For a while, Delilah's formula of people weeping about their lost loves or deceased pets was thought to appeal to an audience that was too old.
She still seems to fare reasonably well in diary markets. Her biggest problem would seem to have been that people just didn’t stick around for long when she was on-air.
But now, stations don't want to pay a salary for evenings, so she's been added to many AC outlets. And of course, since her show is syndicated by Premiere, nearly all iHeart AC stations carry her.
iHeart has a reformulated show for larger markets that has had varying degrees of success. I'm not sure which iHeart stations are carrying her today, but, last I'd heard, she wasn’t carried in every PPM market where iHeart has an AC. She's carried in most of the diary markets, but, unless it has changed recently, she's not on KQXT in San Antonio for one.
I think John Tesh "Intelligence for Your Life" is a better show.
I would agree with that. Having said that, neither of us is in the target audience of an AC. I also don’t really like Tesh much either. Simply being better than Delilah to me is an extremely low bar to clear.
But if AC stations don't want to pay for evening DJs anymore, I'd rather they run Delilah or Tesh instead of just stringing along songs, spots and promos from 7 p.m. to 6 a.m.
I'd disagree with you here. I'd rather hear music, spots, and ID's over either of them. I'd rather hear almost anything over Delilah. I can't stomach her. I'd rather hear that annoying Jardiance commercial on repeat than hear Delilah, though, if any station were airing that, I'd change the station, too!
With the numbers WJXA pulls, running barter spots that take up slots that could be sold by the station to clients at a premium probably doesn't make sense. It costs less to have a local host when you can sell those 3 minutes an hour, plus whatever ROS spots would be required, for much more value than just handing your inventory off to Premiere. Not only that, but the local host brings more value to the radio station than Delilah would.
I can’t imagine an extra three minutes an hour after 6:00 PM would make a huge difference in terms of revenue. That time is really hard to sell, even if you’re the lead station in demo. The spots during the daytime might make a difference, though, depending on their rates. Working at a top two 25-54 female station roughly twenty years ago, most of the spots we aired after 10:00 PM were bonus or barter spots. We had a few clients who just couldn’t afford our regular rates and bought after hours, but the majority of our inventory was either barter, bonus, or the owners advertising their other businesses.
I applaud the fact that Mix made this investment and hope everyone here reading this does as well. Midwest Communications is a good company and WJXA is one of the finest AC stations in the nation.
I hope it has been successful for Mix, too. Like you, I like to see owners investing in their stations. I'd also like it if Midwest replaced Delilah with Deanna on its other AC's. I've said before that I wouldn’t be posting here if I had the answer to radio's woes, but I can’t imagine it's being a less good version of Apple Music and Spotify.
