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Raise the white flag

To their credit, this is not corporate syndication that was forced on this station by the big corporate owner. That's what happened at a few other stations in town. This is a very small show syndicated by a small group in the southeast.
 
This will fail like every other horrible decision Summit has made to their stations. If Summit wants to win again, go back and look at the template of what the stations were doing when Summit bought them. Put everything back like it was and if it's not too late, maybe they'll start to see some growth again. Blowing up the highly successful, legendary Lite 106.9 has proved to be a disaster for Summit. Adding hard edged redneck rock to 1077 SFR and changing the station to Eagle?....was also a horrible decision. SFR was the classic rock for doctors and lawyers and qmf was more for the rednecks. In Summits defense, Q103 has never been able to connect with the country audience here. Plus there has to be some Nielson confusion with QMF being the Q for decades and then a Q country. One too many Q's.
 
This will fail like every other horrible decision Summit has made to their stations. If Summit wants to win again, go back and look at the template of what the stations were doing when Summit bought them. Put everything back like it was and if it's not too late, maybe they'll start to see some growth again. Blowing up the highly successful, legendary Lite 106.9 has proved to be a disaster for Summit. Adding hard edged redneck rock to 1077 SFR and changing the station to Eagle?....was also a horrible decision. SFR was the classic rock for doctors and lawyers and qmf was more for the rednecks. In Summits defense, Q103 has never been able to connect with the country audience here. Plus there has to be some Nielson confusion with QMF being the Q for decades and then a Q country. One too many Q's.
This is the most truthful post ever written on here.
 
I hate seeing these legacy stations struggle or fail. I think we have to be fair and remember how significantly the listenership, pool of listeners and business dynamics have changed. It leaves about all of us scrambling for new ideas that we're hopeful will make that "big difference" or impact that is needed. I doubt anyone said, "hey, let's screw up Lite 106.9", it just hasn't worked like they thought it would.

Loved this station while I lived there. I'm rooting for them and hope they can get back on track.
 
This is what it looks like when an industry is dying. We won't all wake up one day to find every radio station gone. It's just a long, slow slide into irrelevance. Highly targeted, digital advertising has rendered OTA broadcasting's shattershot approach outdated. Audiences simply have many more options for information/music/entertainment, most of them with FAR fewer commercial interruptions. Many station licenses are worth less than the real estate their towers sit on. It is sad to witness, but also inevitable as time marches forward.
 
This is what it looks like when an industry is dying.

People have been predicting the death of radio for 75 years. First, TV was going to kill it. Then FM would kill AM. However, WHAS is still a Top 5 station in Louisville. Then MTV would kill the radio stars. Whatever happened to MTV? Now its digital. The fact is that most radio companies are evolving into digital companies with their own streaming platforms.

What's happening in Louisville is that iHeart is sucking up most of the money and most of the ears. They're not doing it with traditional live & local programming, but they're winning. That's not the death of an industry. It's basic competition.
 
This is what it looks like when an industry is dying. We won't all wake up one day to find every radio station gone. It's just a long, slow slide into irrelevance. Highly targeted, digital advertising has rendered OTA broadcasting's shattershot approach outdated. Audiences simply have many more options for information/music/entertainment, most of them with FAR fewer commercial interruptions. Many station licenses are worth less than the real estate their towers sit on. It is sad to witness, but also inevitable as time marches forward.
Plus, I know no one that has a radio in their house. Everyone has a tv.
 
Plus, I know no one that has a radio in their house. Everyone has a TV.

People have radios in their cars, and apparently that's where most people listen.

Keep in mind radio companies don't make or sell radios anymore. And there are lots of ways to listen to radio that don't involve a traditional radio device.
 
Plus, I know no one that has a radio in their house. Everyone has a TV.
Sad to see an industry self destructing. Radio could compete and run popular "podcasts" on AM's for example. Lower the commercial load and get rid of the tiring relentless iheartradio ap ads that run every 5 minutes and invite listeners back in with innovative programming. Radio desperately needs smarter and more creative minds at the helm. If we keep the current regime in place, it's bye bye to our beloved radio business well within our lifetime. Radio is not entertaining anymore. It's obnoxious and fatiguing. Easy fix.
 
This will fail like every other horrible decision Summit has made to their stations. If Summit wants to win again, go back and look at the template of what the stations were doing when Summit bought them. Put everything back like it was and if it's not too late, maybe they'll start to see some growth again. Blowing up the highly successful, legendary Lite 106.9 has proved to be a disaster for Summit. Adding hard edged redneck rock to 1077 SFR and changing the station to Eagle?....was also a horrible decision. SFR was the classic rock for doctors and lawyers and qmf was more for the rednecks. In Summits defense, Q103 has never been able to connect with the country audience here. Plus there has to be some Nielson confusion with QMF being the Q for decades and then a Q country. One too many Q's.

