You do realize, of course, that Conservative Talk is on a full-signal (albeit AM) station in the market, and that it has been circling the drain for many years. Everyone who wants that format, knows where to get it. There just aren't enough people who want it. Think of the demos! That audience is approaching death. If iHeart can't sell 5-share Alternative Rock, how are they gonna sell 1-share garbage that appeals to 60-100 year olds?!
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Mike Kaplan named PD of WRFF
- Thread starter atthestars
- Start date
Not to mention, it WAS tried on FM on IQ106.9. I think at best, it pulled a 2.3 share 6+? They pulled Rush and Hannity from WPHT and couldn't make anything of it.
I would think a Country competitor to XTU would do better than WRFF.
That's not just a problem with this station. It's a problem format wide. The only strong stations are the ones with heritage local morning shows. Unless Mike wants to start making records himself, his options are limited. Musicians are not making records for radio.
The time to do that was before they hired Mike Kaplan.
We know what this is, I'm sure it harkens some memories from the 80s.
We saw the same thing with Country in New York. The Block has very similar ratings to the Country station, but without the extremist hatred of the formats listeners, they probably are making twice the money.
No bias here, I deal only in fact.
The Block is one of my favorites, I never listened to Country, but honestly makes me the boogie man enemy lol.
In Philly I listen to Rumba more than Alt or XTU, as it seems like there's much more variety in the sounds of what I guess is still called Reggaeton, but like Bad Bunny, his songs don't all have the same beat at the same bpm. It's just much more fun and creative now than what I hear of today's hip hop.
Stereotypes are so silly but for so many hating their made up enemy defines their existence.
The problem may be not that all alternative rock fans are underemployed slackers, but that enough of them do fit that stereotype and are unsellable to advertisers. Advertisers want as close to a 100 percent receptive audience for their sales pitches as possible, and if 25 percent of a station's audience consists of fast food workers playing Fortnite in their mothers' basements and other poor sales prospects, the station doesn't bill as well as a station playing music that such people generally disdain.
Is it April Fool’s already?
Feel free to "clone me" and say the same thing if I miss the post.
I try to remember that many participants are new, and some are not involved with the business side of radio. I was one of those at one time, and lots of people explained things to me.
Bottom line is advertisers aren’t attracted to the station. There aren’t local personalities that you can sell. Local advertisers want results and that’s tough to do with a station that has no personality. There is no connection with the audience
Maybe I'm missing something, but this station got its best ratings when John Allers was here, doing more music mornings. I can't remember this station ever having local "personalities." This isn't a recent thing.
WIOQ used to do well, and then the bottom fell out of the format. That's not the station's fault. The music sucks.
No, I am saying that many advertisers don't choose to send their message to that station's listeners. It's an advertiser marketing issue, not a radio one.
There is not a big enough country audience to support two stations at the high level of XTU.
It is partially the station's fault, although I certainly agree headwinds within the format exist. The headwinds can be mitigated with smart programming. WKQI in Detroit is earning all time record high ratings right now. Z100 continues to excel. Some tweaks at 96.5 and a clever Taylor Swift promotion breathed major wind into their sails.
Perhaps the folks at Q102 have gotten complacent.
I agree a return to a music intensive direction would be nice for 104.5.
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Give it a few months.
The problem with Top 40 is similar to the problem with alternative: The new music is divisive. (except for a few artists such as Harry Styles or Taylor Swift) So stations like Z100 mitigate that by playing more gold. That's exactly what we're seeing at 104.5. We've never seen a time when new music is so divisive. That's not good for radio.
104.5 was Country when it was WRCP FM.
Winning comment of the day:
That's not just a problem with this station. It's a problem format wide. The only strong stations are the ones with heritage local morning shows
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