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Adult Standards

The comments above all make a good observation about the age and maturity of the sales staff - and station management. It is human nature to program the type of music you personally like. Likewise, if you're in sales, it is human nature to try to sell to those merchandisers that sell the products and services that you tend to use.

It's amazing that programmers will select Spanish or some other overused and underlistened to format, but won't consider adult standards with the relatively large audiences that it would deliver in this area with its mature demographic base. Not too smart, in my opinion.

I think it gets down to the fact that station management and sales staff are in a different age demographic and just don't relate to the older demographic at all. They don't particularly want to program to them, and they certainly don't know how to sell to them.

I'm not suggesting that they'll get rich with the adult standards format, because that ain't gonna happen in AM radio today. But they'll probably do better than they're doing right now.
 
Good point, dwtpa. You won't get rich, however, you can make a decent living and have a loyal listener base. Somehow, somewhere aiming at a 50 plus viewer or listener is akin to having a disease. On the national TV board there were posts regarding Fox news. To discredit their huge success, Fox demos were posted by someone. More or less "sure they are number one BUT the viewer is OLD". Same was true for some posts regarding The Price is Right. One poster went as far as to say TPIR has nothing but "Scooter Store" type advertisers. Let me get this straight. Scooter Store's money isn't the same as any other advertiser? Not an Adult Standards station, however, same holds true in this market with WDUV. How many times have you heard their huge listenership discounted because of the demos! More human beings listen to DUV than any other station yet, it doesn't count because many are over 55. We had one book on the "big stick" at LVU prior to the station being sold. At 106.3 with limited signal we would be in the high one's or low two share area. In our only book at 97.1 we had a 4 something! GUL was always in that ballpark as well. OK, between the two stations that adds up to an eight. Plus that listener is loyal. Wouldn't it make sense for someone to own that market?
 
Frank Ferreri said:
Good point, dwtpa. You won't get rich, however, you can make a decent living and have a loyal listener base. Somehow, somewhere aiming at a 50 plus viewer or listener is akin to having a disease. On the national TV board there were posts regarding Fox news. To discredit their huge success, Fox demos were posted by someone. More or less "sure they are number one BUT the viewer is OLD". Same was true for some posts regarding The Price is Right. One poster went as far as to say TPIR has nothing but "Scooter Store" type advertisers. Let me get this straight. Scooter Store's money isn't the same as any other advertiser? Not an Adult Standards station, however, same holds true in this market with WDUV. How many times have you heard their huge listenership discounted because of the demos! More human beings listen to DUV than any other station yet, it doesn't count because many are over 55. We had one book on the "big stick" at LVU prior to the station being sold. At 106.3 with limited signal we would be in the high one's or low two share area. In our only book at 97.1 we had a 4 something! GUL was always in that ballpark as well. OK, between the two stations that adds up to an eight. Plus that listener is loyal. Wouldn't it make sense for someone to own that market?
Click to expand...

Oh, and by the way, I'll be glad to show you the right way to do it.
 
MsMusicRadio said:
I was at the beach yesterday and somebody's radio was playing a combo of soft rock, jazz, and adult standards like Dean Martin and Frank Sinatra. I know it wasn't WDUV cause their liners are very familiar. It had commercials from national advertisers like Target. I never heard a jock. Could this be XM/Sirius or WSJT HD2? It sounded static free, so I assume it was not something from another city. Thoughts on this?
Click to expand...
Just to let you know Sirius/XM never playes commercials on any of the music channels.., they do have a 40's ch. and Siriusly Sinatra ch. that plays standards laced with Frank's tunes...
I don't know about any of you....if i'm in a diner, car wash, or any store for any amount of time and hear a few songs over the stores speakers i like...i ask the mgr. where his music comes from... do you ever do this?
 
I appreciate the fact that Sirius has a 40s channel, but that's really too narrow for my tastes, and probably for many other listeners. There has been a lot of great music in a great many styles produced over the last 40 or 50 years, and programming too narrow a format is like eating nothing but ice cream.

