It seems that IHeartMedia has a monopoly/control of CHR format within the Top 50 Radio Market. Only markets that doesn't have IHM owned CHR ( I don't count embedded markets such as San Jose, Nassau-Suffolk, etc) are #6 Houston Tx (KRBE owned by Cumulus), #16 Puerto Rico, #26 Riverside-San Bernardino, #32 Las Vegas (98.5 KLUC owned by Audacy), #34 Kansas City )KMXV 93.3 Steel City media, and KMJK107.3 The Vibe owned by Cumulus), #38 Indianapolis (99.5 ZPL owned by Cumulus), #43 Milwaukee (WXSS KISS 103.7, #44 Providence (92.3 WPRO-FM owned by Cumulus), and #45 Hampton Roads (WNVZ 104.1 owned by Audacy).
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IHM and CHR
- Thread starter e-dawg
- Start date
No, they just positioned themselves in markets with the right amount of population and demographic to do it. White females.
Mom and pop CHRs aren’t necessarily better at all.
Mom and pop CHRs aren’t necessarily better at all.
It's not as though other radio companies haven't tried. Audacy gave the audience a choice in LA, Philly, and Chicago, and in all three cities, a majority of the listeners chose iHeart. The fact is the audience doesn't listen to owners, they listen to music.
The real story is the weakening of CHR as a format, and the inability of the format to attract enough listeners to support two stations in the same market. The only thing ownership caps do is open the door for religious operators to buy quality frequencies and flip them to non-com Christian music and teaching.
You forgot Atlanta
WWPW.
Cumulus WWWQ is beating them
I would have to do research, but a lot of these “second CHR’s” hit the airwaves during a very large boom in CHR that ran from around 2009-2014 or so. The flips seemed to peak in 2010 and 2011. Stations were flipping to CHR left and right because the format was doing extremely well. In many markets, if iHeart didn’t have a CHR, they flipped a station to CHR. CBS also leaned heavily in to CHR, but most never failed to gain much traction and were gone years ago - KMVQ in San Francisco being a blaring exception.
What I think we’re seeing is the unwinding of the “second CHR” as mentioned above. CBS (and later Entercom/Audacy’s CHR’s they got from them) was fortunate to have clear voids for most of their ill fated CHR startups to flip to, or something they could try. What we’re seeing now in many cases is you may have a struggling CHR, but there aren’t any viable alternative formats - so we’re seeing the operators be patient with the format, try tweaking to a more hot AC sound, moving to a more rhythmic gold direction, etc. Do you stick with the CHR, which may have done decently in the past, and give the format some more time vs. doing an expensive flip and starting from scratch with no guarantee of any more success?
That being said, looking at the recent numbers from this week, CHR isn’t improving.
What I think we’re seeing is the unwinding of the “second CHR” as mentioned above. CBS (and later Entercom/Audacy’s CHR’s they got from them) was fortunate to have clear voids for most of their ill fated CHR startups to flip to, or something they could try. What we’re seeing now in many cases is you may have a struggling CHR, but there aren’t any viable alternative formats - so we’re seeing the operators be patient with the format, try tweaking to a more hot AC sound, moving to a more rhythmic gold direction, etc. Do you stick with the CHR, which may have done decently in the past, and give the format some more time vs. doing an expensive flip and starting from scratch with no guarantee of any more success?
That being said, looking at the recent numbers from this week, CHR isn’t improving.
What Audacy has been doing is adapting them into Hot ACs. That's what they did in Philly, and it worked. WTDY is much closer to iHeart's WIOQ than before.
We had a THIRD CHR sign on in Des Moines in 2021. Cumulus, KWQW, 98-3 The Vibe. (It shifted form Classic Hip-Hop to CHR Main) It's a threeway battle with Saga KIOA-HD2 "Hits 99.9" (Translator) which signed on in 2011 and heritage KKDM "107-5 KISS-FM" which is IHM. And, we also have two Hot AC's on in the market.
12 plus ratings have it mostly in the 0.6 share to 1.7 share range depending. I think there's been no more than 3 or 4 books where it tops at 2.0. Only has two satellite shows during the weekday on it. Bert Show and Elliot. No mix show on the weekend, no other tracked jocks, etc. It's a 50kw signal. I don't get it. Core demo, cant even be all that great. Most breaks have a few local adds give or take, some agency. Still heard 1 or 2 PSA's now and then.
