You are way, way under.
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All-News KOMO-AM-FM Seattle Tied for #1
- Thread starter Gregg.
- Start date
I failed to consider premium salaries for marquee air talent. That was a big mistake on my part. Some all-news stations also feature (and pay for) live sports play-by-play, and I chose not to include that premise in my earlier calculation. I was trying to come up with a core number for running the news room and delivering news programming.
Stations that print money such as WTOP and WBBM can obviously afford to pay a lot more.
Even if the budget for those stations is $15 million or more annually, they can easily afford it.
Stations that print money such as WTOP and WBBM can obviously afford to pay a lot more.
Even if the budget for those stations is $15 million or more annually, they can easily afford it.
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You don't think the specific market makes a difference? As in lots of government workers?
And the fact that WTOP covers two states plus the District of Columbia.
Imagine the money an all-news station in Farmington, New Mexico, could rake in! Four states!
But revenue is not the calculus for station owners. It's which one is more profitable. If KIIS can make 85% of the revenue WTOP does, with a much lower cost of doing business, that's a no brainer.
Yes there are two indicators that suggest spending or not. First if you are a familiar brand, you are likely to have this brand ensconced into your primary demo. Then it becomes an issue of how you grow that.
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You probably remember from your old working days, that even back in the stone age, PD's were always anxious about keeping the demos they live and die by. Fast forward to modern times; the demo pie is sliced thinner. Those demos get older each year. The trick is; getting new demos in the lower range of the window to replace the ones leaving the upper end. That's tough, because with the exception of riding with Mom, younger demo's aren't listening to radio.
Although it depends on the format and the market. You're probably correct for Seattle, but maybe not in smaller markets.
I'd imagine that in markets where country has always been strong, the teens and 20s are definitely listening to their local "hot new country" stations. Acts like Jason Aldean, Blake Shelton and Dan + Shay (a virtual two-man country boy band) push a lot of buttons with listeners far younger that what you'd consider typical country listeners in the '80s and '90s. This past weekend, iHeart was pushing a new Aldean/Carrie Underwood duet on its two area stations, playing it at the top of every other hour with the DJ told to rave about it while talking up to the song. Legal payola at its best, and the pairing and the song were definitely put together with marketing to teens and 20s in mind.
Interesting thread. As Kelly said, radio isn’t a huge draw for those born after 2000. While us boomers had basically radio and OTA tv the choices are much greater today. Good news I guess, but dilution of major operators means continued degradation of traditional listening and watching. But when has change not been part of broadcast lexicon?
Here's a recent study(2020) about Gen Z and radio:
Radio's Roadmap To Gen Z Listenership - Edison Research
Gen Z Listeners in the U.S. are Heavy Users of Streaming, but 55% listen to AM/FM Radio Every Day Audio consumers in “Gen Z” — those between the ages of 13 and 24 — prefer listening on their smartphones, which should be no surprise because they have grown up with the devices, but AM/FM...
www.edisonresearch.com
The national number is 55% listen to radio every day.
From the article BigA posted:
"Despite Gen Z’s love for streaming and for their smartphones, 89% of their listening to AM/FM radio is done through a traditional radio receiver. Eleven percent of Gen Z’s AM/FM radio listening is going to the streams. Even among this young, digital-first demographic, they are simply not listening in big numbers to radio streams."
Might explain why Radio Disney's streaming service didn't pay off as well as expected.
"Despite Gen Z’s love for streaming and for their smartphones, 89% of their listening to AM/FM radio is done through a traditional radio receiver. Eleven percent of Gen Z’s AM/FM radio listening is going to the streams. Even among this young, digital-first demographic, they are simply not listening in big numbers to radio streams."
Might explain why Radio Disney's streaming service didn't pay off as well as expected.
Exactly. They're not listening to streams for hosted and curated music presentation. They're listening to streams as a direct replacement for buying CDs or other former music media.
We need to recognize that an entire method for listening to music has mostly gone away, and that is the buying of hard product, such as CDs, vinyl, or even downloads. All of that is a very small percentage of music consumption, replaced by streaming.
Album Sales Are Dying as Fast as Streaming Services Are Rising
Music consumption shot up in 2018 — but no thanks to album or song sales, according to BuzzAngle's year-end report released today.
www.rollingstone.com
And yes, I constantly read anecdotal posts that "nobody I know owns a radio." My question to them is: Do they own a car? Because most of the Gen Z radio listening is done in the car.
Exactly. They're not listening to streams for hosted and curated music presentation. They're listening to streams as a direct replacement for buying CDs or other former music media.
We need to recognize that an entire method for listening to music has mostly gone away, and that is the buying of hard product, such as CDs, vinyl, or even downloads. All of that is a very small percentage of music consumption, replaced by streaming.
Album Sales Are Dying as Fast as Streaming Services Are Rising
Music consumption shot up in 2018 — but no thanks to album or song sales, according to BuzzAngle's year-end report released today.
And yes, I constantly read anecdotal posts that "nobody I know owns a radio." My question to them is: Do they own a car? Because most of the Gen Z radio listening is done in the car.
Not only has this thread gone off the tracks, it's crashed and burned. No surprise.
Really? There isn't much more to say about how KOMO had an increase 6+ even though that rating doesn't matter. Going forward, there is a lot to be said about how consumers listen to music or get their news that will affect KOMO, or whatever it becomes.
The interesting part of this discussion and the part this community can comment on, is the simple question, would a news radio format absent a TV partner to help support it, be the first, best use of the 1000 am frequency. To determine this we'd need (1) a decent estimate of what the station bills (power ratio) and (2) what it would cost to (continue to) operate a news format station. And is whatever that profit (margin) is, could they do better with something else (like a regional hispanic format). Way cheaper to run, but much lower expected revenue from agencies and buyers in this market.
That's a question facing the new owner. My sense in reading what the new owner has said is the answer is yes, they plan to continue the news format and take on partners as needed. The sale includes a lot of promotion for news on KOMO-TV. That says to me that KOMO-TV will have some form of presence on this radio station. That local promotion would be much less effective if the frequency is used for a non-news format.
What about KIRO Radio? They got split off from KIRO TV years ago and are still around.
There are many examples of successful news radio stations which aren't tied to a TV news department. With the exception of a station like WTOP, typically they just supplement hours spent repeating or reporting news, with talk or some form of network news. In my mind the larger question is: Would there be room enough for more than one local news/talk station in the market?
There aren't "many" examples of News radio stations!
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