At What Point Will 94.7 WFME Be Sold?

[TheBigA]

True, but look at WTOP in Washington.

Washington is not New York.

But if you want an example, look at WBBM Chicago. CBS blew up an FM to put WBBM's news on FM, and it really didn't change a thing.

The fact is that even with it's weaker signal, WINS is beating WCBS and other stronger signals in NYC. The news audience is older than the music audience. It doesn't matter if it's on AM or FM. There is no advantage to taking a format that skews older males and moving it to FM. The neighborhood won't change the audience.

 

[davideduardo]

But if you want an example, look at WBBM Chicago. CBS blew up an FM to put WBBM's news on FM, and it really didn't change a thing.

If you look at June July August 25-54 averages from 2010 and 2012, you find WBBM has about 45% better numbers in the last three months than it did two years ago.

This somewhat parallels the 25-54 gains of WTOP and KCBS upon adding or moving to FM.

The fact is that even with it's weaker signal, WINS is beating WCBS and other stronger signals in NYC.

But much of that fact has to do with strategy. WINS focuses on the City and not the suburbs, so it in fact has a format and presentation tailored to its coverage.

The news audience is older than the music audience. It doesn't matter if it's on AM or FM. There is no advantage to taking a format that skews older males and moving it to FM. The neighborhood won't change the audience.

But the people moving into the traditional core age of all news, starting just above the 35-year-old demo break point, have grown up entirely on FM and think AM, in general, sucks. Adding FM... or moving to FM tends to dramatically improve the sales demo performance of the strongly programmed AM stations that have made the move.

There are so few all news stations, and fewer that have added FM, so just looking at the success in Chicago, San Francisco and Washington is not conclusive. However, when looking at the successful moves of other spoken word formats to FM we see dramatic improvements in 25 54 once again: KSL, WWL, WSB, WOKV, KTAR, KIRO, WXYT, WIBC, etc., etc.

 

[TheBigA]

However, when looking at the successful moves of other spoken word formats to FM we see dramatic improvements in 25 54 once again: KSL, WWL, WSB, WOKV, KTAR, KIRO, WXYT, WIBC, etc., etc.

There aree also lots of failures, most notably WMAL in DC and WBAP in Dallas. John Dickey recently pointed to those stations as lagging behind the rest of the company. I think Entercom has also seen pretty limited success in Kansas City and Buffalo.

I stand by what I say: You can't take AM presentation, put it on FM, and expect a new younger audience to accept old style presentation. New York has news/talk on FM with WNYC, and that station is lagging behind the success of similar NPR stations in other major markets.

 

[davideduardo]

My problem with PPM is that it counts so many people who aren't really listening as listeners.

By design, the PPM measures impressions. It is doing what the radio and advertising industries wanted it to do.

...there's hardly a chance that advertising pitches are even being subliminally absorbed, so you are useless to the advertisers.

A billboard has mere seconds to make an impression. Advertisers really don't care whether you selected a station or were hearing a station as long as the impression was made. If the audio of a station is too low for a person to hear it, the PPM does not detect it either.

And yet ad agencies sell these phony-baloney numbers, full of non-listening "listeners," to their clients, and their clients accept them as gospel. Idiocy, pure idiocy.

It does not work that way at all. Agency's produce campaigns designed around an advertiser's target consumers. As part of the campaign, money is allocated to TV, New Media, Radio, Print, Outdoor, Direct Mail, and even things like point of purchase. The advertiser approves the campaign and then the agency media department selects, within each medium, the best way to spend the money. In radio, that means getting a combination of the best cost per (ratings) point and the best overall reach; except with the smallest of local agency accounts, the client does not sign off on individual station buys or the process of selecting them.

Since only about 50% of listeners (cume) to any station contribute around 92% of its listening (AQH persons), the impact of short-span listening is minimal. And since agency buys are based on cost effectiveness in AQH delivery, that occasional listening for a single quarter hour or so one time in a week will have no impact on the buy.

**** sapiens seems to be getting closer to scraping the bottom of the common sense/intelligence gene pool every day.

When you look at how ratings are actually used and how radio buys are placed, you'll realize you are misjudging the whole process.

 

[R.D.P.]

I'm rooting for WFME to get a new owner and format real soon.

Family Radio needs to go away for good.

Their presentation is a disgrace indeed.

Why anyone would still support them is beyond me.

R.D.P. <><

 

[davideduardo]

There aree also lots of failures, most notably WMAL in DC and WBAP in Dallas. John Dickey recently pointed to those stations as lagging behind the rest of the company. I think Entercom has also seen pretty limited success in Kansas City and Buffalo.

That's why I said "strongly programmed AM" in my comments. WMAL is not strongly programmed; it is no WWL or KSL or WSB. It was more like WABC in its AM only performance. WBAP had aged severely, and they put it on a rimshot... signal, signal, signal.

Entercom has seen 25-54 improvements, although not as extreme as some others.

Good, strongly programmed AMs can avoid certain death by moving to FM or adding it opportunely, and they will almost always find better 25-54 results they can sell now.

 

[davideduardo]

I'm rooting for WFME to get a new owner and format real soon.

Family Radio needs to go away for good.

Their presentation is a disgrace indeed.

Why anyone would still support them is beyond me.

Obviously, you do not like the station. But a quarter of a million people, more or less, listen each week. So the station is doing something "likable" for them.

If every station in NYC I did not enjoy or like went away, there would only be a half-dozen left.

 

[R.D.P.]

The closest Family Radio station to my hometown is in Birmingham Alabama. 

It's a 100 watt station, that only covers a radius of about 10 to 15 miles. 

Love their musical presentation. 

It's awesome and beautiful.

Their belief system is something I can live without.

Making a false prediction about when Jesus will return is unbiblical. 

Anyone that does it, has no support from the likes of me.

I avoid those kinds of people on purpose.

R.D.P. <><

 

[xmusicmatt]

The closest Family Radio station to my hometown is in Birmingham Alabama.

It's a 100 watt station, that only covers a radius of about 10 to 15 miles.

Love their musical presentation.

It's awesome and beautiful.

Their belief system is something I can live without.

Making a false prediction about when Jesus will return is unbiblical.

Anyone that does it, has no support from the likes of me.

I avoid those kinds of people on purpose.

R.D.P. <><

Camping apologized for his misinterpretation of the Bible. Personally I find the music format to be very sleepy and dull to listen to..

However like Sports talk, Hip Hop stations.. There is some market for it out there and I am guessing the folks who like it are those supporting it -- keeping the music format the way it is despite Camping's past mistakes. [Heck when PPMs still showed everyone including non subscribers.. Camping pulled at least a 1 share with WFME and that's more than a LOT of stations in NYC do.. so someone was listening]

[Thing is -- If someone else would take over his stations as is I would be willing to bet that the music format would change as it's not "mass-appeal" to most.. so if you like that style be happy Family Radio is still around because I don't see many signing up to do that type of music mix.]