comes to Nielsen panelists probably leads to wild swings.
And yet they were able to raise $15 million from those listeners during a capital fundraiser.
True. However, when Non-Comm's out perform commercial rivals in key demo's, that has potential to strip revenue away from radio. If you have two or 3 strong Non-Comm's in different formats in one market, they are still stripping audience away from commercial operators. Advertisers may then look at other avenues for their spend.
The way most non-coms use ratings is to compare the Nielsen information with their membership profile. Typically only 7% of a station's listeners actually subscribe, So they look at the demos and other data to see how it compares. They may also use the information in grant applications. So yes they care, but for different reasons.
What I meant was they don't care about the wild fluctuations. They know why they're happening.
I wonder though, if KEXP tightened things up a bit; became a little less free-form-sounding, more structured, whether they could benefit from both sides: higher measured cume and increased percentage of donors? I'm not suggesting KEXP lose their listener-facing free-form personality, but maybe just infuse a little more structure.
Not to go too far into the 'way-back-machine', but when I was fooling around with KNHC (C-89), granted during the diary days, we discovered that driving the "Dance Music Radio" with a steady, predictable cadence of more like a pop station, did at least two beneficial things:
1. Just like commercial stations; we were able to use ratings to dial-in a demo, then make small tweaks to music and presentation that increased cume and TSL within the demo. What that brought was a wave of interest from local and national ad reps who wanted to explore underwriting programming on the station. And these were no mom-and-pop businesses. We had Pepsi, Alaska Airlines, and even Anheuser Busch (which was an interesting one) all lined up to buy UC's. Er...I mean, donate to the fine educational program...
2. In spite of sounding more commercial and running UC's, the increase of in-demo ratings allowed us to dial in a loyal donor base with money to donate. Sure, C89 was heavy with teens, but those teens fell into the 18+ demo the following year. 18-24M-F became the real demo sweet-spot for the station. And we nurtured and protected that demo, because not only did advertisers want a piece of it, the demo became a seriously loyal donor base.
The third thing was hone and showcase the student and volunteer talent to perspective commercial stations. We probably set some sort of a record in number of students that were hired to become professionals during those times.
Not to go too far into the 'way-back-machine', but when I was fooling around with KNHC (C-89), granted during the diary days, we discovered that driving the "Dance Music Radio" with a steady, predictable cadence of more like a pop station, did at least two beneficial things:
1. Just like commercial stations; we were able to use ratings to dial-in a demo, then make small tweaks to music and presentation that increased cume and TSL within the demo. What that brought was a wave of interest from local and national ad reps who wanted to explore underwriting programming on the station. And these were no mom-and-pop businesses. We had Pepsi, Alaska Airlines, and even Anheuser Busch (which was an interesting one) all lined up to buy UC's. Er...I mean, donate to the fine educational program...
2. In spite of sounding more commercial and running UC's, the increase of in-demo ratings allowed us to dial in a loyal donor base with money to donate. Sure, C89 was heavy with teens, but those teens fell into the 18+ demo the following year. 18-24M-F became the real demo sweet-spot for the station. And we nurtured and protected that demo, because not only did advertisers want a piece of it, the demo became a seriously loyal donor base.
The third thing was hone and showcase the student and volunteer talent to perspective commercial stations. We probably set some sort of a record in number of students that were hired to become professionals during those times.
Keep in mind this is a station that was able to raise $15 million from it's listeners for it's new headquarters. Name a commercial station that could get that kind of money from listeners. They obviously know their audience, and their audience loves their presentation, faults and all.
SEATTLE’S KEXP PUBLIC RADIO $15 MILLION BROADCAST COMPLEX
Walters-Storyk Design Group-WSDG
www.architectmagazine.com
If other radio stations could raise that kind of money from its listeners, EMF would never buy another station. Formats would be run by listeners instead of advertisers. Nobody would care about aging demos. So no, we should not try to "infuse more structure" into KEXP.
Agree that's a monumental accomplishment, but KEXP is in a unique situation. They have several well healed donors which included Paul Allen. A few who made several multi-million dollar donations. Not many public stations have access to that sort of donor levels. Unless Jody Allen (Paul's sister) continues to donate to KEXP, it will be loss of huge chunk of capital support going forward.
It's a unique situation and a unique radio station. Adding "more structure," as you put it, tampers with that uniqueness and makes it more like just another radio station on the dial.
I didn't say I wanted anything. Was just saying that there are some ways you can structure things to a station's advantage potentially on the back end without ruining the product entirely. In fact, you could potentially enhance the product. KBCS? It sounds like a community college station.
I think KEXP is a treasure, but I'll admit I miss some of the "scruffiness" of KCMU, the UW-affiliated predecessor on that frequency. I listen a lot to C-89 and KEXP and volunteer at KSER (90.7/89.9 FM or kser.org; listen today!), and requiring more structure would indeed make them sound like the commercial stations that I largely don't listen to. I like that KEXP will throw out playlists when a famous musician dies and just do a few hours of tribute, or that it's one of the few stations that gives airplay to some of my favorite contemporary bands. Embrace the uniqueness!
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