I still don't understand why advertisers would prefer an urban station that is a distant fourth, to a Country station that had a larger audience, which is less likely to be shared with other stations.
A distant 4th from what? A distant 20th for the now-gone Country station?
The average listener to all but deeply religious stations uses 6 stations in a week, even more over longer periods of time. Sharing is not always with stations with identical formats, either.
Ad rates are based on AQH audience size. Remember, to ad buyers there may several #1 stations and 7 or 8 #2 stations as they buy
ratings, not shares. And they average many books. Right now, just in February, two stations average a 0.3 in 25-54 and 9 are tied for a 0.2 rating and 7 average a 0.1 rating in that demo.
Perhaps a Country station on 94.7 or another local frequency should focus on attracting advertising from NJ based businesses and Nashville record labels, rather than NYC ad agencies.
The only advertisers who can afford the major NYC stations almost all have an ad agency or "house agency" and they buy the market, not bits and pieces of it.
Record labels are, right now, trying to get radio station to pay them, not the other way around. Show promoters buy time to promote concerts, but the labels themselves represent nearly zero dollars in ad revenue.
And remember, in radio we don't talk about cities... we talk about markets; cities are a politico construck while markets are based on radio listening. The New York radio market consists of the City and its Boroughs, all of Long Island, 9 counties in NJ and part of one in CT as well as Rockland, Westchester and Putnam upriver.