• Get involved.
    We want your input!
    Apply for Membership and join the conversations about everything related to broadcasting.

    After we receive your registration, a moderator will review it. After your registration is approved, you will be permitted to post.
    If you use a disposable or false email address, your registration will be rejected.

    After your membership is approved, please take a minute to tell us a little bit about yourself.
    https://www.radiodiscussions.com/forums/introduce-yourself.1088/

    Thanks in advance and have fun!
    RadioDiscussions Administrators

Alt 92.3 to Become WINS Simulcast

I disagree. Less success than before does not equate to "failure."

Stern also earned terrific male 25 to 54 numbers in many markets on terrestrial. To suggest his success was largely confined to 18 to 34 is simply untrue.

Stern haters have spent a lifetime trying to diminish his success. The truth can be seen from his tenure and pay grade.
 
Stern haters have spent a lifetime trying to diminish his success. The truth can be seen from his tenure and pay grade.
Let's be realistic. His core was 18-34 men and they tended to write "6 AM to 10 AM Howard Stern" or the name of the station. When you saw that same station in the PPM for the same month and quarter, Stern was 9th or 10th. That is because nobody listened straight through for 4 hours... they hit the alarm delay several times, they took a shower, went to another room, went out with the dog, prepped breakfast where there was no radio, went to the bathroom and so on. The four diary hours were actually an hour and a half of listening.
 
However, I don't blame you or New wave, for better or worse, is linked to both Alternative and rock, and modern variations of that genre seem to be pleasing people of all races, and the retro elements make older folks happy while younger people hear something completely fresh.
While it is not considered an alternative song, The Weeknd's "Blinding Lights" sounds to me like a new wave song due to the prominent presence of the synthesizer.
 
Wrong. It was predominantly 18-34 men. Everything else was ground clutter.

I disagree about "everything else" being "ground clutter." He was carried on a number of classic rock stations because of his ability to garner male listeners who were middle aged in those media markets. He was also carried on some older skewing FM talkers, such as WCKG in Chicago and WJFK Washington.

Also, a pilot test in ONE market does not necessarily portend outcomes in all other markets.

I will agree, though, that big fans of certain personalities or radio stations tended to exaggerate listening, sometimes dramatically, in the diary era.
 
Last edited:
Let's be realistic. His core was 18-34 men and they tended to write "6 AM to 10 AM Howard Stern" or the name of the station. When you saw that same station in the PPM for the same month and quarter, Stern was 9th or 10th. That is because nobody listened straight through for 4 hours... they hit the alarm delay several times, they took a shower, went to another room, went out with the dog, prepped breakfast where there was no radio, went to the bathroom and so on. The four diary hours were actually an hour and a half of listening.
And Stern is exponentially more talented at self-promotion than he is at entertaining.
 
I disagree about "everything else" being "ground clutter." He was carried on a number of classic rock stations because of his ability to garner male listeners who were middle aged. He was also carried on some older skewing FM talkers, such as WCKG in Chicago and WJFK Washington.
Those talkers were aimed at young adult men, not 45 and over. And, back in '95 to 2000, the talk demo did include that group

The station in LA also did Hot Talk. It was aimed at 18-49 men, mostly 25-34 though for Stern. Stern, though, could not beat Renán on KSCA... which is why I followed those morning numbers so closely.
 
18 to 49 men sounds right for KLSX. WJFK and WCKG were shooting for 25 to 49 primarily.

Not many guys in their 20s were listening to Steve Dahl in PM drive on WCKG.

Stern on WCKG almost always earned better numbers in Men 25 to 54 than in Men 18 to 34.
 
But it (WMTR AM) has nearly no measured audience outside of its home county, and has nearly no 10 mV/m signal outside of it, either. Yes, if you try you can hear it, but it's not an easy "listening" choice outside of that immediate area: it gets nearly 80% of its measured listening in Morris County alone.
I still think it would make sense to flip WMTR 1250 AM to Country. WNSH 94.7 Country was among the top rated stations in the Morristown area. But WMTR with their oldies format had an overall rating of only 1.6 in the last Morristown book. And their demos must be very old.
As an AM station, I would expect it wouldn't do as well as WNSH. But with a local Country format focusing on northern/central NJ, it should be in a better position than it is now, especially in terms of demos. Perhaps they could eventually acquire an FM translator.
 
