May 2024 Ratings

[Barry]

A couple of trends seem interesting. WCBS 880 AM is down to 1.5 overall. According to RadioInsight, that is an all time low.
WBLS 107.5 continues to decline, from 4.8 in January, to 3.9. WWPR 105.1 is down to 1.6, just slightly ahead of The Block.
Meanwhile, K-Love on WPLJ has been on the rise. And The Wolf 103.1, the new Country station on Long Island, is up for a second month in a row. Since it switched from rock to Country, it has risen from 2.3 to 3.1 overall.

May 2024

 

[dcowboy7]

Z100 #2 in 18-34 / 18-49 / 25-54 nice.

Still good again to see XBK floundering.
PLJ beat both hip hops again too lol.

 

[coreynj2461]

Z100 #2 in 18-34 / 18-49 / 25-54 nice.

Still good again to see XBK floundering.
PLJ beat both hip hops again too lol.

Haven't listened to z100 in years. Stumbled upon it and was nice to hear some 2000s songs every now and then. Is that new? In the 2000s they didn't play any 80s.

 

[dcowboy7]

No theyve played older stuff like that for awhile now.
I think the fact that charts are alot slower now & less songs get on the playlist kinda makes them also need to go back to older stuff too.
Theres 3 songs still in the top 10 that have been on the chart 28 29 & 30 wks.

 

[Jeffrey]

Z100 #2 in 18-34 / 18-49 / 25-54 nice.

Still good again to see XBK floundering.
PLJ beat both hip hops again too lol.

Why is it good to see it floundering? Aside from WXBK, in general urban radio, mostly hip, hop has dived in many markets. When a religious station ranks higher than hip, hop stations in nyc you know vast amounts of people are going elsewhere for music and that's not saying much for KLove since they're not exactly a ratings sensation but still...

 

[OriginalSample]

WXBK 20 years ago would be a top rated station.Many neighborhoods in Brooklyn and Queens has been gentrified since then with younger Midwesterners. Also WXBK is bland sounding.

 

[OriginalSample]

^ that should read *have been gentrified*. A lot of the people moving there are young professionals from big cities like Chicago who work in tech. I read somewhere else states like Ohio are also a big source of newcomers ( which I don’t consider to be a Midwest state).

I’m surprised that Audacity doesn’t put on big concerts like iHeart does. It seems to be a good revenue generator.

 

[Rollo-Smokes]

Why is it good to see it floundering? Aside from WXBK, in general urban radio, mostly hip, hop has dived in many markets. When a religious station ranks higher than hip, hop stations in nyc you know vast amounts of people are going elsewhere for music and that's not saying much for KLove since they're not exactly a ratings sensation but still...

There's no such thing as "hip, hop". There's no comma in between the words. It's Hip-Hop.

And on topic, WXBK's apparently problem is exactly what I feared when the format first started: Corporate, with a tight playlist drafted by consultants. This would be fine in West Bubblefunk, but not in the birthplace of the genre.

The demos may be favorable for the station to achieve some kind of success for Audacy, but they need to let Skip Dillard and his team go "buck wild" and program the music they way it should be. Just my two cents.

 

[TheBigA]

I’m surprised that Audacity doesn’t put on big concerts like iHeart does. It seems to be a good revenue generator.

They also require very expensive event insurance.

A lot of radio companies have looked into it. Typically these concerts work best for CHR and country stations. Audacy doesn't have either of them. iHeart has Z100 and a national platform of CHRs and syndicated shows (such as Ryan Seacrest) that makes these things easier to do in terms of artist relations.

 

[Barry]

Any ideas why WBLS has continued dropping over several months? While the market seems oversaturated with hip-hop stations, 'BLS is the only urban a/c.

 

[OriginalSample]

They also require very expensive event insurance.

A lot of radio companies have looked into it. Typically these concerts work best for CHR and country stations. Audacy doesn't have either of them. iHeart has Z100 and a national platform of CHRs and syndicated shows (such as Ryan Seacrest) that makes these things easier to do in terms of artist relations.

I’m thinking that iHeart might have a clause that might prevent some of these artists from participating if Audacy decided to go that route.

 

[VicRadio]

There's no such thing as "hip, hop". There's no comma in between the words. It's Hip-Hop.

And on topic, WXBK's apparently problem is exactly what I feared when the format first started: Corporate, with a tight playlist drafted by consultants. This would be fine in West Bubblefunk, but not in the birthplace of the genre.

The demos may be favorable for the station to achieve some kind of success for Audacy, but they need to let Skip Dillard and his team go "buck wild" and program the music they way it should be. Just my two cents.

