Andy Furman question from a newbie...

[NewtotheNasti]

Hi all,

I'm new to Cincinnati (first time poster) have a quick question regarding the Andy Furman fiasco:

As a former nighttime sportstalker myself on a huge blowtorch of a signal in the midwest, I know the ratings are significantly lower after 6pm (or at least they were in my top-35 market--I was 7-10pm).

Why all the attention to a night-time talkshow host??? Were his nighttime ratings THAT signficant in this market???

Since I dont have access to the Cinci book, do Furman's ratings garner this much attention or is it simply becasue he was in-town for so long???

Just curiuos...

 

[exradio]

I would consider only 5 midwestern stations in markets 10-35 to be "blowtorches": WLW, WHAS, WCCO, KMOX, and WTAM. Actually I would consider the last two a little suspect because they are high up the dial. Stations higher up the dial have much less ground signal (In St. Louis 50kW KMOX on 1120 has roughly the same daytime signal in most directions as 5kW KTRS on 550.). Stations higher on the dial that have 50kW have great skywave but that doesn't help local ratings.

There are a number of other Midwestern stations with very good nighttime signals, but that doesn't put them up with the first three above.

So it's possible that signal limitations made your station less competitive at night than WLW.

Another factor may be that many full-service AM stations appeal to older listeners. That hurts nighttime sportstalk ratings in several ways: older people are not the core audience for sportstalk, men under 54 are; older people tend to listen to radio less in the evening, preferring TV, and perhaps having gotten their fill of radio during the day; the nighttime automobile population is much younger, and people in cars are always a big part of the radio audience. (Contradicting myself a bit, baseball gets large ratings on big signals, but tends to attract older listeners. But the influence of baseball is declining as more games are televised, and older people may be more inclined than other to choose to watch baseball on TV.)

Another factor is that many stations are content to do very little at night. They may get great ratings in morning drive, good ratings in PM drive, and throw it to Rush Limbaugh in Midday. They may tend to only predominately promote the morning show. Many music stations promote only two things: personalities in the morning and music rest of the day, but talk stations formats have more variety and everything needs to be promoted individually.

WLW does that, and their latest ratings were nearly twice as high as any other station 12+. I suspect the advantage is much much less 25-54 as their staff ages and the quality of service is reduced, but this is still one of the best talk stations outside a top 5 market. So that leads to more listeners for Sportstalk.

Another factor may be that Cincinnati has major sports, but not too many of them. If you're in Columbus, you've got OSU football, only recently has basketball shown signs of life, and your only major league sports are hockey and soccer, which most people don't follow. If you're in Chicago, you may have three or four teams people may be interested in all at once. In Cincinnati, most of the time it's pretty clear what people want to hear about and 95% of the time that's Reds or Bengals.

 

[NewtotheNasti]

I would consider only 5 midwestern stations in markets 10-35 to be "blowtorches": WLW, WHAS, WCCO, KMOX, and WTAM. Actually I would consider the last two a little suspect because they are high up the dial. Stations higher up the dial have much less ground signal (In St. Louis 50kW KMOX on 1120 has roughly the same daytime signal in most directions as 5kW KTRS on 550.). Stations higher on the dial that have 50kW have great skywave but that doesn't help local ratings.

There are a number of other Midwestern stations with very good nighttime signals, but that doesn't put them up with the first three above.

Oh, I dont know, I would consider 50k watts, covering 6 states a blowtorch (although only 5k at night). Further, the station routinely cited as one of the top all-sports stations in the country with the highest penetration of sportstalk of any major metro area--I think you can figure it out.

Again, does anyone have access to actual nighttime numbers for WLW's sportstalk???

I'd be willing to speculate that Lance McCalister's numbers double or possibly triple Furman's numbers--espcially in the money M 25-54 demo--but that's entirely speculation on my part...

 

[Mr. Bates]

Wow. You are new to town. Just FYI, nobody in Cincinnati calls Cincinnati "The Nasty".

 

[titoisradio]

I would consider only 5 midwestern stations in markets 10-35 to be "blowtorches": WLW, WHAS, WCCO, KMOX, and WTAM. Actually I would consider the last two a little suspect because they are high up the dial. Stations higher up the dial have much less ground signal (In St. Louis 50kW KMOX on 1120 has roughly the same daytime signal in most directions as 5kW KTRS on 550.). Stations higher on the dial that have 50kW have great skywave but that doesn't help local ratings.

There are a number of other Midwestern stations with very good nighttime signals, but that doesn't put them up with the first three above.

Oh, I dont know, I would consider 50k watts, covering 6 states a blowtorch (although only 5k at night). Further, the station routinely cited as one of the top all-sports stations in the country with the highest penetration of sportstalk of any major metro area--I think you can figure it out.

Again, does anyone have access to actual nighttime numbers for WLW's sportstalk???

I'd be willing to speculate that Lance McCalister's numbers double or possibly triple Furman's numbers--espcially in the money M 25-54 demo--but that's entirely speculation on my part...

Don't know the numbers but do know the position and even at night WLW is usually #1 or #2 especially durring baseball season. Kiss had a night show that destroyed it a few years ago with a 30 share and WEBN was up there with WLW at night for a while too.

 

[Toddy-0]

After listening to TJ's locker room comments tonight, I have to wonder if he's just given Andy (and his attorney) everything he needs for a case, that is, if the allegation of his alleged comments regarding TJ are correct.

If any of you have the chance, listen to the comments regarding the San Diego player involved in the collision during the game and the "we both live in LA and so on and so forth...." chilling comments.