18 to 49 men sounds right for KLSX. WJFK and WCKG were shooting for 25 to 49 primarily.
Much of that depended on the market, the other talent and the station itself in each market.
Not many guys in their 20s were listening to Steve Dahl in PM drive on WCKG.
Not many people were listening to Hot Talk in PM drive anywhere... starting with Leykis in LA.
Stern on WCKG almost always earned better numbers in Men 25 to 54 than in Men 18 to 34.
Only because of the weighting of 18-24 which was generally too young for Stern. His core was 25-34 or 25-39. But 25-39 was not a cell in the diary days, so we extrapolated.

However, those of us who had the 2002-2006 Philadelphia PPM test data given to us saw exactly where the strength was and we also saw how much the PPM cut Sterns TSL: from and average of over 12 hours a week in the diary to under 3 hours in the PPM
 
I still think it would make sense to flip WMTR 1250 AM to Country. WNSH 94.7 Country was among the top rated stations in the Morristown area. But WMTR with their oldies format had an overall rating of only 1.6 in the last Morristown book.
Because it is an AM music station.
And their demos must be very old.
Because it is an AM station.
As an AM station, I would expect it wouldn't do as well as WNSH.
You can't go below zero.
But with a local Country format focusing on northern/central NJ, it should be in a better position than it is now, especially in terms of demos.
The only way an AM country station could do well is by doing classic country. Same demos as oldies. Anyone younger listens to country online or on SiriusXM.
 
I still think it would make sense to flip WMTR 1250 AM to Country. WNSH 94.7 Country was among the top rated stations in the Morristown area. But WMTR with their oldies format had an overall rating of only 1.6 in the last Morristown book. And their demos must be very old.
As an AM station, I would expect it wouldn't do as well as WNSH. But with a local Country format focusing on northern/central NJ, it should be in a better position than it is now, especially in terms of demos. Perhaps they could eventually acquire an FM translator.
I think acquisition of a translator would have to be a done deal before any format change is even scheduled for implementation. No one is going to listen to any kind of music on AM, especially a genre that skews significantly younger than oldies. Going country on AM while only dreaming of FM is a death wish.
 
I agree that Stern's core was approximately 25 to 39 or 25 to 34. He still did very well in 35 to 44 in many significant markets, and in others, he did indeed earn great numbers among men 18 to 24 (generally not a sellable demo on its own).

The Chicago example I cited had little to do with "weightings".

WCKG was a "dad" station, and Mancow on Q101 was simply much more popular with the 18 to 24 set than Stern on CKG. 18 to 24 year old males was not a core strength for CKG, far from it.
 
Last edited:
The station in LA also did Hot Talk. It was aimed at 18-49 men, mostly 25-34 though for Stern. Stern, though, could not beat Renán on KSCA... which is why I followed those morning numbers so closely.
of course he wouldn’t. The demographics of L.A. in which we all discuss a lot, would be a reflection of that
 
the Death of radio is in the hands of people who support a flawed system of recording ratings (ppm). so 10 or 20 people in a market x 100 determine where a radio station lives or dies and those 10 or 20 people represent the voice of millions in a market? Ok. Radio operators who complained about diaries won’t admit the fact their marketing strategies were just poor. so what people wrote down what they only remembered? Those radio stations must’ve done something right, from a marketing and promotions stand point, while the others didn’t. Ppm is extremely flawed, and radio 5 feet under (nearly 6) because of it. Even the company who began ppm was absorbed by Nielsen - for what it’s worth. Not trying to stir up drama, I respect everyone’s opinion!!
 
the Death of radio is in the hands of people who support a flawed system of recording ratings (ppm).

You're talking about the advertisers. They're the ones who want PPM. If it was up to us, we'd all go back to diaries. But it's not.

If we could run radio as a subscriber business, it would be very different. It would be more like Sirius. But people wouldn't pay if they weren't forced to, and the FCC won't allow radio stations to paywall their signals. So we're all screwed.
 