Facts! I noticed they put a couple more records in the playlist, but a lot of people are tired of hearing Ja Rule and Ashanti. That station should sound like a mild version of Rock the bells radio from SiriusXM

 

[davideduardo]

There's no such thing as "hip, hop". There's no comma in between the words. It's Hip-Hop.

Nitpicking. Hip-Hop, hip hop, hip-hop, even hiphop have all been used.

Is it "Rock 'n Roll" or "Rock 'n' Roll" or "Rock and Roll" or...

And on topic, WXBK's apparently problem is exactly what I feared when the format first started: Corporate, with a tight playlist drafted by consultants. This would be fine in West Bubblefunk, but not in the birthplace of the genre.

Consultants don't create playlists. Listeners do through music testing.

The demos may be favorable for the station to achieve some kind of success for Audacy, but they need to let Skip Dillard and his team go "buck wild" and program the music they way it should be. Just my two cents.

The on-air jocks don't pick music an in most formats have not done that for half a century. The PD my have a part in new music, but the rest is done through listener research.

 

[davideduardo]

Facts! I noticed they put a couple more records in the playlist, but a lot of people are tired of hearing Ja Rule and Ashanti. That station should sound like a mild version of Rock the bells radio from SiriusXM

Actually, it should sound like what the target listeners want to hear.

 

[davideduardo]

A lot of radio companies have looked into it. Typically these concerts work best for CHR and country stations. Audacy doesn't have either of them. iHeart has Z100 and a national platform of CHRs and syndicated shows (such as Ryan Seacrest) that makes these things easier to do in terms of artist relations.

iHeart has only a very limited stable of Spanish language stations, and they have a variety of non-synergistic formats. Yet they have done some huge Latin Music concerts. What iHeart does have is big enough pull to deal with Ticketmaster favorably enough.

 

[Rollo-Smokes]

Nitpicking. Hip-Hop, hip hop, hip-hop, even hiphop have all been used.

All true. But it's still not "hip, hop". That's something else entirely. Or, part of the first verse of "Rapper's Delight" by the Sugar Hill Gang.

Consultants don't create playlists. Listeners do through music testing.

I meant to say listener test groups as well, but I couldn't edit my post in time.

The on-air jocks don't pick music an in most formats have not done that for half a century. The PD my have a part in new music, but the rest is done through listener research.

I'm aware that on-air personalities don't have much sway, but the MD, PD and APD should. And in this case, with a genre that has strong roots in New York and air personalities that were around when the songs were new–and some of whom broke those songs on the air–this deserved unique attention.

I once said to a former colleague of mine at the station I work at (conservative talk/Christian preaching) when these throwback hip-hop formats began to pop-up several years ago that if it were ever to come to NYC, it can't sound generic or "too safe". Yet, here we are.

Another poster suggested that "Rock the Bells" on SXM is what WXBK should sound like (no profanity, of course) but with a tweak to focus on the 1993-2003 period, which would hit a sweet spot in the demos.

Facts! I noticed they put a couple more records in the playlist, but a lot of people are tired of hearing Ja Rule and Ashanti. That station should sound like a mild version of Rock the bells radio from SiriusXM

I couldn't stand Ja Rule, Ashanti and the rest of the Murder Inc. posse when that was hot back in the day, and I sure don't care to hear it now. Same with Bad Boy. That's my personal preference.

 

[dcowboy7]

Why is it good to see it floundering?

Because a station i dont listen to theres a chance they change to a format i do sometimes listen to.

 

[dcowboy7]

Consultants don't create playlists. Listeners do through music testing.

There was someone on the pulse music board that works for a station that said even if a song doesnt test well that if its from a major artist it will still get more spins than if it was from a non major artist.

 

[TheBigA]

And on topic, WXBK's apparently problem is exactly what I feared when the format first started: Corporate, with a tight playlist drafted by consultants. This would be fine in West Bubblefunk, but not in the birthplace of the genre.

You must be joking. Have you looked at the actual playlist (not recently played on the website)? It is the complete opposite of a tight playlist. No consultant in his right mind would suggest this (and most consultants don't make station playlists).

 

[davideduardo]

There was someone on the pulse music board that works for a station that said even if a song doesnt test well that if its from a major artist it will still get more spins than if it was from a non major artist.

That is something we all do.

When presented with three really good new songs and only one opening to fill this week, we'll almost always go with the big artist first, with the artist with just a couple of hits second and the new "hitless" artist third.

On the other hand, gold and even recurrents from a prolific current artist will get less play because those songs just have nowhere to fit while retaining artist separation on the currents.