Rumba 99.1

[OriginalSample]

This is pure speculation on my part but how likely would it be for Iheart to flip 99.1 to a Spanish language format? It seems like they have the lowest amount of listeners.

I'm sure that BIN being part of a cluster and part of a national brand brings in national ad buys that helps the overall revenue of the station.

 

[davideduardo]

This is pure speculation on my part but how likely would it be for Iheart to flip 99.1 to a Spanish language format? It seems like they have the lowest amount of listeners.

I'm sure that BIN being part of a cluster and part of a national brand brings in national ad buys that helps the overall revenue of the station.

There is no HDHA in Cleveland, and the market is only 6% Hispanic. Figure that on average about 50% of listening by Hispanics is to Spanish language stations and with no HDHA, the station would not get sales-getting numbers at all.

 

[skiwest]

There are clusters of Hispanics in NE Ohio, but it doesn't look 99.1 reaches those areas.

 

[MediaLover]

Cleveland's west side neighborhoods would respond to the format, but it would need a signal as big as La Mega to reach a big audience.

Perhaps 99.1 would be better suited for The Breeze.

 

[Rusty Muck]

There is no HDHA in Cleveland, and the market is only 6% Hispanic. Figure that on average about 50% of listening by Hispanics is to Spanish language stations and with no HDHA, the station would not get sales-getting numbers at all.

WDLW was based right in downtown Lorain for years and their predominantly salsa-based format just couldn’t get any advertising outside of the city proper. It was sad.

 

[davideduardo]

WDLW was based right in downtown Lorain for years and their predominantly salsa-based format just couldn’t get any advertising outside of the city proper. It was sad.

Salsa as a "pure" format is almost exclusively appealing to older (45 and above) Puerto Ricans. Even in Puerto Rico, the music is pretty much limited to two stations (out of 120) and their repeaters and the demographics are very old.

Even if this was years ago, it still would have been a limited format. And being on AM (I don't recall the translator being moved in from Indiana until 2015) makes salsa sound horrible.

I have a tiny bit of experience in the salsa format, and that was a horrible choice for a small US market.

 

[OriginalSample]

There is no HDHA in Cleveland, and the market is only 6% Hispanic. Figure that on average about 50% of listening by Hispanics is to Spanish language stations and with no HDHA, the station would not get sales-getting numbers at all.

Cleveland’s West Side has a significant Latino population that goes back to the 1960’s. It is the highest density area in Ohio for Latinos. Let’s take the 6% figure (which is a census undercount) that’s around 105,300 in the DMA. And you’re saying that only 50% of listening by Latinos is to a Spanish language station, that leaves us with 52,650 for a listener cume. That’s a healthy size of listeners and 10x the cume of BIN.

 

[radioislife2020]

I would have to disagree with with David.. while La Mega was on the air it would show up in the numbers and would always be in the top 3 stations with the most amount of TSL. Cleveland is a different market the latino audience is mostly made up of puerto ricans so it would be much easier to program.

 

[OriginalSample]

WDLW was based right in downtown Lorain for years and their predominantly salsa-based format just couldn’t get any advertising outside of the city proper. It was sad.

When was the last time WDLW offered any Spanish language programming?

Mega 87.7 was much more recent and they had advertising from Liberty Ford among other local companies that had a huge interest in reaching the Latino market. Not to mention the Cavs and Browns games in Spanish which was good cross promotion for the station. Also,Iheart would bring in national buys reaching the Northeast Ohio Latino population.

 

[OriginalSample]

I would have to disagree with with David.. while La Mega was on the air it would show up in the numbers and would always be in the top 3 stations with the most amount of TSL. Cleveland is a different market the latino audience is mostly made up of puerto ricans so it would be much easier to program.

Good point. Also, If I remember correctly, the owner of the station mentioned in an interview that they had a sizable non hispanic listening audience.

 

[davideduardo]

Cleveland’s West Side has a significant Latino population that goes back to the 1960’s. It is the highest density area in Ohio for Latinos. Let’s take the 6% figure (which is a census undercount) that’s around 105,300 in the DMA. And you’re saying that only 50% of listening by Latinos is to a Spanish language station, that leaves us with 52,650 for a listener cume. That’s a healthy size of listeners and 10x the cume of BIN.

But Hispanics like as many different kinds of music as non-Hispanic whites. That means that, using the same math, maybe a single station might, at best, cume half the Spanish dominants. That brings us down to about 25,000 and an AQH of maybe 800 to 1200 tops.

