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Question about AM radio usage today

G

garfradio

How many AM-only radio stations today have sizable audiences? For a yardstick, look at rated markets, AMs above a 1 share. You could set the share threshold higher but the count gets cut a lot.

Eyeballing the top few markets, it looks like New York has two (WABC and WOR), LA has two (KFI and KLAC), Chicago has three (WGN, WSCR, WLS-AM). In some markets, nonsubscribing stations that could pass this hurdle would be included IF the data was publicly available.

I'd exclude the AMs that are feeders to FM translators or FM simulcasts (though there are some anemic translator signals that probably don't add much audience). It would be interesting to see what the AM vs FM split of audience is on the Audacy all news stations with fulltime simulcasts.

There are AMs in unrated markets that are still vital. There are AM stations that have really specific niches that are profitable. But when you look at pure AM stations, how many have measured audience with a digit greater than zero before the decimal point?
 
This question gets asked a lot. A generous guess might be a couple hundred. There are some that don't subscribe to Nielsen, such as Good Karma and WECK. So we don't really know about them. A lot of AMs in small markets took advantage of the translator window.
 
An important point in this discussion involves the many larger market AM stations in "other" languages, ranging from Spanish to Tagalog, Russian and Farsi.

First, most of the listeners to stations in languages other than Spanish will not participate in ratings surveys as the diary or the PPM instructions are not in "their" language" and Nielsen does not have a staff of, let's say, Farsi-speaking recruiters to deal with them.

Second, most of those stations don't subscribe to ratings as they do not need that information and they do not want that expense. So, unless they have about a 2 share (rating of 0.1) they won't show based on numbers alone.

Third, Nielsen has procedures and even geographic zones for Black and Hispanic listeners and has quotas for them by age, gender and other variables. There are no requirements for a specific number of Tagalog speakers nor are there HDPA (High Density Philipine Area) geographic zones.

So many, many of the stations in question are either not even encoded or part of an ethnic or national group that is not subject to any kind of specific recruiting and weighting.
 
garfradio said:
New York has two (WABC and WOR), LA has two (KFI and KLAC), Chicago has three (WGN, WSCR, WLS-AM).
Click to expand...
KFI isn't AM only, neither are WOR, WABC, KLAC, WSCR or WLS.

KFI is on 103.1 HD2, KLAC is on 98.7 HD2, WSCR is on 104.3 HD2, WLS is on 94.7 HD2, WOR is on 104.3 HD2, WABC is on 107.1.
 
radiofan2023 said:
KFI isn't AM only, neither are WOR, WABC, KLAC, WSCR or WLS.

KFI is on 103.1 HD2, KLAC is on 98.7 HD2, WSCR is on 104.3 HD2, WLS is on 94.7 HD2, WOR is on 104.3 HD2, WABC is on 107.1.
Click to expand...
Yet there are only a few instances where an HD-2 or HD-3 has generated numbers on their own. Essentially all of them that get numbers in Nielsen are getting them from simulcast translators that are not HD channels alone.
 
WDIA Memphis is #5 in PPM market #55. As of yesterday it's the mighty 1070 (50kw day 5 kw nights in a 4 tower day or 6 tower night directional pattern with no FM. Last time I was in Memphis (6 months before COVID) they still could overcome the RF noise and stop a scan on my way to Tunica.
 
I couldn't find any articles on this but my understanding is that KDRI, one of two oldies stations on AM in the Tucson, Arizona, market, continues to do well. Yes, it does have a translator, but its 50kW daytime signal does get out to places even Tucson's FM outlets can't go. The format is English oldies, and I've been told that there are sizeable audiences in Benson, Willcox, and Nogales for this now Bustos-owned station.
 
davideduardo said:
Yet there are only a few instances where an HD-2 or HD-3 has generated numbers on their own. Essentially all of them that get numbers in Nielsen are getting them from simulcast translators that are not HD channels alone.
Click to expand...
If the dial wasn't so full in LA and NYC, do you think the AM stations I mentioned would be on translators instead of HD channels?
 
kevtronics said:
Putting conservative talk on FM instead of AM won't necessarily get younger people to listen to it. So if your audience is largely going to be 55+ anyway, then a good 50 kW AM signal is still fine.
Click to expand...
The folks who stormed the Capitol were mainly young MAGA right-wingers. I think there are more young folks in the movement than most of us on the other side of the political spectrum want to acknowledge. I run into them frequently here in rural eastern VT/western NH. If they listen to terrestrial radio at all, it would be FM.
 
WISN 1130 Milwaukee still #1 in the market with a 10.4 share. While they also have WRNW 97.3 HD2, the percentage of listening to that has to be pretty small.
 
ted chittenden said:
I couldn't find any articles on this but my understanding is that KDRI, one of two oldies stations on AM in the Tucson, Arizona, market, continues to do well. Yes, it does have a translator, but its 50kW daytime signal does get out to places even Tucson's FM outlets can't go. The format is English oldies, and I've been told that there are sizeable audiences in Benson, Willcox, and Nogales for this now Bustos-owned station.
Click to expand...
Remember, there are very few direct accounts that care about reaching well outside the metro area of a market, and there are essentially no agency accounts that even look outside local ratings. The real issue is that few listen to AM at all for music, and I suspect that most listening is to the translator that does cover nearly all the population well.
 
radiofan2023 said:
KFI isn't AM only, neither are WOR, WABC, KLAC, WSCR or WLS.

KFI is on 103.1 HD2, KLAC is on 98.7 HD2, WSCR is on 104.3 HD2, WLS is on 94.7 HD2, WOR is on 104.3 HD2, WABC is on 107.1.
Click to expand...

Yeah, but---(and let's not bring streaming into this because then, who cares if it's AM or FM, right?)

There are almost NO HD radios in homes.

There are 284.6 million cars, trucks, and SUVs---passenger vehicles---registered in the United States. 95 million of them (according to HDRadio's own website) have HD Radio.

That's 33 1/2 percent.

Now whittle down the number of people who even know it's there, have ever used it.....
 
radiofan2023 said:
KFI is on 103.1 HD2, KLAC is on 98.7 HD2, WSCR is on 104.3 HD2, WLS is on 94.7 HD2, WOR is on 104.3 HD2, WABC is on 107.1.
Click to expand...

But undoubtedly, those HD simulcasts are also included in the parent station under single line reporting, so it doesn't matter.

Given the lack of translators and the relatively small number of consumer HD radios, those stations might as well be standalones.
 
K.M. Richards said:
When pigs fly. I doubt Audacy is ever going to opt out of single line reporting.
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I don't know of any competitive station that would opt out of SLR.
 
CTListener said:
The folks who stormed the Capitol were mainly young MAGA right-wingers. I think there are more young folks in the movement than most of us on the other side of the political spectrum want to acknowledge. I run into them frequently here in rural eastern VT/western NH. If they listen to terrestrial radio at all, it would be FM.
Click to expand...

But would they listen to talk stations? I know they'll listen to podcasts, but talk in real time? Color me skeptical.
 
CTListener said:
The folks who stormed the Capitol were mainly young MAGA right-wingers. I think there are more young folks in the movement than most of us on the other side of the political spectrum want to acknowledge. I run into them frequently here in rural eastern VT/western NH. If they listen to terrestrial radio at all, it would be FM.
Click to expand...
I doubt they listen to AM conservative talk radio. They get their “news” from podcasts.
 


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