Pretty spot on here. The market was obviously not asking for a Hot AC, based on the ratings 106.9 is now receiving.

Also: not only are the morning show's now syndicated, their choices are head scratchers. They have a CHR morning show on the Country station, and now an AC show on the Hot AC (that used to be AC).

They begin the hour with a stopset. On all of their stations, last time I checked. :02 after the hour and they begin with 7 minutes of spots. In all my years in radio, that's a first. I've never seen that done and can't imagine why anyone thought that was a good idea.

Some of this (all?) is surely corporate decisions made above the local level.

The cluster needs an overhaul. Primarily 103.1 and 106.9. A well programmed, locally focused (including mornings) AC should dominate in ratings and revenue.

But Summit just rolled this out on their AC in Omaha, too. I wouldn't expect stellar programming out of this company anytime soon, and that's unfortunate.
 
People have been predicting the death of radio for 75 years. First, TV was going to kill it. Then FM would kill AM. However, WHAS is still a Top 5 station in Louisville. Then MTV would kill the radio stars. Whatever happened to MTV? Now its digital. The fact is that most radio companies are evolving into digital companies with their own streaming platforms.

What's happening in Louisville is that iHeart is sucking up most of the money and most of the ears. They're not doing it with traditional live & local programming, but they're winning. That's not the death of an industry. It's basic competition.
Who would have ever thought radio would be killing itself. With deregulation, we now have more signals to choose but listeners have to pick which station sucks less instead of being drawn to a station that sounds magic, innovative, intriguing, creative, and/or plays one great song after another with unbelievable talent. What these current radio owners don't realize is through the years, Louisville has had some of the most amazing radio stations with major market talent. Now listeners have to settle for unpolished talent, music that is not researched, lame syndicated morning shows and national contests instead of exciting local fun giveaways etc. all wrapped inside an insane amount of irritating iheart radio app ads and painful 6-12 minute stopsets. The fact is, Neilson has to fudge numbers to make radio relevant cause if radio doesn't make money, Neilson becomes irrelevant.
 
Neilson has to fudge numbers to make radio relevant cause if radio doesn't make money, Neilson becomes irrelevant.

Not true. Radio stations would prefer not to have Nielsen. The only reason they subscribe is advertisers demand it. However, the numbers they report are confirmed in other surveys. If Nielsen fudged numbers, they wouldn't get accredited and advertisers would sue. Nielsen makes more money from TV and from the advertisers themselves. Radio is small potatoes to them.
 
Not true. Radio stations would prefer not to have Nielsen. The only reason they subscribe is advertisers demand it. However, the numbers they report are confirmed in other surveys. If Nielsen fudged numbers, they wouldn't get accredited and advertisers would sue. Nielsen makes more money from TV and from the advertisers themselves. Radio is small potatoes to them.
We understand how it works so no confusion there. However, when you walk in lots of local stores, offices where local radio has been replaced by Sirius and/or music services and subscriptions, when our sons daughters wives husbands and all of their friends all have Spotify, Tidal and Apple Music, when absolutely no one you talk to can even recall a local radio station, when every family and friends car you ride with has Sirius etc....you have to assume local radio listenership is way way off. Yet Neilson reports cume is steady or up slightly. It's naive to think Neilson would not throw out non radio listening households. And yes they fudge the numbers. I remember our GM boarding a plane to Washington DC after several surveys to review diaries and there were many discrepancies.
 
you have to assume local radio listenership is way way off. Yet Neilson reports cume is steady or up slightly.

You're looking at the wrong thing. What's down is TSL. People are sharing their time with other devices. So radio TSL is down. People use lots of different devices at different times. They may listen to the radio while driving in their car, and the rest of the time they listen to something else.

It's naive to think Neilson would not throw out non radio listening households.

They don't throw them out. They measure any signal that encodes for PPM. With a diary market like Louisville, they tell diary users to include other devices such as satellite. SiriusXM has told them not to include it. They don't measure some other services because they don't have advertising, and their primary purpose is to measure audience for advertising. But back in the day when people listened to their personal music collections, did anyone include that listening with radio?

I remember our GM boarding a plane to Washington DC after several surveys to review diaries and there were many discrepancies.

I've done that too, and the discrepancies are in interpreting the responses of the diary writer. That's why you examine the diaries. They're not "fudging" the numbers. It's misreading handwritten responses.
 
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Glad someone agrees! WGZB would be the clear number one and I don't believe WHAS would be in the top 5. I personally think KSR is the only reason WKJK has any ratings at all, but who knows since they have Hannity and Ramsey.
 
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