Instead of looking for a formula like big band or 1940s, programmers should define the type of listener niche they are considering, and then ask themselves "What kinds of music would these listeners enjoy?" The guy that likes Bing Crosby will probably also like Dean Martin, Connie Francis, John Denver, and so on.

In fact, such a description would have applied to WDUV at one time, but WDUV has moved rapidly away from the 1940s and 50s music, and is clearly targeting itself to a narrower but younger group of listeners. Why? My guess is: 1) It has a monopoly for softer, older music, and can do what it wants; and 2) Station management and the sales team are younger and don't relate to the older music types. But WDUV is very vulnerable if someone else flips over to a similar format.

The bottom line is, you'd think that a station like 1470 would do better with an adult standards format than the Spanish format. (Nothing wrong with Spanish, of course, except the AM band's getting a little saturated with it.)
 
Frank Ferreri said:
We had one book on the "big stick" at LVU prior to the station being sold. At 106.3 with limited signal we would be in the high one's or low two share area. In our only book at 97.1 we had a 4 something! GUL was always in that ballpark as well.
Click to expand...

One has to love revisionist history.

WLVU-FM had a 2.3 in the Summer 1998 Book prior to Cox taking over and changing the calls to WSUN-FM.

The trends were:
May/June/July 2.0 17th Place
June/July/Aug 2.3 16th Place
July/Aug/Sep (Summer) 2.3 16th Place

Yes, WGUL-FM was in that ballpark as well - with a 1.2 in the Summer 1998 Book - Good for 19th place.
 
Kabrich said:
Frank Ferreri said:
We had one book on the "big stick" at LVU prior to the station being sold. At 106.3 with limited signal we would be in the high one's or low two share area. In our only book at 97.1 we had a 4 something! GUL was always in that ballpark as well.
Click to expand...

One has to love revisionist history.

WLVU-FM had a 2.3 in the Summer 1998 Book prior to Cox taking over and changing the calls to WSUN-FM.

The trends were:
May/June/July 2.0 17th Place
June/July/Aug 2.3 16th Place
July/Aug/Sep (Summer) 2.3 16th Place

Yes, WGUL-FM was in that ballpark as well - with a 1.2 in the Summer 1998 Book - Good for 19th place.
Click to expand...

The combined WGUL-FM/AM was 3.8 and you also had WDUV in there too which was still a traditional beautiful music station at the time. They had a 6.8 for that book.
 
Kabrich said:
Frank Ferreri said:
We had one book on the "big stick" at LVU prior to the station being sold. At 106.3 with limited signal we would be in the high one's or low two share area. In our only book at 97.1 we had a 4 something! GUL was always in that ballpark as well.
Click to expand...

One has to love revisionist history.

WLVU-FM had a 2.3 in the Summer 1998 Book prior to Cox taking over and changing the calls to WSUN-FM.

The trends were:
May/June/July 2.0 17th Place
June/July/Aug 2.3 16th Place
July/Aug/Sep (Summer) 2.3 16th Place

Yes, WGUL-FM was in that ballpark as well - with a 1.2 in the Summer 1998 Book - Good for 19th place.
Click to expand...

Kabrich: Thanks for the research. Regardless, those pre-"big stick" numbers were pretty nice for a station that covered about half the market. Cox took over on September 11th (sadly an easy date to remember) after LVU was on the big signal for a matter of weeks. In fairness to GUL their AM had nice numbers for years. Point is, combine the GUL AM/FM numbers along with LVU's share and throw in some DUV folks and you have a nice base and a loyal base being an exclusive format provider.
 
What kinds of music would these listeners enjoy?" The guy that likes Bing Crosby will probably also like Dean Martin, Connie Francis, John Denver, and so on.


That is exactly what Pandora does..and it will eventually become the base-model for future "radio" programming.

And someone HAS to be in 19th place..with a loyal following of people who have a little extra money to spend..why not? Only other alternative is to just shut it down, and turn in the ticket. And a good number of stations (AM and FM) are doing that these days.

As far as Price is Right goes..check the majority of their contestants..COLLEGE age kids, who have time to spend with midday TV. There is a giant viewer base of 18-34 y/o there..and around here the local spots are not for "Scooter Store" but for correspondence schools and disability lawyers..catering to the "out out work" and the "uninterested in work" crowd.
 
