Are you people paying attention?

[gabigley1]

I may have erred in declaring WNKO to be off the Spring 09 Arbitron 12+ chart. I was basing that on radio-info's Columbus Ratings page, which gave it a dash and grouped it at the bottom along with quite a few other non-qualifiers, but the chart in today's Dispatch disagrees and lists the station at 1.0 for the past quarter.
Anyone who chooses to read Tim Feran's accompanying analysis on page D6 of all the numbers should allow his or her eyes to drift up a bit and to the right, as the "Today's Highlights" Radio block includes a listing for a rebroadcast of an earlier "Yesterday's Top Secrets" episode from last October that will air at 8:00 tonight on 'CRS. Many new "Secrets" shows have been listed here in the past, but none of the Monday night repeats has ever cracked this prestigious line-up until now. Luv ya, Susan! :-*

Here is the link to Tim's article: http://www.dispatch.com/live/conten...RING.ART_ART_08-03-09_D6_E2EL1SV.html?sid=101

And the Spring 09 Arbitron 12+ chart from this article:
http://www.dispatch.com/live/content/life/stories/2009/08/03/abritron.html

 

[Nu_Roo_2]

In spite of its growth in the past two decades, Columbus is still a relatively conservative city.  The radio stations are merely reflecting that. I agree that the market's radio offerings are bland. Just saying....

Whether or not Columbus radio should be "bland" is kind of beside the point. The real point is that multiple Columbus big sticks do the SAME bland formats as each other, while important and successful bland-friendly formats are completely ignored here -- thanks largely to boneheaded format selection, led by the local CC (no)braintrust.   The guys who are so long-tenured here are incredibly lucky they landed in Columbus, even if the listeners aren't.  They would've been booted many years ago in almost any other Top 100 market, but they can be successful locally with subpar management and programming merely because of Columbus' paucity of big sticks relative to size.

Put another way, bland is done better everywhere else because there is more competition.  Columbus is nirvana for the stupid-yet-profitable style of management.  I'd just love to see how long these jokers would last managing in other markets.  In fact, this already seems evident in the fact that some of the outside-Columbus oversight that had been handed to local CC management  already being chipped away.  Hardly a surprise.  Maybe THIS is the way CC national management is FINALLY starting to see that their Columbus emporer actually has no clothes -- just luck (until now???).

 

[alans613]

Columbus is a conservative city, yes, but the radio hasn't always been this conservative. What happened to the days of 92X and WNCI head-to-head wars? The inventiveness of smaller sticks like 105.7 and 107.1? It's sad to see how badly Columbus radio has deteriorated over the last few years. No one is willing to take a risk and that is killing the radio in this town. At least Dayton has a good music station in Fly 92.9. We all remember Columbus' ill-fated attempt at Adult Hits on 103.9 as TED FM. You would never ever catch Fly playing crap like "Wind Beneath My Wings". :

 

[jakej]

No one is willing to take a risk and that is killing the radio in this town.

Columbus -- the great "test market" city that commercial radio is too stupid to test anything in.

 

[Nu_Roo_2]

Columbus is a conservative city, yes, but the radio hasn't always been this conservative.  What happened to the days of 92X and WNCI head-to-head wars?  The inventiveness of smaller sticks like 105.7 and 107.1?  It's sad to see how badly Columbus radio has deteriorated over the last few years.  No one is willing to take a risk and that is killing the radio in this town.  At least Dayton has a good music station in Fly 92.9.  We all remember Columbus' ill-fated attempt at Adult Hits on 103.9 as TED FM.  You would never ever catch Fly playing crap like "Wind Beneath My Wings".   : 

I agree completely.  I was saying that even bland radio is done better elsewhere, NOT that I buy into that idea that EVERY station must be bland here.  For example, given a big stick something like Fly 92.9 would have to TRY to get more anemic ratings (relative to signal) than Columbus's "3 share" club.  And the demos would be good, and it would be serving the community with a sound that is completely different.  Not bland, but still rooted in familiar music and not too far "out there."  Your examples from the past were good, too.

But it's always the same old story around here.  If someone in Columbus finally DOES try something a little different that has had success in a wild 'n crazy, hotbed of hip like, uh, Dayton, Ohio, it will either end up on a pipsqueak no-hope signal and/or be programmed poorly (in many ways)  and/or be left to wither by management that doesn't really believe in it.  So it dies.  Duh.  And from that point on everyone says, "Are you crazy?  Don't you see how badly that format bombed in Columbus?  It won't work in a cutting-edge market!"   Um, like Dayton or Ft. Wayne? (P.S. I like Dayton, and in a smaller-town kind of way, Ft. Wayne. I don't want to be appear to making fun of the cities themselves.)

 

[Nu_Roo_2]

But it's always the same old story around here. If someone in Columbus finally DOES try something a little different that has had success in a wild 'n crazy, hotbed of hip like, uh, Dayton, Ohio, it will either end up on a pipsqueak no-hope signal and/or be programmed poorly (in many ways) and/or be left to wither by management that doesn't really believe in it. So it dies. Duh. And from that point on everyone says, "Are you crazy? Don't you see how badly that format bombed in Columbus? It will only work in a cutting-edge market!" Um, like Dayton or Ft. Wayne?