Hits 99.9 which is the translator (KIOA-HD2) regularly eclipses or surpasses the Vibes ratings. And then Heritage KISS-FM is in the 5 share range regularly.
Way too much pop on the air in this market.
I realize its not radio but....oddly enough the spotify top streamed genres in Des Moines in 2023 were:
1. Pop
2. Hip-Hop
3. Rap
4. Rock
5. Country
Should have went current Rhythmic with KWQW in 2021. They at least probably wouldn't be doing any worse than they are with Mainstream. So, I don't get it. But we shall see what happens.
But here's the thing...if this doesnt work, will they just run a jukebox Rhythmic and try to sell a few spots here and there? Nope, I bet they honestly look at selling it to K-Love or something. I mean, right now I would bet most spots on the CHR Main format are likely part of cluster buys. Nothing really directly selling on this format, on this station, at all.
12 plus ratings have it mostly in the 0.6 share to 1.7 share range depending. I think there's been no more than 3 or 4 books where it tops at 2.0. Only has two satellite shows during the weekday on it. Bert Show and Elliot. No mix show on the weekend, no other tracked jocks, etc. It's a 50kw signal. I don't get it. Core demo, cant even be all that great. Most breaks have a few local adds give or take, some agency. Still heard 1 or 2 PSA's now and then.
Hits 99.9 which is the translator (KIOA-HD2) regularly eclipses or surpasses the Vibes ratings. And then Heritage KISS-FM is in the 5 share range regularly.
Way too much pop on the air in this market.
I realize its not radio but....oddly enough the spotify top streamed genres in Des Moines in 2023 were:
1. Pop
2. Hip-Hop
3. Rap
4. Rock
5. Country
Should have went current Rhythmic with KWQW in 2021. They at least probably wouldn't be doing any worse than they are with Mainstream. So, I don't get it. But we shall see what happens.
But here's the thing...if this doesnt work, will they just run a jukebox Rhythmic and try to sell a few spots here and there? Nope, I bet they honestly look at selling it to K-Love or something. I mean, right now I would bet most spots on the CHR Main format are likely part of cluster buys. Nothing really directly selling on this format, on this station, at all.
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If you correlate this list with radio, it's easy to understand where the radio vs. streaming demo break is: 1,2,3 are popular because streaming is used more by younger demos verses the older demo who prefers rock and country.
I'll bet if that list was purely radio, the ranking order would be flipped.
But why serve 1, 4 and 5 on the air in the market? I see your point but its the randomness of it compared to even neighboring markets and even markets with less diverse populations that makes me scratch my head even from a corporate standpoint.
There's money to be made. Nobody gets 100%. What you play for is percentage. Right now there's enough onair audience to justify those formats.
Because most station groups are trying to attract demo ranges of listeners to be attractive for national ad sales. The sweet spots are 18-34MF, and 25-54MF. Percentages of demos vary with each market, but national ads can be sold based over multiple markets. If you aren't in the game for any particular market, there's a gap.
I'm pretty confident Des Moines meets those thresholds. (Maybe I'm wrong). Makes sense how we would be overlooked though based on the gap you mentioned. And its expensive to flip and start from scratch. I can only imagine the current performance of KWQW probably hasn't been encouraging for Cumulus to do anything new anyway.
It depends. Many times because of the way a particular market demos swing, certain stations aren't expected to be superstars but at least hold their own. Those stations serve a greater role to the company as a whole by keeping the demo gaps filled across the group.
Sure, and I've often suspected getting the Bert Show and Elliot on the air was a key goal. Getting the talent in the market on a national level was probably more important. Ive got a buddy in the building there who did say neither show is really relatable to the market. I dont know what he was speaking of but he didnt make it sound like the numbers were great. But they also arent flipping it as of yet so maybe its doing fine for their goals.
I know radio is fragmented but I have to wonder why some radio stations, even from iHeart, even bother with local hosts (not including sports radio due to regional allegiances). It would be like having NBC markets where instead of Jimmy Fallon at night, you get a local schmo.
Yeah from behind the scenes, it's kind of a weird way of thinking: An individual station in a group holding their own within the group is generally acceptable because you fill the need. What's ironic is when you pass the competition for more than a few books. Then you're expected to hold that upper hand indefinitely. If the competition passes you, you've messed up. In other words; many times mediocrity in a market where a format like CHR isn't that strong is a good thing.
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