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NYC Metro Radio Ratings - December 2022

Right now, the all-news product skews old, and that audience will not last forever. I am not sure if there will be a younger audience to keep all-news radio viable within a few decades, but it isn't without trying especially in NYC.

What the company needs to do is continue converting their exclusive content to digital platforms. Staffing two all news stations in the same market is inefficient. They already announced they'll be combining staffs under this new contract. WTOP has done a great job in digital. They are the model for how news radio should adapt to new media. Audacy needs to build a national news platform utilizing its major market news operations.
 
This is not a car race or a sporting event. There are dozens of winners in NYC radio, even some of the stations that are nearly no-show in ratings.

As a part of a 25-54 sales package, The Block is a nice fit and can help sell lots of multi-station buys. With clusters, you have to add up all the stations in a "package" to present to clients who buy based on ratings. Don't think of individual stations... think of the cluster.
How come Alt was cut?
 
With the loss of Country and Alt on regular signals, and no current mainstream rock stations (except for rimshots), it can seem that many other cities do have more music formats. WBGO does offer jazz full time, but their signal is so directional, I can barely receive it in many parts of the metro area.
 
What I believe BigA meant is that just because the FM dial in NYC lacks the one particular format you want, in this case alternative, does not mean that it lacks variety.

If we’re going to be particular, the majority of the FM stations in NYC proper are running formats that don’t have a direct format competitor in the city, with only a handful as an exception. And, in the case of stations with musical overlap, the presentations are different enough to distinguish them. Again, just because there isn’t the variety YOU want, doesn’t mean there’s a true lack of variety.

If you want to talk about a lack of variety, we can talk about at least one market I know of with about 5 different country stations, depending on where you are in the market.
 
KTU and Z share way too many songs. KTU needs to stick to dance or flip.
You are talking about the #2 and #6 billing stations in the market, which means they are enormously successful and complement each other in reaching 18-34 and 25-44 persons in the market. Each has a slightly different age and ethnic target.

There is nothing wrong with partial library overlap as many, many songs appeal to several audience groups. It is what each does not play that sets them apart.
 
Interestingly enough WDHA and The Peak both rimshots and play rock are in the ratings.
Both stations are "home" to the NYC metro survey area, just as all the LI stations are.
 
The other obvious problem is branding. They can't use WCBS-FM.
They could do what Lotus was forced to do in Seattle and simply go as “Newsradio 880 & [FM frequency]” with a different call sign.

Emphasis on could.
The problem is WCBS-FM uses WCBS-FM as its brand. Comparing it to KCBS in SF & KCBS-FM in LA (or for bonus points, WBBM in Chicago) is an apples and oranges comparison. In the case of NYC, two WCBS-branded stations on the FM dial could cause confusion, although there are other alternatives to make this small issue a non-issue entirely.
It’s why you’re seeing CBS’s owned-and-operated television stations adopting “CBS (City or regional)” branding. What is to be gained by having KDKA radio and TV, WBZ radio and TV and WCCO radio and TV share the same branding when neither are related?

Honestly, CBS should have been more strict on WCBS, WCBS-FM, KCBS and KCBS-FM and those call signs, but Les Moonves was so intent on ridding the company’s radio unit that they just didn’t care.
 
If you want to talk about a lack of variety, we can talk about at least one market I know of with about 5 different country stations, depending on where you are in the market.

Would that happen to be my local market, Knoxville, TN? Other than the plethora of Country choices here, the NYC dial has much better variety than we have in Knoxville.
 
There are format choices available in NYC that are not available in other major cities. The variety in the non-commercial stations alone exceed those available in places like Atlanta or DC.
 
This is not a car race or a sporting event. There are dozens of winners in NYC radio, even some of the stations that are nearly no-show in ratings.

As a part of a 25-54 sales package, The Block is a nice fit and can help sell lots of multi-station buys. With clusters, you have to add up all the stations in a "package" to present to clients who buy based on ratings. Don't think of individual stations... think of the cluster.
Why does WNYM (Hackensack) never show up in the NY ratings?, I know they have many listeners.
 
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There are format choices available in NYC that are not available in other major cities. The variety in the non-commercial stations alone exceed those available in places like Atlanta or DC.
Which formats exist in New York, that are not available in other large cities? The only one I can think of is WBAI, which only has sister stations in a few other places.
To use Atlanta as an example, they have the same major formats as New York, plus plenty of ethnic programming, urban music stations, jazz on non-commercial stations, Alt, and several Country stations.
 
We lack Alternative Rock and Country stations. With several stations playing the same types of music aka KTU, Z, and 102.7 and Lite. BLS, Hot, Power, and The Block, 97.9, 93.1, and 96.3 and spoken word The Fan and ESPN radio we lack variety 100%. With 92.3 being all news and 98.7 and 101.9 being sports when they're on AM, theres waste of space. Non commercial stations being 92.7, 95.5, 96.7 and soon to be 103.9 we are losing valuable radio frequencies.
 
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