WAAF is already directional from Boylston to avoid interfering with the 107.5’s in Dover NH and Chatham MA and the 107.1’s in Fairhaven MA and Exeter NH, and must still put a city-grade signal over Westborough, the COL. Moving farther east isn’t possible.
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97.7 format change for the 4th of July?
- Thread starter Tomgsinger
- Start date
WAAF is already directional from Boylston to avoid interfering with the 107.5’s in Dover NH and Chatham MA and the 107.1’s in Fairhaven MA and Exeter NH, and must still put a city-grade signal over Westborough, the COL. Moving farther east isn’t possible.
There are 400,000 blacks in Greater Boston only 160,000 live in Boston. Not even half of all black in greater Boston live in Boston.
The station was doing better than JAMN as an urban. Obviously the market can sustain an urban station. Why they decided to change the format I do not knows . But it has received an overwhelmingly negative reaction on social media. To the point where the station is explaining itself to random commentators...
As I predicted JAMN has posted worsening ratings every month since they moved away from breakfast club. I was on her 2 months ago predicting they would bottom out at 2.0 or 1.9 and I was correct. I was on here several years ago stating that an urban formatted station would do well in Boston. I was correct.
The Boston market has demonstrated a desire for urban radio and heart is reluctant to provide it. That’s all it’s not more complicated than that. WKAF beat WBQT in some booing as an urban. I can say with Greta confidence that it’s ratinghs will decline. JAMN WBQT and WKAF all play music no one genuinely WANTS to hear. I don’t think it really appeals to whites or Hispanics and blacks just tolerate it. At best it isn’t as off-putting to whites as a black-oriented station it that doesn’t mean they’re tuning in.
It doesn’t make sense they changed the format. It was putting up good numbers. I don’t think it can possibly do better under a new format. How would it?
New Haven is 32% non Hispanic black. Boston is 23% non Hispanic black but that doesn’t really matter because there’s about 4x as many black in aggregate in Boston proper for advertisers to target.
Touch 106 is illegal. Best bet is 98.1 ramping up there signal or finding a new transmitter. It would have to be in the Metro South area or southern Boston because that where the largest black populations are. It’s obvious why 97.7 worked out of Brockton and 98.1 work out of Dedham..
Radio does not program to individual cities but to metro areas.
The New Haven MSA (Radio MSA) is 13.3% Black and 18.4% Hispanic.
Boston is 8.4% Black and 11.7% Hispanic.
Advertising is based on the delivery of Gross Ratings Points. Since the New Haven market is about 10% of the size of the Boston market, the cost per point (CPP) will be proportional.
The New Haven market has about 60,000 Blacks and Boston has about 420,000 Blacks.
The difference can be seen in billing. The revenue of all the Boston stations is about $250 million. The revenue of the New Haven ones is just over $13 million.
WJMN alone bills almost as much as all the New Haven stations together.
I seriously doubt that WJMN is billing THAT money. 94.5 hasnt gotten over a 2.5 share in 2019 and likely far behind their money demos...if WJMN is billing anything close to 13 million then their former 97.7 urban format on a tiny stick shouldve been billing decent numbers too with a shared sales force.
First, I said WJMN bills "almost" as much as all the New Haven MSA stations combined. While it reportedly does not bill $13 million, it is over $10 million... more than 5 times the billing of WYBC in New Haven (the station that somehow got into this comparison).
It's consistently in the top 5 in women 18-34 and 25-44. It is a complement to its CHR cluster-mate and likely sold in combo. It has a good (over a 1) power ratio due to its female delivery in a market where a group of the biggest stations are male-oriented.
Shared sales forces don't guarantee the same revenue per station. What determines the revenue in agency sales is the demo profile of the station.
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They can't legally raise the power of the 98.1 translator or move it any closer to Boston or to the south because there's a full-powered country station south of Boston on 98.1 in New Bedford that it must protect and can not interfere with per FCC regulations. If there was anything they could have done to give the 98.1 translator a better signal in Boston and to the south they already would have done it.
I was also told by an engineer that 98.1 was the last frequency available for a translator in the Boston area when "Urban Heat" 1410 AM (formerly "The Bass of Boston") signed it on last year, so they're stuck with it a little north of Boston in Medford. At least their AM 1410 from Dedham covers the Boston urban south neighborhoods and the upper Metro South cities during the daytime, but unfortunately not many people, and especially not young people, listen to AM radio for music any more.
Its hard to believe this when their 19th overall in the market. 19th.
Their listening is so very concentrated in the target core of 25-44 females (with plenty of 18-24 spillage and a good bit of 45-49 also) that they are going to get on a lot of buys, particularly since it combines so well with WXKS to pretty much seal up the young women demo in the market.
Don't forget that a poor 12+ showing may not mean that a station is troubled. For decades WFAN was about 15th in 12+, but first or second in revenue in NYC. This is an example of why most of us try very hard not to look at 6+ and 12+... ever.
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Most hip hop performer are ~25 year old black men. The fact that as a Hip Hop station it’s average/targeted demo is is 39 year old white woman is all one needs to know. Makes sense, because that what it sounds like. Do you WJMN.
My bad. I typed 35-44 when it should be "25-34" as the performance target of WJMN. And that's what gives them a 1.3 power ratio and a #5 or #6 rank in women 18-24, 18-34 and 25-44.
More likely a function of not being in the demo. If a tree falls in an empty forest...
But there was a lot of discussion on this station a couple months ago under different subject lines.
This was obvious
You built a black listenership long starved for a station that caters to them. You abandoned them.
The new music isn't gonna draw back any white listeners who had already made judgments about WKAF.
How could this have possibly turned out any other way? Seriously? What did they possibly expect would happen?
You built a black listenership long starved for a station that caters to them. You abandoned them.
The new music isn't gonna draw back any white listeners who had already made judgments about WKAF.
How could this have possibly turned out any other way? Seriously? What did they possibly expect would happen?
Well, I beg to differ, but again I reassert that 97.7 compliments WJMN & WXKS-FM. Also, I am still not convinced that this a permanent format for them either!
What exactly are you begging to differ with?
You say that there are not any Caucasians listening to the station at all, however the numbers say otherwise.
Not what I’m saying.
Admittedly my post was a bit muddled.
WKAFs success in the ratings was due to building a large black audience. It’s reasonable to suffice they would have had the least white audience of any Boston Area station-even if there was still a sizable white listenership.
I would imagine most of there black listenership has left, leaving a fairly small-but largely white-listenership.
Any whites who weren’t listening to WKAF when it was urban likely have never come back to the station...as they probably heard a few songs and checked out. And even if they did come back to the station the music is just “urban” enough to not entice them to stay on the signal.
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