97.5 should never go sports but....

[oasisrulz]

Take on the oldies powerhouse OGL, which had no real competition for ages. With their stale approach to oldies, any station going after them with a broader variety would smash them for good and make them RIP......If 97.5 did it right, oldies from 1955 to 1975 with a touch of the WHAT sound and jock formula, would beat OGL to a pulp. I dont buy the demo crap, ratings are ratings and a 4.5+ would look good on GM's part, instead of what they are pulling now, and it would fit just right with the Christmas formula they had success with last year. OGL can be beat its just no-one wants to take them on for some reason.....

 

[nd2023]

That would be a dream come true for me, as I HATE Now 97.5's unfocused "AC" format.
But it won't happen. Sunny 104.5 tried that with a large variety of music from 3 decades, 60s-80s. That station was only successful in November and December.

 

[imhomerjay]

Well, gee, if you don't buy something it must not be so. Problem solved.

Except it isn't. Denying the demo issue doesn't make it less true.

And perhaps no one wants to take it on in part because the audience isn't finding a problem with it and would find no reason to change.

 

[aindik]

>>I dont buy the demo crap, ratings are ratings<<

No, they're not. It's not just about how many people are listening. It's about who they are. That's what makes advertisers spend money.

In a satellite radio subscription model, demos don't matter. $12.95 a month is $12.95 a month. But when your listeners listen for free and you make money selling ads, demos matter because the people buying ads care about them.

 

[imhomerjay]

To build on those excellent thoughts, I'd suggest demos can factor in to satellite, although a bit differently. Yes, the revenue is the revenue, but back up a bit in the chain, and you need to offer a service that the people who both (a) have the money and (b) are willing to spend it on your service will want. Your bandwidth is certainly such that you can offer wider niches, but you still need to keep an eye to maximizing your return on investment and not wasting a part of your resource on something that doesn't provide as big a return as another option.

 

[aindik]

Right, but with paying subscribers, the goal at the end of the day is to maximize subscribers X monthly fee. Who the subscribers are doesn't matter. Catering to people likely to subscribe helps maximize that, but you don't substitute A with B just because B skews younger. You substitute A with B if B means more subs (if it skewing younger is part of that, then it's a factor, but at the end of the day, it's the number of subs (times the price) that matters).

If you have an oldies station and an alternative rock station, you need to trash one (say, to make room for something new that will unquestionably outperform both), and 500 people will cancel if you trash the oldies station and 300 people will cancel if you trash the alternative station, you don't trash the oldies station just because the 500 people are older than the 300 people. In ad-driven radio, you do.

 

[nd2023]

With satellite radio, they target people who don't like regular AM/FM radio by offering formats that aren't on the radio. There are a lot of people who subscribe to Sirius XM only because of BPM and its pure dance format, and they threaten to cancel when they make changes to BPM that they don't like (or when a dance station goes on the air on FM). Sirius XM is another place where a very narrow format like Classic Chinese Hits could work, since people who like that music would subscribe to hear it. Formats such as classical or financial news that cater to rich people also draw subscribers that will think 12.95 a month is nothing compared to their income.
The most efficient way of operating is to use ALL available bandwidth, and if a new format is devised or there's added programming, cut out an unpopular channel. Sirius XM radios don't report which channel is listened to, so they have to do market research, which can be skewed and can accidentally remove a popular channel.

97.5 is unlikely to go oldies. In fact, what's more likely is for CBS to change 98.1 into an Amp or Now (92.3, not 97.5) clone.

 

[aindik]

If CBS is going to flip an FM station to CHR, they'll flip WYSP way before they flip WOGL.

And, as I've said in other threads, there are already two CHRs in Philly. There were not two CHRs in NY or LA when CBS flipped WXRK and KLSX to CHR. There was only one each.