They are only killing off Alt for news which one can get on AM. New York is a wasteland for FM radio. Alternative was Audacy's signature format back in November 2017. They killed it by putting Kaplan in there. People were warning him of the iceberg and now that ship is sunk. Not sure why Audacy even bothered to put Alt on 92.3 if they were going to flip it to News and it was what they wanted all along. They barely tried. If they really tried it would have succeeded. I'm still shocked it lasted as long as it did with all the music and jock changes. Elliot is horrendous. His show is not even funny or local. No wonder he failed on WOR in 2013. What made Audacy think it would work now? On top of it they had posted jobs for morning show jocks on 92.3 and they still have part time job openings posted on LinkedIn. For what? They could have done a fresh start when they got rid of Country and swapped frequencies to 94.7 and put news on 92.3. Still not sure why 94.7 is The Block when they moved the signal slightly closer into NYC barely touching the major areas they are targeting. They can't compete with Hot 97, BLS, and Power which are iconic stations in NYC. They are trying to go up against KTU, but even KTU is a hot mess. It's like they design stations for failure. I can see 880 going to 94.7 too. What a waste of a great company that owns 98.5 KRZ one of my favorite stations.
 
Last edited:
WCBS 880 is not going to add a simulcast at 94.7. I believe Audacy has made it quite clear they’re going with WINS for the long term as far as news on FM goes.

My personal opinion is after news has been on 92.3 for a while, there will begin a gradual phase out of news on 880 as we currently know it. We might see talk shows outside of AM and PM drive within a year or so with all news relegated to those slots mentioned above….and it gradually phases in to a talk station.
 
My unprofessional personal take on a few things being discussed on thread.

Although I always lower my head to hear of a personally preferred radio format to be flipped away, I can see Audacy having some programming on the HD2 version, as they do on 94.7 HD2 with country. My take is that it's the first step to possibly increasing interest in HD Radio. Still, it has to compete with alternate options, including streaming the same stations via company apps. Still I approve of doing so more than just making HD2 a Zombie Jukebox for fans of the old format.

With the limited growth of the KNX brand on FM in LA, I question if the coming 92.3 WINS will grow, or if it's more about sustaining an otherwise declining AM listenership. If it's the latter, I see this as putting duct tape on a hole in a boat. It might lower the leak, but without a longterm fix, it will eventually sink.

Country as a brand of music is popular in cities that aren't as predominant in a population of first generation immigrants. As for who listens to country, I see it as two camps. First are the people who live in rural areas. When you go into the suburbs, I identify it as 30 to 40 somethings who all listened to 90s Gansta Rap, when they were in Middle and High School. Just my observation of the population of the little microcosm where I live. With the latter, I question how long until they flock to a different sound. With that group, my observation is that they tend to follow each other, over time, to new and different sounds. In other words, they tend to follow the crowd than have unique preferences. That's not to say that is of all country listeners. In fact, I view most country listeners as being lifetime avid fans. Just that the group of which I mention is a group that can lower the numbers, once they move on to something different in another 10 to 15 years.
 
Last edited:
My unprofessional personal take on a few things being discussed on thread.

Although I always lower my head to hear of a personally preferred radio format to be flipped away, I can see Audacy having some programming on the HD2 version, as they do on 94.7 HD2 with country. My take is that it's the first step to possibly increasing interest in HD Radio. Still, it has to compete with alternate options, including streaming the same stations via company apps. Still I approve of doing so more than just making HD2 a Zombie Jukebox for fans of the old format.

With the limited growth of the KNX brand on FM in LA, I question if the coming 92.3 WINS will grow, or if it's more about sustaining an otherwise declining AM listenership. If it's the latter, I see this as putting duct tape on a hole in a boat. It might lower the leak, but without a longterm fix, it will eventually sink.

Country as a brand of music is popular in cities that aren't as predominant in a population of first generation immigrants. As for who listens to country, I see it as two camps. First are the people who live in rural areas. When you go into the suburbs, I identify it as 30 to 40 somethings who all listened to 90s Gansta Rap, when they were in Middle and High School. Just my observation of the population of the little microcosm where I live. With the latter, I question how long until they flock to a different sound. With that group, my observation is that they tend to follow each other, over time, to new and different sounds. In other words, they tend to follow the crowd than have unique preferences. That's not to say that is of all country listeners. In fact, I view most country listeners as being lifetime avid fans. Just that the group of which I mention is a group that can lower the numbers, once they move on to something different in another 10 to 15 years.
They will probably do podcasts on 880
 
Status
This thread has been closed due to inactivity. You can create a new thread to discuss this topic.


Back
Top Bottom