One year after buying 94.7, Cumulus did a deal to bring country to another market where the format was hard to sell: San Francisco. They did an LMA with a small station near San Jose (KSJO) with the same idea of using a national platform to sell the country format in a void market. The experiment was a huge failure and the company backed out in 2016, a year after the Dickeys left. But these were two very similar attempts to fill format holes in two Top 5 markets.
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Country Format Billing
- Thread starter BJSteigner
- Start date
One year after buying 94.7, Cumulus did a deal to bring country to another market where the format was hard to sell: San Francisco. They did an LMA with a small station near San Jose (KSJO) with the same idea of using a national platform to sell the country format in a void market. The experiment was a huge failure and the company backed out in 2016, a year after the Dickeys left. But these were two very similar attempts to fill format holes in two Top 5 markets.
What's the power ratio now that they play old hip hop songs?
We can't tell until we have a full calendar year's billing. Ask me in Q2 of 2024.
KSJO is IN San Jose, and with 32 kw gets a 6o dbu almost to Alameda in the East Bay and nearly to the city on the peninsula. It's a pretty decent facility that covers nearly 50% of the market, but does not get the north bay up to Santa Rosa at all.
WNSH flipped to The Block in October 2021. It's now 2023, already more than a year.
Not a typical year as it was the third of the pandemic years. As I said, we will not know until next year. And we won't see 2022 billing, anyway, until around March or April.
I think David’s point is that the station won’t have a full year’s normal billing until then. As has been stated before, even successful flips tend to get pretty low billing for the first six months or so, until advertisers can get an idea as to what kind of numbers they’re buying. Six months from October 21 takes us to April 22, so the 2022 numbers won’t reflect the full year of normal billing. Therefore, 2023’s numbers will give a better picture.
If you know someone at Audacy who can divulge the numbers for a certain number of months, that would give you an idea sooner.
I think we all know the billing won't be great, just pick your reasons. I'm sure it will have nothing to do with the fact the station still has less than a 2 share. At least that gives it a low bar for the power ratio, not that we'll ever hear what it is.
We do know that Q4 of its first year on the air was ahead of the prior 3 quarters, which is evidence enough that anything was better than the former format.
That would take someone with Miller Kaplan access who is willing to violate the confidentiality agreement that users have to acknowledge.
David's right that KSJO (and the Bollywood station that succeeded it on 92.3) throws a strong signal onto much of the Bay Area, up to about the SFO and OAK airports area. North of that, not so much. But the Brain Trust at Cumulus also chose to ignore another market factor: little KRTY. While a Class A station with a limited signal broadcasting from San Jose (and licensed to Los Gatos), KRTY covered all of Santa Clara County and a lot of the adjacent communities, and had a long-running, popular and successful Country format dating back to the 80's, and owned by Robert Kieve, who had built up a megaton of goodwill in the community over nearly 50 years. So here you have "Nash" coming in canned, off the satellite, and trying to compete with a live and local station with 30 years of market heritage, and it Did Not Go Well for the Dickeys. Though, as BigA wrote, they were already gone by the time their latest bright idea hit the fan.
I’m not so sure about that. At less than $7 million of annual billing, WNSH billed less than what WNYL was doing during its final full year on air, which Audacy (yes, a different company I know) deemed unacceptable. But Alt had the benefit of a full cluster to share expenses with. I bet Nash was only barely clearing expenses considering it had less of a cluster of low-billers to share with.
The ratings bounced around quite a bit under both Cumulus and Audacy.
When looking at the final couple years of Cumulus ownership compared to Audacy, was there much difference? Seems to me the ratings were about the same (they did drop off right before Audacy dumped the format, if I remember correctly).
The ratings were about what you'd expect for country in NYC. At its peak it equaled what WYNY did in the early 90s with a uch better signal at 103.5. The main goal was to clear the national programming in a void market. That was the same goal in San Francisco. Having a station in San Jose allowed them to use it as a market #4 clear for national spots, regardless of the signal and ratings. So it was successful in terms of achieving that goal.
In reading this thread, there is a lot that I, as a mere listener, don't know about the financial workings of the radio business. But this much I think I do know:
1. There are vast stretches of North Jersey that don't get prime coverage from a Country FM station.
2. Some billing on an AM is better than no billing.
3. The number of listeners to 660 in daytime has to be virtually nil. (and soon 1010)
4. There are no more available FM signals. In Urban areas like NYC using what broadcast facilities there are to their best potential should be a priority. Maybe music on AM is a stretch, but programming experimentation needs to be tried somewhere. Waiting for an FM to falter before trying something different does not seem like a very forward looking business strategy. Is there documented evidence that no one under 40 will listen to anything other than FM? What has been attempted?
What people say they will do, and what they actually do may be two different things. Make an otherwise unavailable format accessible in a market, and see what happens. In the case of WNSH, Audacy wouldn't have had much to lose in trying. Recall that conventional wisdom said that national talk would not work in daytime. ABC talkradio had failed. Rush should have likewise bombed - until they tried.
I'm a quarter century past 40 and I won't listen to music on AM. My alternatives for music I can't get on FM here are SiriusXM and streaming.
Country music on AM isn't "programming experimentation." Especially when WFAN as an AM/FM combo is a successful brand.
Once again, Audacy has dealt with the format by putting it on HD. Anyone who wants the format, especially in northern NJ, need only get an HD radio. Much better audio quality than AM. You're beating the proverbial dead horse.
Programming country music on a commercial FM after the documented results from 94.7 would not be very forward looking either.
But since you brought up "business strategy," what would be your approach to attracting money to the country format in NYC?
That's an interesting question. The documented evidence is that people under 40 are listening to lots of things other than (or in addition to) FM, but most are not on broadcast radio. There is Sirius and all of the streaming options.
Radio broadcasters have recently asked the F.C.C. for permission to substantially increase the power of HD signals, following experiments indicating no significant increase in interference to adjacent frequencies would result.
If approved and implemented, perhaps the audience for New York's Country on 94.7 HD2, along with other HD channels will increase quite a bit. And perhaps a translator or two in northern NJ could eventually be linked to 94.7 HD2, if Audacy feels it's worth the expense.
If approved and implemented, perhaps the audience for New York's Country on 94.7 HD2, along with other HD channels will increase quite a bit. And perhaps a translator or two in northern NJ could eventually be linked to 94.7 HD2, if Audacy feels it's worth the expense.
They'd probably have to go out quite a distance to find an open frequency
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