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It's not just KRTH, and not just Los Angeles.

vchimpanzee said:
Don't forget funeral homes, insurance, investment advice, doctors and car dealers.
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This is probably a regional thing, but I can't remember hearing a funeral home advertising on the radio since Forest Lawn gave up its big radio ad campaigns of the 70s and 80s in L.A.

EDIT: A quick search on YouTube shows they're still doing TV spots--but I haven't watched TV in L.A. in decades.
 
michael hagerty said:
This is probably a regional thing, but I can't remember hearing a funeral home advertising on the radio since Forest Lawn gave up its big radio ad campaigns of the 70s and 80s in L.A.

EDIT: A quick search on YouTube shows they're still doing TV spots--but I haven't watched TV in L.A. in decades.
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I know the local station I have listened to most in the car does it. That may be because it's a community radio station.

I think WLML in West Palm Beach does too. I keep hearing commercials advising people to plan funerals. Lately I've spent a lot more time listening to Serenade Radio, an online only nonprofit in England which has different shows all playing something related to what we call easy listening or adult standards. WLML does "The Great American Songbook" so you know many of its listeners are older. The only newer recordings are of old or old style songs. Unlike most adult standards stations, they don't even attempt AC or oldies, though a few songs that would fit in those categories get played from time to time.

Unlike a certain station I was streaming a lot, these two stations don't play a lot of what I would call familiar versions of songs. And neither station seems to have a lot of repetition, so they're going against the rule that the playlist should be small.
 
vchimpanzee said:
Unlike a certain station I was streaming a lot, these two stations don't play a lot of what I would call familiar versions of songs. And neither station seems to have a lot of repetition, so they're going against the rule that the playlist should be small.
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There is no “must be small rule”. The rule is, simply, play as many songs as test well. Every format is different.
 
Wild World doesn’t play on every iHeart Classic Hits station. It never plays on KJEB though I think 106.7 The Eagle does. It probably depends on the iHeartRadio station since some focus more on the 70s than others such as stations that state that they focus on the 70s, 80s, and 90s compared to those that just say the “80’s and more”. 106.7 in Portland focuses on the 70s and 80s while KJEB focuses more on 80s titles with some 70s, 90s and early 2K mixed in. 95.7 in Seattle probably has more 70s titles than Audacy stations per hour (though some iHeartRadio Classic Hits stations focus more on 70s titles than KJEB) though they focus more on the 80s just like most Classic hits stations today. I think Audacy Stations mainly focus on the 80s titles probably more than any iHeartRadio station with the same format.
 
michael hagerty said:
This is probably a regional thing, but I can't remember hearing a funeral home advertising on the radio since Forest Lawn gave up its big radio ad campaigns of the 70s and 80s in L.A.

EDIT: A quick search on YouTube shows they're still doing TV spots--but I haven't watched TV in L.A. in decades.
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An acquaintance of mine between gigs got a job in sales at Forest Lawn, and soon quit. He found out that the organization expected you to sell caskets to the bereaved exactly the same if you were selling used cars...I kid you not!
 
michael hagerty said:
Parse this:

#1 6+ three months in a row.

#1 18-34 adults

#1 25-54 adults

They’re doing fine, and clearly the audience doesn’t think they’re “serving up chaos”.
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"6+?" Are kindergartners wearing Nielsen sensors to school these days?? Lol. Yeah, let's market and promote doing well with 6 year olds. They listen to so much radio advertising and spend so much money.
 
michael hagerty said:
I understand that’s fairly common in that business.
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It is. A funny/sad story - one of my uncles passed away when I was living in Kansas City almost 30 years ago. My other uncle came up from his small Missouri town to help out. He and his wife happened to be retired funeral directors. We were looking at caskets and my uncle's wife was pointing out various things to watch out for. Finally, I blurted out, "this is like buying a car!" My uncle and aunt gave me this look that amounted to, "aha! you figured it out!"

The uncle who passed away, by the way, was a big radio nut and absolutely loved WDAF "61 Country".
 
If ad-free services had existed in the 50's, media would be very different today. It's a different environment, but radio still reaches over 85% of all people today and that makes it a viable medium for advertisers.
//
There is no money there. Even huge and influential organizations such as CBS Television have spent over a decade visiting marketers at the highest executive levels to try to get the 18-49 or 25-54 focus expanded, but with no luck at all. Advertisers come back with the fact that seniors can't be efficiently (meaning "profitably") targeted with ad campaigns while still representing a profit.

"Radio still reaches over 85% of all people today and that makes it a viable medium for advertiser."
EXACTLY.
"There is no money there. Even huge and influential organizations such as CBS Television have spent over a decade visiting marketers at the highest executive levels to try to get the 18-49 or 25-54 focus expanded, but with no luck at all."

Well...which is it...is Radio viable, or isn't it? Lol. And my point is about 55-74, not the typical 25-54 listener. (Which also means your first statement helps to fly in the face of poster Haggerty's post, claiming that "not all 30-40-somethings are poor." Sure, maybe a handful aren't.)
Except that 60% of Americans earn annual salaries of $40k or less, and the cost of living in LA is even worse compared to what was once considered "middle class" income levels, so...guess again. Radio still caters to The Poor because IT IS FREE. Radio is popular because it's not a pay service like Sirius/XM. This is a Radio board. People who pay for Sirius/XM have already given up 20mins of commercials an hour on commercial radio and don't care what goes on on terrestrial radio, or on here. Those who remain are likely not high-income earners. Baby Boomers are the last living generation to have earned money to raise families, go on vacations, send kids to college, live comfortably, and save for retirement, and receive regular pensions, when money went far enough for them in the '80s to allow them that. Despite that, Radio gave up on them 20 years ago.
 
