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Atlanta ahead of Detroit in Arbitron rankings

And according to that website, Boston is less than 50,000 eyes/ears away from Detroit. So will Beantown overtake Motown within a year? ???

Go Tigers!
 
Boston dropped out of the Top 10 last year.

People have been moving South for decades and Southern cities have been gaining population. Of course, people are moving out of Detroit faster than other rust Northern cities. Time was Detroit was number five. Boston is a liveable, but expensive, city. People go to college there and many never want to leave. Lots of well-paying high tech jobs. Still, I'd put my money on Miami moving into the Top 10 shortly.
 
fred flintstone said:
Still, I'd put my money on Miami moving into the Top 10 shortly.
Click to expand...

Barring a hurricane, of course. (God forbid.)
 
Someone started a thread about the population shifts in America. It was very interesting.

The West and American South are growing, while the Midwest and Northeast are losing residents.

Do you think New York will lose its top spot in rankings someday?
 
Kevin said:
Someone started a thread about the population shifts in America. It was very interesting.

The West and American South are growing, while the Midwest and Northeast are losing residents.

Do you think New York will lose its top spot in rankings someday?
Click to expand...

DEFINITELY, It will be Los Angeles.
 
The Solution

Keep Detroit in the Top 10.

The rankings are for MSAs (Metro Survey Areas).
Metro Areas a defined by the Census Bureau and definitions are subject to change, sometimes as a result of political pressure and influence.

Get the Census Bureau (and therefore Arbitron) to include Washtenaw County in the Detroit Metro Area.
Currently it's the Ann Arbor Metro Area (including only Washtenaw County) - Market 147 with 297,100 people 12 or older.
That's more than enough to put Detroit ahead of Atlanta and Washington, making Detroit the number eight market with Detroit radio getting all those extra bucks that go to stations in the top 10 markets.

Check the Ann Arbor ratings. They mostly listen to Detroit radio anyway. Based on radio usage, and not all the other factors the Census Bureau uses, it should be in the Detroit market anyway.

The other alternatives are:
Make babies.
Get people to move back.
 
I've always thought Ann Arbor should be part of the Detroit metro. The problems are two-fold: first, the "loca" (A.A.) stations can lose out big-time revenue wise being folded into the Detroit market and being forced to compete against superior signals, talent, budgets, etc.; then, we forget that Arbitron would then lose a separate market (none of the A.A. stations can afford to subscribe to Arb at Detroit rates). Ditto when you go west on 96 a couple of hours to Grand Rapids- Muskegon should really be part of the G.R. market but it's separated. Seems like Kazoo and Battle Creek should be a single market, as well, but you can see how Arbitron would lose 3 Michigan markets if they consolidated markets.

Getting these smaller market, "local" stations to sign-off on that premise would be pretty difficult, even though to us radio geeks it makes total sense and we'd love to see it.
 
I don't think some of you understand just how quickly the metro Atlanta area is growing. In 2000 about 4 million people lived there, while in 2006 that figure jumped to nearly 5 million (!!!)
 
Re: The Solution

fred flintstone said:
Keep Detroit in the Top 10.

The rankings are for MSAs (Metro Survey Areas).
Metro Areas a defined by the Census Bureau and definitions are subject to change, sometimes as a result of political pressure and influence.

Get the Census Bureau (and therefore Arbitron) to include Washtenaw County in the Detroit Metro Area.
Currently it's the Ann Arbor Metro Area (including only Washtenaw County) - Market 147 with 297,100 people 12 or older.
That's more than enough to put Detroit ahead of Atlanta and Washington, making Detroit the number eight market with Detroit radio getting all those extra bucks that go to stations in the top 10 markets.

Check the Ann Arbor ratings. They mostly listen to Detroit radio anyway. Based on radio usage, and not all the other factors the Census Bureau uses, it should be in the Detroit market anyway.

The other alternatives are:
Make babies.
Get people to move back.
Click to expand...