The data used by Nielsen for population does not come directly from the Census. It is provided annually by an independent company that does even better than the Census at population estimates.

 

[davideduardo]

When was the last time WDLW offered any Spanish language programming?

Mega 87.7 was much more recent and they had advertising from Liberty Ford among other local companies that had a huge interest in reaching the Latino market. Not to mention the Cavs and Browns games in Spanish which was good cross promotion for the station. Also,Iheart would bring in national buys reaching the Northeast Ohio Latino population.

It's doubtful that any Hispanic buys go as deep as the small Cleveland Hispanic population. What might come in would be based on Cost Per Point and a Cleveland Spanish language station would not get a significant rating to add much of any value to a combined buy.

The Cavs and Browns games are sales vehicles. Spanish dominant Hispanics as a nearly total rule don't follow American football at all. Basketball might have some interest, as that is the most popular sport in Puerto Rico after politics. But among other Hispanics it is not popular at all.

Important, too, is that Puerto Ricans stopped migrating to the northern states over 50 years ago. So Boricuas in the sales demos are going to be third generation, and not listeners to a Spanish station. The most likely listeners are going to be first generation immigrants from the Dominican Republic and Mexico, and those two groups share almost nothing in Spanish language music tastes.

 

[davideduardo]

I would have to disagree with with David.. while La Mega was on the air it would show up in the numbers and would always be in the top 3 stations with the most amount of TSL. Cleveland is a different market the latino audience is mostly made up of puerto ricans so it would be much easier to program.

As mentioned in another post, the Puerto Rican migration to the northern states ended in the late 60's and even reversed by the early 70's per the Puerto Rican Planning Commission who handled Island population data back then. So anyone under 60 is second generation or later and will be listening to radio and music in English and only speaking Spanish to mom and dad or abuelo and abuelita.

The Spanish speakers under age 70 are from other nations, particularly Mexico and the Dominican Republic.

Ad buyers don't look at TSL. They look at AQH persons or rating, and with the small population a Spanish language station is not going to get quality buys.

The first question is "why id La Mega go away?" Several other FrankenFMs got temporary authority to continue and are finding a way to integrate an analog signal with the new digital requirements. I'm assuming that the return on such an investment was not enough to make it happen.

 

[OriginalSample]

Why did Mega go away? Gray Television wanted a local telecast of Telemundo in Cleveland and channel 6 made the most sense.

David, can your link your sources to back up your claim that second generation Latinos in the Cleveland market wouldn't listen to a Spanish language station? Mega 87.7 being around for 7 years on a fringe signal proves otherwise.

Mega 87.7 also seem to be popular with a decent amount of non Hispanics. And there is where the appeal of this format comes into play. I hear a lot of non Spanish speaking people say " I don't know what they're saying but I like the way it sounds".

Bad Bunny, JBalvin, Farruko, Daddy Yankee,Karol G, Rosalia all have made appearances on Jimmy Fallon and a few of those mentioned on SNL. As well as the award shows. This speaks to the crossover appeal of the format .

I was at a Farruko concert recently and about 35 % of the crowd happened to be non Hispanic. I would say the appeal of the Rumba format is the music and not so much it being Spanish language in its approach.

 

[snowdog88]

Why did Mega go away? Gray Television wanted a local telecast of Telemundo in Cleveland and channel 6 made the most sense.

Don't blame Gray Broadcasting for ending La Mega as they bought the station after Murray Hill Broadcasting put it up for sale in July 2021, long after the La Mega LMA ended and the station converted to a digital broadcast.

The detailed story... WLFM-LP had no choice but to discontinue La Mega as they were being forced to convert to a digital broadcast, which would have rendered the FrankenFM concept useless on 87.7 FM. The other major factor was that their RF 6 allocation was displaced by WOUB-TV during the repack, causing them to drastically reduce their coverage area to avoid co-channel interference. WLFM-LP converted to a digital broadcast on RF 20 in 2020, dropping La Mega and picking up Jewelry TV, only to put it up for sale a year later, which was when Gray Broadcasting decided to purchase and affiliate it with Telemundo.

 

[VintageMac]

Why did Mega go away? Gray Television wanted a local telecast of Telemundo in Cleveland and channel 6 made the most sense.

David, can your link your sources to back up your claim that second generation Latinos in the Cleveland market wouldn't listen to a Spanish language station? Mega 87.7 being around for 7 years on a fringe signal proves otherwise.