RayydioLA said:
"6+?" Are kindergartners wearing Nielsen sensors to school these days?? Lol. Yeah, let's market and promote doing well with 6 year olds. They listen to so much radio advertising and spend so much money.
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Raydio, I see you're a new member. Let me help.

6+ has been the total audience measurement for a couple of decades now. It replaced 12+. Nobody markets and promotes that number, but it's the only one that Nielsen (which replaced Arbitron---or Pulse---or Hooper, depending on how old you are) distributes to be published for free. We also get sales demo rankings, and as you know---but ignored---18-34 and 25-54 are key sales demos.

Also, since you're new---this isn't a place where old guys come to crap all over radio stations they either don't like or don't understand. This is where we discuss what's actually happening in radio at the moment and why. If that's not appealing to you, there are a lot of Facebook groups where ignorance is not a problem.
 
RayydioLA said:
Well...which is it...is Radio viable, or isn't it? Lol. And my point is about 55-74, not the typical 25-54 listener.
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Like most things, it depends. Radio is not one thing. It's 16,000 different stations across the country, and there are a lot of different approaches. Some stations program to 55+. One that I watch is KOAI in Phoenix. It's a Top 5 station that is also #1 55+. But it doesn't make much money. The owner combines this one station with a couple other stations that program more to 18-49, and the money from those stations helps pay for the older station. There's also WRME Chicago, that primarily promotes a TV station of classic shows called METV. The audience there is also 55+. There are lots of soft rock stations, using the name The Breeze. They're also 55+. So they've found a way to make money targeting older audiences. KRTH is not one of those stations. But KCSN most likely is.
 
RayydioLA said:
If ad-free services had existed in the 50's, media would be very different today. It's a different environment, but radio still reaches over 85% of all people today and that makes it a viable medium for advertisers.
//
There is no money there. Even huge and influential organizations such as CBS Television have spent over a decade visiting marketers at the highest executive levels to try to get the 18-49 or 25-54 focus expanded, but with no luck at all. Advertisers come back with the fact that seniors can't be efficiently (meaning "profitably") targeted with ad campaigns while still representing a profit.

"Radio still reaches over 85% of all people today and that makes it a viable medium for advertiser."
EXACTLY.
"There is no money there. Even huge and influential organizations such as CBS Television have spent over a decade visiting marketers at the highest executive levels to try to get the 18-49 or 25-54 focus expanded, but with no luck at all."

Well...which is it...is Radio viable, or isn't it? Lol. And my point is about 55-74, not the typical 25-54 listener. (Which also means your first statement helps to fly in the face of poster Haggerty's post, claiming that "not all 30-40-somethings are poor." Sure, maybe a handful aren't.)
Except that 60% of Americans earn annual salaries of $40k or less, and the cost of living in LA is even worse compared to what was once considered "middle class" income levels, so...guess again. Radio still caters to The Poor because IT IS FREE. Radio is popular because it's not a pay service like Sirius/XM. This is a Radio board. People who pay for Sirius/XM have already given up 20mins of commercials an hour on commercial radio and don't care what goes on on terrestrial radio, or on here. Those who remain are likely not high-income earners. Baby Boomers are the last living generation to have earned money to raise families, go on vacations, send kids to college, live comfortably, and save for retirement, and receive regular pensions, when money went far enough for them in the '80s to allow them that. Despite that, Radio gave up on them 20 years ago.
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I'm a boomer who gave up on radio long ago myself. I only listened when I had my old car since all it had was AM/FM and a cassette player. Stuck in traffic with only supersets of ads playing on every station on my push buttons is one kind of hell I can do without putting up with for predictively boring highly restricted playlists. I got aboard SiriusXM train with my newer car when I'm not listening to podcasts from my phone. I grew up on AM and then FM. Radio went sour about the same time MTV turned it's back on music.
 
rparky54 said:
Radio went sour about the same time MTV turned it's back on music.
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As I said in the previous post, it depends on the station. There are quite a few stations around the country that you'd probably like if you knew they existed.

What I've noticed, and this may sound familiar, is that some radio listeners feel the stations they grew up with, or listened to 30 years ago, have changed. I was speaking with someone in Cleveland about WMMS. This was a heritage rock station in the 70s and 80s. Now it's a bit of a hybrid, with a lot more guy talk and less music. I've heard the same comments about WMMR in Philadelphia. What's really happened is that the people who used to listen to those stations have aged out of the target. It's a simple fact of life: people get older. Nothing wrong with that. But if a radio station follows that pattern, and ages with its audience, its audience will die. So the station keeps programming to a target age, and as people get older, they age out of that station. It's not unlike growing out of clothes. All those older people have to do is look around the dial, and they'll find a station that's now targeting them. In Philadelphia, it's WXPN. There are similar stations all over the country.
 
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RayydioLA said:
Those who remain are likely not high-income earners.
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I think that is a real risk. If advertisers believe their customers aren't using radio, that's a problem.

However, there is limited-to-no evidence that is the case today.

RayydioLA said:
Baby Boomers are the last living generation to have earned money to raise families, go on vacations, send kids to college, live comfortably, and save for retirement, and receive regular pensions, when money went far enough for them in the '80s to allow them that.
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Radio can't fix sociological changes, and can only respond to them if its customers (i.e. advertisers) demand it.
 
RayydioLA said:
"6+?" Are kindergartners wearing Nielsen sensors to school these days?? Lol. Yeah, let's market and promote doing well with 6 year olds. They listen to so much radio advertising and spend so much money.
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Also---responding to one third of a statistic and ignoring the other two thirds is what's considered arguing in bad faith on this board.

It's just one of the things that will make you very unpopular among those of us who have been here 10, 15, 20 years and more.

You might want to read this thread: https://www.radiodiscussions.com/threads/radio-discussions-dialogue-within-forums.764836/
 
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