I find it interesting that WLKG never shows up in the Milwaukee-Racine ratings. Do they not subscribe to Nielsen Audio?
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96.1 WLKG Lake Geneva
- Thread starter Brian Bowers
- Start date
I don’t believe they subscribe to Nielsen. Small one man (soon to be one lady) owned station. I don’t believe Lake Geneva is technically in the Milwaukee market either, although it reaches Racine, Kenosha and parts of Milwaukee and Waukesha Counties, so I’m guessing if they did subscribe, they would get at least some ratings.
For whatever reason, Arbitron put Kenosha County in the Chicago radio market (It’s in the Milwaukee TV market) Milwaukee radio has better coverage in Kenosha County but that’s another story. They probably would also get numbers in the Chicago market (including the Illinois coverage they have) as a result if they did subscribe and that’s not to mention the fact that Chicago tourists and secondary residents make up a majority of Lake Geneva’s economy. If people brought their PPM meters with to Lake Geneva, it would likely also show up.
For whatever reason, Arbitron put Kenosha County in the Chicago radio market (It’s in the Milwaukee TV market) Milwaukee radio has better coverage in Kenosha County but that’s another story. They probably would also get numbers in the Chicago market (including the Illinois coverage they have) as a result if they did subscribe and that’s not to mention the fact that Chicago tourists and secondary residents make up a majority of Lake Geneva’s economy. If people brought their PPM meters with to Lake Geneva, it would likely also show up.
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Milwaukee radio has *marginally* better coverage in Kenosha County - but it's not really a knock out. While some Milwaukee FMs have much stronger coverage than those from Chicago, others are nearly non-existent here (106.9 for example). And, other than WTMJ, Chicago AMs actually have the better coverage in this area - which is likely how Kenosha County got put into the Chicago market in the first place. You'll note that I didn't name WISN which is stronger here in daylight but much weaker at night than the big Chicago AMs.
As for TV, I truly wish that Kenosha was in the Chicago market. After moving up here from IL, I was shocked to see what an amateur excrement show Milwaukee market TV stations are for a market of that size. And the happy talk in the news is clearly aimed at people who've never lived anywhere other than Milwaukee or Milwaukee County. It's small market garbage. Sadly, being in that market also means that cable blacks out a lot of programs on Chicago TV and (worst of all) we lost WGN-9 up here a couple years ago.
106.9 used to come in better in Kenosha until they put it on the Saga tower and had to go directional in 2007. They had a Smooth Jazz format at the time and they wanted better building penetration in office buildings downtown. I think it was a bad move as far as covering the entire area, but at the time they were targeting those office buildings with the format that they had.
The big Chicago AMs are 50kw Clear Channels. They probably cover Milwaukee better than some Milwaukee stations do at night.
WTMJ and WISN are complicated. Their tower sites are only about 14 miles away from Kenosha (Near the Racine-Kenosha County line) but they have directional antenna patterns. WTMJ actually had a better nighttime signal in Kenosha at their old Brookfield 5,000 watt site, since the null didn't have to be as sharp. WTMJ's current site is newer. Was built in the mid 1990s.
WISN is more complicated. They have to protect 3 other 1130s and the night null uses 9 towers. The night signal for WISN is actually better in Kenosha than it is in Racine. They have a very sharp null directly to the east to protect Detroit. That null eases a tad as you go farther south (Toward Kenosha)
A lot of the Milwaukee FMs would probably have stronger coverage than they do, however they aim their bays west toward Waukesha. WKKV (As WRKR) used to target Racine and Kenosha exclusively until around 1985 when they started focusing on Milwaukee. Similar happened to WIIL (formerly WJZQ) when they initially focused exclusively on Kenosha but started focusing on Suburban Chicago. Their FM bays aim SW, so their coverage in Illinois is better than it is in Milwaukee, even though it is closer. WIIL is a cheat the system operation. A few years back they changed the city of license to Union Grove to put the station in the Milwaukee Nielsen market to avoid market caps for Chicago, however none of their programming targets the Milwaukee market in any way. So basically they have an extra Chicago market station simply from changing the city of license to a town just across the county line.
Milwaukee TV used to be better, but it has gone downhill. However Milwaukee TV and Radio has Severe Weather coverage for Kenosha County when Chicago radio and TV does not most of the time. Milwaukee radio activates EAS for Kenosha County, since Kenosha County is also in the NWS Milwaukee forecast area.
The big Chicago AMs are 50kw Clear Channels. They probably cover Milwaukee better than some Milwaukee stations do at night.
WTMJ and WISN are complicated. Their tower sites are only about 14 miles away from Kenosha (Near the Racine-Kenosha County line) but they have directional antenna patterns. WTMJ actually had a better nighttime signal in Kenosha at their old Brookfield 5,000 watt site, since the null didn't have to be as sharp. WTMJ's current site is newer. Was built in the mid 1990s.
WISN is more complicated. They have to protect 3 other 1130s and the night null uses 9 towers. The night signal for WISN is actually better in Kenosha than it is in Racine. They have a very sharp null directly to the east to protect Detroit. That null eases a tad as you go farther south (Toward Kenosha)
A lot of the Milwaukee FMs would probably have stronger coverage than they do, however they aim their bays west toward Waukesha. WKKV (As WRKR) used to target Racine and Kenosha exclusively until around 1985 when they started focusing on Milwaukee. Similar happened to WIIL (formerly WJZQ) when they initially focused exclusively on Kenosha but started focusing on Suburban Chicago. Their FM bays aim SW, so their coverage in Illinois is better than it is in Milwaukee, even though it is closer. WIIL is a cheat the system operation. A few years back they changed the city of license to Union Grove to put the station in the Milwaukee Nielsen market to avoid market caps for Chicago, however none of their programming targets the Milwaukee market in any way. So basically they have an extra Chicago market station simply from changing the city of license to a town just across the county line.
