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The Shark 94.3 Has Been Sinking

B

Barry

The overall ratings for mainstream rock station WWSK have been declining every month for at least the past 5 ratings periods. In May they were at 3.2. In the just released ratings for October, they have have plunged to 1.1.
Perhaps this is an indication the audience for an active rock format in the New York metro is dwindling, even in suburban Long Island. Late last year, Connoisseur Media flipped sister rock station WFOX in nearby Connecticut to a simulcast of news talk WICC AM.

Nassau/Suffolk Ratings
 
The ratings for The Shark have dropped more drastically, and for more months than the other Connoisseur stations on Long Island.
 
Beanzradio said:
NOTHING has done well on 94.3 for at least 25 years.
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94.3 WWSK Smithtown is hemmed in by a 94.3 in New Haven, CT and also 94.3 in Asbury Park, NJ. They are limited to the signal they can put out to the West (their antenna is located at Exit 53 of the LIE and the Sagtikos Parkway). This is the same reason WXBK 94.7 Newark cannot transmit from the ESB (it would be short spaced) to WWSK.

I think that requirement of the minimum spacing be reduced as most tuners and portable radios made today have enough Alternate Channel Selectivity. Perhaps if they were to use the antenna of sister station WXXF 103.1 (they’d be slightly further East and more to the South.
 
djl said:
94.3 WWSK Smithtown is hemmed in by a 94.3 in New Haven, CT and also 94.3 in Asbury Park, NJ. They are limited to the signal they can put out to the West (their antenna is located at Exit 53 of the LIE and the Sagtikos Parkway). This is the same reason WXBK 94.7 Newark cannot transmit from the ESB (it would be short spaced) to WWSK.

I think that requirement of the minimum spacing be reduced as most tuners and portable radios made today have enough Alternate Channel Selectivity. Perhaps if they were to use the antenna of sister station WXXF 103.1 (they’d be slightly further East and more to the South.
Click to expand...

I see what you mean. That's a mess
 

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Why do you think that's funny, BigA?

I don't mock your posts.

If the company desires to have a rock-based station within its cluster and Active Rock isn't getting the job done, a pivot to Alternative seems like a logical move to me. The list of unfilled formats in the area isn't long; the region lacks an Alternative station.

Connoisseur filled another format hole not that long ago when it flipped 103.1 to country.
 
Many alternative listeners are educated, college degree holding yuppies.

Would their view of listeners of the current format (hard rock) be more favorable?
 
FWIW, sister station WFOX in nearby Connecticut was flipped last year from rock to a simulcast of talk station WICC. I mention that because the Alternative format was not chosen, even though the area lacks an ALT station.
 
WWSK is the worst ranked radio station on Long Island compared to other stations in that part of Long Island, by that I mean Nassau County and Western Suffolk. WKJY, WBLI, WALK, WBAB (I will stop there you get the idea) all get better numbers, some by a mile.

Tellingly the next station in these ratings after WWSK is WLIR - the retransmission station of WABC out East. They are tied with the retro Hip Hop Station (WXBK The Beat) way out in New Jersey that you cannot even pick up on a lot of radios in many parts of Long Island.

The one thing that might be their saving grace is the fact that they might score solid numbers with young men, a hard demo to reach. That is partly why WFAN was often number one in billings in NY but never near the top of the ratings. Maybe sales like that, I cannot confirm or deny.
 
CTListener said:
Advertisers buy into negative stereotypes of alternative rock listeners. Been that way for years. You know: underemployed, slackers, live in mom's basement, cynical. Not sure if "armchair PD" is another one.
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Those perceptions, if widely held, will widely affect the "salability" of a station to advertisers.

In the 70's, I had occasion to accompany to owner of an LA Spanish language station on a call on a beverage wholesaler. He had a well known beer brand but insisted that "Mexicans don't drink much beer". He sold to distributors, so had little knowledge of who they sold to.

We managed to get the guy to ride in a car with us to a bar in East LA. It was relatively small, and not impressive. We asked the owner to show us his storage room... it was much larger... and stacked with cases of beer right to the ceiling.

The prospective client asked, "is this for several months or more?" and the owner said, "No, this is for this weekend. We will sell nearly all of it and order again on Monday."

The guy made a buy. But he had been driven by perceptions... and a bit of racism too.
 
davideduardo said:
Those perceptions, if widely held, will widely affect the "salability" of a station to advertisers.

In the 70's, I had occasion to accompany to owner of an LA Spanish language station on a call on a beverage wholesaler. He had a well known beer brand but insisted that "Mexicans don't drink much beer". He sold to distributors, so had little knowledge of who they sold to.

We managed to get the guy to ride in a car with us to a bar in East LA. It was relatively small, and not impressive. We asked the owner to show us his storage room... it was much larger... and stacked with cases of beer right to the ceiling.

The prospective client asked, "is this for several months or more?" and the owner said, "No, this is for this weekend. We will sell nearly all of it and order again on Monday."

The guy made a buy. But he had been driven by perceptions... and a bit of racism too.
Click to expand...
And now two of the best-selling beers in the U.S. are Modelo and Corona. Maybe it was just Miller and Bud that those L.A. Hispanics weren't drinking enough of!
 
I wonder why WALK 97.5 has 94.3 The Shark on HD2, but not sister station 103.1 WWSK The Wolf on HD3. Like 94.3, the latter is difficult to pick up in western Nassau County (due to interference from a translator), and could benefit from WALK’s strong signal.
 
Barry said:
I wonder why WALK 97.5 has 94.3 The Shark on HD2, but not sister station 103.1 WWSK The Wolf on HD3. Like 94.3, the latter is difficult to pick up in western Nassau County (due to interference from a translator), and could benefit from WALK’s strong signal.
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Good point. WALK has a great signal, but how far west is their HD2 signal reliable?
 
MarkW said:
If the company desires to have a rock-based station within its cluster and Active Rock isn't getting the job done, a pivot to Alternative seems like a logical move to me. The list of unfilled formats in the area isn't long; the region lacks an Alternative station.

Connoisseur filled another format hole not that long ago when it flipped 103.1 to country.
Click to expand...
Another good option would be adult hits (even if Jack didn't do too well in neighboring NYC, largely because it replaced WCBS-FM as opposed to some floundering FM station of no worth), largely because it's an easy format when you need to do a set-it-and-forget-it deal.
 
knapfordsouthern1 said:
Another good option would be adult hits (even if Jack didn't do too well in neighboring NYC, largely because it replaced WCBS-FM as opposed to some floundering FM station of no worth), largely because it's an easy format when you need to do a set-it-and-forget-it deal.
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About three or four times a year I have to jump in and mention that Jack in NYC did much better in total and target demo ratings than the oldies format it replaced. It was doing fine, particularly in 25-54.

But...

At that time, Arbitron was doing a "live" full market PPM test in Philadelphia, and they saw that CBS's slightly more "modern" classic hits station was doing very well in the metered environment. So, they decided to anticipate the PPM in NYC and switched to an updated classic hits format. I was on the Arbitron / Nielsen / radio industry / ad agency committee that tracked the earliest PPM result, and there was considerable comment about what CBS had discovered in the Philly data and how it made them change formats in NYC.
 
knapfordsouthern1 said:
Another good option would be adult hits (even if Jack didn't do too well in neighboring NYC, largely because it replaced WCBS-FM as opposed to some floundering FM station of no worth), largely because it's an easy format when you need to do a set-it-and-forget-it deal.
Click to expand...
Adult Hits was the format on 94.3 before they did the “Gen X Radio” thing. If they wind up changing format, I see them going either Alternative or News/Talk like what WFOX became.
 


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