Just noticed that I had a meaning-changing typo in second-to-last-sentence above. Too late to edit. "It won't work in a cutting-edge market!" should have said "It will only work in a cutting-edge market!" Corrected in bold italics above.

 

[Nu_Roo_2]

EDIT to delete duplicate of my correction post (sheesh). Ever since I upgraded to FF 3.52 last night I've been plagued by duplicate posts (on another board too). Hope this one and another coming up don't come out double as well. If they do,my apologies in advance.

 

[Nu_Roo_2]

No one is willing to take a risk and that is killing the radio in this town.

Columbus -- the great "test market" city that commercial radio is too stupid to test anything in.

Arguments about commercial viability aside, you personally deserve kudos for being persistent enough to bring some variety to the local airwaves.

 

[jakej]

Aw, thanks, Nu! Just to be on the safe side I looked up that word in the dictionary, and none of its alternate definitions was in any way negative. (I thought kudos might've also been an obscure poisonous fruit that grows only in Madagascar, but I was wrong.)

 

[Nu_Roo_2]

Aw, thanks, Nu! Just to be on the safe side I looked up that word in the dictionary, and none of its alternate definitions was in any way negative. (I thought kudos might've also been an obscure poisonous fruit that grows only in Madagascar, but I was wrong.)

LOL! Tim, you need a botany refresher (and no, that's not a lethal cocktail, stop being so paranoid): That highly poisonous plant you refer to is the rare kudosi madagi, which has been spotted only in western Madagascar and eastern Obetz.

Anyway, I assure you it wasn't a typo, I did mean kudos.

 

[Rusty Blades]

No one is willing to take a risk and that is killing the radio in this town.

Columbus -- the great "test market" city that commercial radio is too stupid to test anything in.

Arguments about commercial viability aside, you personally deserve kudos for being persistent enough to bring some variety to the local airwaves.

Erm...for those of us on the outside, what variety are you referring to?

 

[jakej]

Tune or stream in tonight and tomorrow night and find out, Rusty! (8-9pm, 98.3 or 102.1 FM, whichever works better for you; the streaming is through www.wcrsfm.org). The show is "Yesterday's Top Secrets", its featured artists both nights (getting played twice each hour instead of just once) are going to be the Everly Brothers and the Embarrassment, and also appearing over the course of the two evenings will be Carly Simon, the Dream Syndicate, Sly and the Family Stone, the Gun Club, Love, Haircut 100, the Velvet Underground, Killing Joke, the Partridge Family, Sport of Kings, Procol Harum, Squeeze, and many more! As I say during each show's introduction, it's "oldies that aren't old, because they haven't been played to death on all the other stations, and alternative music that was simply a pleasant alternative to all of the disco that surrounded it when it first came out."
Past featured artist pairings on "Secrets" have included the Beatles and Buzzcocks, the Rolling Stones and the Ramones, the Dave Clark Five and the Dead Boys, the Doors and the Damned, Steely Dan and the Smiths, the Mamas and the Papas and the Monochrome Set, Creedence Clearwater Revival and the Cramps, Janis Joplin and the Jesus and Mary Chain, the Carpenters and the Cocteau Twins, the Byrds and the Birthday Party, and the Beach Boys and Big Dipper (whose four past episodes as featured artists are currently being rebroadcast on Monday nights during my offshoot show, "Secrets Classic", in the same time slot). "Yesterday's Top Secrets" has been on the air since last October, and coming up in mid-September will be its 100th episode.

 

[Nu_Roo_2]

At least Dayton has a good music station in Fly 92.9.

Jeez, I knew Fly 92.9 (WGTZ) was doing OK, but I lost track of HOW well! In the last four quarterlies their 12+ AQH share has climbed from 3.0 to 5.5! I can only imagine how well they must be doing 25-54.

Yes, I realize Adult Hits is just too exotic for Columbus listeners and can only work in a cutting-edge market like Dayton. And a flip to Adult Hits would violate the Columbus big-signal format-choice credo of DREK.* But jeez, with those kinds of numbers couldn't someone possibly make an exception this time??

*Duplication Rulez! More country and mainstream/soft AC and rock and talk!! More! More!
Rock only for North American
Evaluation disorder (evaluate and dismiss a format based on its prior failure on a tiny signal that was poorly programmed)
KILL anyone who opposed one of your move-ins if you are CC/Columbus, while dreaming up some faux logic for the direct attack

 

[Nu_Roo_2]

Earlier in the thread there were references to some stations which didn't show at all in the Spring quarterly.

When the book was first released, the link from Taylor on Radio-Info said something like "Columbus - Subscribers Only." I've seen nothing else to suggest that the "subscribers only" was accurate here (especially given some of the dinky stations that made the book), but does anyone know if pehaps there was something to it? If so, then some of those vanishing stations may simply be unlisted instead of "gone."

 

[in3media_be1]

Some of the posts from this thread have been moved to Take It Outside


http://boards.radio-info.com/smf/index.php?topic=150964.msg1270897#msg1270897

 

[dawg4life]

*Duplication Rulez! More country and mainstream/soft AC and rock and talk!! More! More!
Rock only for North American
Evaluation disorder (evaluate and dismiss a format based on its prior failure on a tiny signal that was poorly programmed)
KILL anyone who opposed one of your move-ins if you are CC/Columbus, while dreaming up some faux logic for the direct attack

Throwing a little Yiddish out there.... Niiice!