Milwaukee TV used to be better, but it has gone downhill. However Milwaukee TV and Radio has Severe Weather coverage for Kenosha County when Chicago radio and TV does not most of the time. Milwaukee radio activates EAS for Kenosha County, since Kenosha County is also in the NWS Milwaukee forecast area.
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Walworth County is not in the Milwaukee... or any other... MSA
Market definitions are based principally on which market's stations are more listened to and, secondarily, commute patterns. Definitions are revised every year.
In cases where a county may move from one MSA to another, the subscribers have to agree. For example, when Miami and Ft Lauderdale were consolidated, a majority agreed. When Riverside/San Bernardino were proposed as additions to the LA market, there was not agreement.
Living in the Chicago off and on for most of my life the tv stations here have gone severely downhill in the last few years. The Chicago stations have rarely cover news for the far north suburbs for decades and never cover news in far southern Wisconsin/Kenosha county unless if it’s a big national story. Milwaukee use to be a very good tv news market just 10-15 years ago, sad to hear that it’s going downhill but thats been a national trend.
There are 2-3 Chicago tv stations in standard definition only on cable in Kenosha county but because of network and syndication rights to the Milwaukee stations the bulk the programming is blacked out. Knowing a few people that work at some Chicago tv stations, the ratings are so low for the remaining Chicago stations in Kenosha county that if the Milwaukee stations wanted to they could get them knocked off. The lack of ratings is likely why WGN was dropped years ago.
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I drove though Walworth County the other day and knowing that the average radio listener would highly unlikely listen to Chicago FMs on this drive being far out of listening range I notice that WFAWs translator on 101.1 overtaking WKQX in Lake Geneva. 101.1 was unlistenable until I got into Illinois. Even for far fringe reception a number of Chicago FM signals are unlistenable because of either full power stations (96.3,105.9) or translators (100.3, 101.1 94.7,101.9 and probably more) nearby in just about all of Walworth county.
A couple of minor corrections to your comment, as I know some of these answers. In Kenosha County, we are offered Chicago channels 2, 5, 7 and 32. WGN used to be offered when we first moved north of the border (almost 4 years ago), but then Tribune had a contract dispute with Spectrum and both WGN and Fox 6 from Milwaukee were blacked out. When the issue was resolvd, WGN was removed from the systems that offered it. Many people in Kenosha were pissed, but they were told (as I was) that it's out of market and that's that. As if we live in freakin' Sheboygan, no more care for the concept of "significantly viewed".
I agree with your assertion that Chicago TV news isn't what it used to be. I think this can be said for every market. But the step down to watching Milwaukee TV is jarring. A bunch of kids offering cursory, surficial and banal reports and the incredible parochialism that I guess is part of the culture up there. Their entire world is "Milwaukee", everyone watching has lived there forever (probably true, btw), everyone's family lives there, everyone roots for the Packers, etc. All of their channels are amateur hour and they suck.
As far as radio signals go, many of the Chicago FMs have been comprimised on the fringes by the HD sidebands of adjacent Milwaukee signals, But, those same Chicago signals return the favor in certain parts of the county (especially near the border) and can interfere with Milwaukee signals too. I live near the center of the county and can tell you that Milwaukee FMs tend to come in better, but I can get every Chicago FM - and quite well. Driving around does tend to favor MKE FMs though due to the aforementioned digital sidebands. As far as AMs go (for what they're worth), Chicago AMs come in better by and large. And, aside from WTMJ and WISN (daytime), none of the others from the market come in well enough to listen to at all. There was a proposal to move Kenosha County to the Milwaukee radio market a couple years ago, but it was rejected.
I would suspect when the contracts come up for renewal for the remaining Chicago tv channels would also be dropped in Kenosha. Except for a few places the days of getting out of market TV channels on cable are over and those channels are on SD only, almost everyone watches HD. In the ratings the Chicago stations are so low that the majority of the time all 4 don’t show up in the ratings.
Until about 10 years ago I was apart of an awards committee for the part of Midwest that included Chicago, Twin Cities and Milwaukee and a bunch of smaller markets (Green Bay, Des Moines) I got to see a lot of newscast and Newsclips, at that time the Milwaukee stations would hold there own against Chicago and Twin Cites. I would also travel time to time just to check out different markets before internet streaming. But at the end you could tell the quality was slipping in a number of markets.
If this were to happen, I'd drop cable immediately and get an excellent HD antenna mounted to my roof to pick up OTA signals from Chicago (and I'd get the bush-leaguers from Milwaukee too). The rest can be streamed.
Not sure where you get your ratings data. An increasing number of people have moved to Kenosha County (in particular) from the Chicago area to escape confiscatory property taxes and those people still commute back to IL. As an aside, it's one uncredited reason that Kenosha County went from blue to swing and now leans red.
For the thousands from that group, Milwaukee news is as relevant as news from Cedar Rapids to us. It's not just the journalism school-level crappiness of the Milwaukee news, it's also that my family couldn't give two turds about what's happening in Menomenee Falls or Wauwauwautosa or the Brewers. Although knowing just how crime-ridden Milwaukee is can be useful in planning to avoid it like the plague.
Nelson ratings data for Kenosha County. You have to remember not everyone is subscribing to the local cable company, many people have Dish Network, Directv or internet services like fubotv or YouTubetv that only carry the Milwaukee locals.
Isn’t it possible that for a number of people that are leaving Illinois for Wisconsin are trying to completely forget about the state/Chicago and they don’t want to be reminded by watching Chicago news?
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