Frank Ferreri said:
Kabrich: Thanks for the research. Regardless, those pre-"big stick" numbers were pretty nice for a station that covered about half the market. Cox took over on September 11th (sadly an easy date to remember) after LVU was on the big signal for a matter of weeks. In fairness to GUL their AM had nice numbers for years. Point is, combine the GUL AM/FM numbers along with LVU's share and throw in some DUV folks and you have a nice base and a loyal base being an exclusive format provider.
Click to expand...

WLVU actually did WORSE in the weeks they were on the big stick.

Exported report from Maximi$er V10.4 MultiRanker Report Demographic
TAMPA-ST. PETERSBURG-CLEARWATER (Radio) - Summer 1998

Demos:,P 12+,Pop:,1946116,Intab:, 3200,

Qualitative Selection: ,none

Geo Area: ,TAMPA-ST. PETERSBURG-CLEARWATER METRO - Std
# Dayparts: ,3
Stations: ,User Selected
Ranked by: ,P 12+ - AQH Share (All Selected Stations)
P 12+,
Station Daypart Weeks Share
WLVU-FM M-Su 6:00AM - 12:00M 1 2 3 4 2.9
WLVU-AM M-Su 6:00AM - 12:00M 1 2 3 4 0.1

WLVU-FM M-Su 6:00AM - 12:00M 5 6 7 8 2.5
WLVU-AM M-Su 6:00AM - 12:00M 5 6 7 8 0.1

WLVU-FM M-Su 6:00AM - 12:00M 9 10 11 12 1.5
WLVU-AM M-Su 6:00AM - 12:00M 9 10 11 12 0.2
 
Re: Adult Standards and Oldies

drt said:
Magic 590's audio stream (in stereo) link:

http://player.streamtheworld.com/_players/pamal/?callsign=WROWAM

Interestingly enough and to my surprise, I noticed that a deli I went to near the hotel where I ate had WROW on their radio and I noticed another mom and pop business in downtown playing them as well.

drt,
st. pete
Click to expand...


Here's another great radio station run by Grand Valley University. I find it unusual to have an NPR station playing the best oldies of all time. Live jocks most of the time (probably students), and no commercials. http://www.realoldies1480.org

www.realoldies1480.org
 
Re: Adult Standards and Oldies

sbe1 said:
drt said:
Magic 590's audio stream (in stereo) link:

http://player.streamtheworld.com/_players/pamal/?callsign=WROWAM

Interestingly enough and to my surprise, I noticed that a deli I went to near the hotel where I ate had WROW on their radio and I noticed another mom and pop business in downtown playing them as well.

drt,
st. pete Here's an oldie station for the past 47 years live 24hrs, reverb, great jingles ...wlng.com
Sag Harbor NY aka the Hamptons...



Here's another great radio station run by Grand Valley University. I find it unusual to have an NPR station playing the best oldies of all time. Live jocks most of the time (probably students), and no commercials. http://www.realoldies1480.org


www.realoldies1480.org
Click to expand...
Click to expand...
 
Jeff, I was one of those people on the east coast who really enjoyed 1530 WSAI's standards format. Actually it was more like '50's to '70's middle of the road. They had a great mix of adult music. I only wish Sirius/XM had something as good.
 
I spent some time in south Pinellas today so I tried 1450 WDDV out of Sarasota. They came in fair and I did enjoy their "adult standards" format called Route 66. It was a little annoying that they also kept calling themselves "the Dove". You know- pick one and stick with it. In the hour or so I listened I heard Frank, Glenn Miller, Linda Ronstadt with the Nelson Riddle Orchestra, Nat King Cole, a few more instrumentals that I really enjoyed. All liners, no song titles or voice tracked DJ comments. Not MOYL, Not WVLG, Not Zoomer radio. Like a real old juke box with commercials! Tried Googling Route 66 radio format but just got the real highway stuff. Like to read a little about them, anyone know a link? No mention of Route 66 on their website.
 
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