Mega 87.7 also seem to be popular with a decent amount of non Hispanics. And there is where the appeal of this format comes into play. I hear a lot of non Spanish speaking people say " I don't know what they're saying but I like the way it sounds".

Bad Bunny, JBalvin, Farruko, Daddy Yankee,Karol G, Rosalia all have made appearances on Jimmy Fallon and a few of those mentioned on SNL. As well as the award shows. This speaks to the crossover appeal of the format .

I was at a Farruko concert recently and about 35 % of the crowd happened to be non Hispanic. I would say the appeal of the Rumba format is the music and not so much it being Spanish language in its approach.

What is interesting is that there are three Hispanic networks on decent power tv signals: Telemundo, Univision and Unimas, and others on weaker HC2 channels like Azteca and Clic but no representation on radio since LaMega went off.

 

[VintageMac]

Why did Mega go away? Gray Television wanted a local telecast of Telemundo in Cleveland and channel 6 made the most sense.

Here is one story regarding Franken FM stations like LaMega:

FCC Warns Franken FMs & Other LPTVs: Analog Sign-Off Date ‘Is Fast Approaching.’

Frankenstein met an unfortunate end in Mary Shelley's original novel, and so-called Franken FMs may soon be expiring as well. The FCC has reaffirmed that all low-power television stations must

www.insideradio.com

 

[skiwest]

What is interesting is that there are three Hispanic networks on decent power TV signals: Telemundo, Univision and Unimas, and others on weaker HC2 channels like Azteca and Clic but no representation on radio since LaMega went off.

There is one in Painesville on 88.3 FM.

 

[VintageMac]

There is one in Painesville on 88.3 FM.

I was thinking in the Cleveland area but that one is very low power so it wouldn't reach metro Cleveland anyway.

 

[davideduardo]

Why did Mega go away? Gray Television wanted a local telecast of Telemundo in Cleveland and channel 6 made the most sense.

But they could have integrated an analog signal into the digital signal, as is being done elsewhere under an "extension" permit by the FCC. Obviously, there was not enough money in play to warrant it in Cleveland while in several other markets the effort is being made.

David, can your link your sources to back up your claim that second generation Latinos in the Cleveland market wouldn't listen to a Spanish language station?

That is true everywhere in the US. Second generation Hispanics may listen "a little" to Spanish language media, but they are not as a group heavy users. Third generation does not statistically listen at all.

The biggest reason for this change in language preference is that second generation Hispanics were born here, grew up and went to school here and followed the peer group music trends of their generation.

Mega 87.7 also seem to be popular with a decent amount of non Hispanics. And there is where the appeal of this format comes into play. I hear a lot of non Spanish speaking people say " I don't know what they're saying but I like the way it sounds".

I've looked at a few diaries back when major markets still did not have the PPM, and analyzed them deeply. There is no statistical evidence of any significant use of Spanish language media by non-Hispanics. When exceptions are found, they come from two areas: first people who don't check the "Hispanic" ethnicity box because they don't like the terms listed (Hispanic, Latino) and, second, very old people who think they are listening to a show host who died a decade ago or had moved to another station.

And, yes, a few gringos may like occasional listening interludes with reggaetón, but there is no evidence of those cases being statistically significant.

Bad Bunny, JBalvin, Farruko, Daddy Yankee,Karol G, Rosalia all have made appearances on Jimmy Fallon and a few of those mentioned on SNL. As well as the award shows. This speaks to the crossover appeal of the format .

No, it speaks to the show producers and network executives not wanting to appear exclusionary. There is just about zero crossover appeal of reggaetón and Spanish language rhythmic CHR other than the occasional "Livin' la Vida Loca" tune that crosses over.

I was at a Farruko concert recently and about 35 % of the crowd happened to be non Hispanic. I would say the appeal of the Rumba format is the music and not so much it being Spanish language in its approach.

If you go to a Bad Bunny event in Puerto Rico, it looks like two-thirds or more of the crowd is not "Hispanic". But that is an appearance only. Hispanics are not all "persons of color" or "brown" and can be as "white" as Biden or Trump. Just look at the artists themselves, and you will see a rainbow from direct descendants of emigrants from the Canary Islands to those who look more like the people of Ghana, Nigeria and Dahomey.

From Fast Facts About Puerto Rico: "Ethnic composition: white (mostly Spanish origin) 80.5%, black 8%, Amerindian 0.4%, Asian 0.2%, mixed and other 10.9%. ."

Yes, just as there are teen "oldies" format listeners, there are occasional non-Hispanic listeners to all kinds of Latin music as well as to music forms from other parts of the world.