d21ofnj said:
Consultants also screw up in their decisions. Take for example the Jersey Shore. WZBZ, when it was hip-hop, was the #1 RATED station in the AC market, but then flipped out of nowhere to TOP40/CHR?? Whoever helped them must've been way off their mind.
First, do you know for certain a consultant was even involved? It looks like the station had a bad power ratio, and that indicates that the format was a tough sell. Moving to a CHR generally gets a lot more 18-34 women, which is very salable.
Look at Hit 106 in Eatontown. Supposedly Press wanted more revenue and ratings from a CHR format, and THIS DID came out of their mouth, and look where they fall now. Even NOW-FM is higher in the ratings than Hit is.
That is a very recent change. Do we know whether that lower share may be more salable than the previous alternative format?
Don't forget, KTU was basically all dance, but at the wrong time. It was at the time when hip-hop was the fad of the 2000-2003 era, so everyone was basically plugging in HOT97 or Power.
In 2002-2003, KTU had its best 12+ numbers of all years between 2002 and the end of the diary era in NYC.
And didn't ClearChannel purchased KTU back in 2002?
No, they acquired it by merger in 1999.
Chicago CURRENTLY has TWO dance stations, one 24/7 on 96.3 HD-2 and nights on 92.5, 92.7, and 99.9, the former home of Energy 92.7&5 mind you,
An HD 2 channel does not really "count" unless it has ratings. Most companies are putting the equivalent of a WinAMp playlist on a computer for HD2 channels, and not one makes the book, anywhere.
The WCP* trimulcast has no night listening on one frequency, and less than 1000 persons on each of the others... they rank 45th or something like that. By contrast, the 93.5 and 103.1 class A simulcast has about 12 times the listeners.
LA did have Groove 103.1, Phoenix had Energy 92.7 and 101.1 for 6.5 YEARS, regards of their ratings, Dallas I believe had Mega 99.3, I may be wrong, but I do know that San Antonio was playing dance on 106.7 around 2002-2005.
All tried and failed. Most were done without research of the market, which would have shown the lack of consumer interest.
They don't care about the listeners on what they think, all they want is to see who can get the most $ out of their cluster.
The only way to make money (and that, by the way, is why radio stations are purchased) is to get as many listeners as you can, which means you have to care a lot about the listeners.
I know you've been in radio for over 50 years, but you even have to admit, that terrestrial radio is going down fast.
Actually, that is not true at all. Radio usage has been slowly declining over a 20-year period as things like more cable and satellite TV offerings, DVDs, game consoles, etc. have intruded on available time... it's not just the internet and the iPod. And radio still reaches about 95% of all Americans each week, even though the amount of time has declined.
Interstingly, radio revenues in 2009 are off less than Micorsoft's revenues (in percentage, of course) yet there is a tendency to identify listener dissatisfaction as radio's issue rather than, in this moment, the recession and ad cutbacks.
I hate to repeat myself on why dance didn't get their chance, but I'm sure you all read my reply at that topic. The reason why these stations are no longer was because the politics didn't believe in being "different."
They failed because they did not get salable ratings, or, in several cases, they were on limited or marginal signals that couldn't get the necessary istening levels with any format.
I realize that radio is a business, and it's a dirty job,
"Dirty job" is a term seldom if every applied to radio.
On the other hand, all businesses, which are investments, require a return on investment or they fail, are sold or are changed.
but at the same time who is really getting the leftovers are the listeners.
Ad rates are determined by how many listeners a station has and the age range of those listeners in the bigger markets. Elsewhere, they are determined by supply and demand, and demand is fueled by the response to ads on each station. Stations that move goods and services for advertisers do well, those that don't fail.
If it wasn;t for them, these other stations you hear on the dial would be NOTHING. If dance was such a "lack of need" then they wouldn't even be on the dial in the first place. However, it made it, but was KILLED by the politics in the back, not by the people.
I presume you refer to the detritus of dance formats that litters the historical records of radio. Those formats disappeared because they could not sustain the necessary levels of income needed by each, as a business. There is no pollitics involved in reading a P&L statement, and the owners of the stations you mention in several cases had to sell or lost their stations because they could not get enough income to pay for them.
. But for the core/P1's dance music fans in us, Pulse 87 is edgier and has the music we like..sounds with that edge. Pulse certainly does its share of rhythmic spins as well (such as Black Eyed Peas, Flo Rida), but at least we know that a track by artists such as Sophia May, Sylvia Tosun, and yes one of our local favorites, Kim Sozzi, will be heard soon enough.