You may get some broadcasters out there in Ann Arbor fighting to stay OUT of the Detroit Metro Area. To be lumped in with Detroit would put them at a disadvantage financially. When Lee Hanson owned his stations in Port Huron (St. Clair County), they too were part of the Detroit Metro. Lee wanted OUT of Detroit. The reason? Because when your stations are lumped in with the other signals downriver, and you don't show up in their book, that's agency money you're not getting.

This is why stations that are in a major market, but are not major market themselves per se, usually struggle financially. When you're in a non-rated market, then the diaries sent out to listeners in your area aren't lumped in with the adjoining major market.

This is one reason why a lot of high-powered FM's in that same situation market themselves towards the city, and not the suburbs. They have to depend on that agency money to survive. The electric bill alone for a 50kw FM will kill you.
 
Detroit-Ann Arbor

Agreed. You then end up a very minor player among the big boys. It would be like asking AAA Toledo to join the American League Central division and have to compete against the Tigers, Chicago, Minnesota and Cleveland.
 
I don't know how much longer Chicago will remain the 3rd largest market, for both Arbitron, & Neilson. The population there has also shifted southward. Milwaukee went from #32 2 years ago, to #33, and now they're #36.
 
chicago has way too big a lead over sf/oakland market to worry about slipping

windy city is almost 2,000,000 bigger than san fran (7.7 million to 5.8 million 12+ pops.)

when u get into smaller populations, for example, milwaukee trails #35 san jose by 3,000 population and only has an 11,000 lead over #33 columbus OH.
ranking shifts are a lot more fluid outside the top 10 or so
 
As a former Big 8 20/20 News staffer I can tell you that Atlanta is growing by leaps and bounds as is Miami. I do morning news in both markets and am amazed at the growth in both cities. I often think that the old 20/20 news format created by Bill Drake and managed wonderfully by the late Byron Mcgregor (Gary Mack) would be great on some station today but alas, everyone wants credibility not sizzle.
 
artradioguy said:
As a former Big 8 20/20 News staffer I can tell you that Atlanta is growing by leaps and bounds as is Miami. I do morning news in both markets and am amazed at the growth in both cities. I often think that the old 20/20 news format created by Bill Drake and managed wonderfully by the late Byron Mcgregor (Gary Mack) would be great on some station today but alas, everyone wants credibility not sizzle.
Click to expand...

"Alas?" You sound you think credibility is a bad thing.
Don't worry. Tabloid trash is still alive and well on TV. Many stations carry an hour of syndicated "sizzle" between 7pm and 8pm. And then you have Jerry Springer and his ilk during the day.

20/20 News might do well today. High school kids and trailer trash were the target demos and they are still around.

People like you and McGregor thought junk news was "clever" and "creative." McGregor was a radio whore and he proved it with his patriotic record pandering to the right-wing illiterate and unwashed (Patriotism: The last refuge of scoundrels.)

Radio news is dead. Most stations do none at all. In most markets there is one news department plus Metro Networks. They take some audio clips from TV. Make some phone calls to get "sound" to go with a press release. And they do the standard police blotter stories (again based only on police hand-outs and phone sound bites - hardly an objective source). Nobody looks for news on the radio any more. Even politicians often don't return phone calls from radio - while they jump through hoops for TV. So why should some station [EDIT]- pay money even for trash news.

20/20 News was a guilty pleasure when I was 15, sort of like those magazines the store wasn't supposed to let me buy. It was on a level with the National Enquirer (except the Enquirer actually went out and did reporting - 20/20 News just trashed stuff off the wire). You sold out at an early age, Art, and you don't even know it - even yet. This post shows how radio continues to be a whorehouse business.

[EDIT--inflammatory.]
 
Atlanta is on the same track as Dallas/Ft. Worth. Neither town has geographical boundaries to impede metro growth, Miami has the ocean (most growth up the coast); Detroit has Canada (most growth westward towards Ann Arbor (Here we go again.)). ::)
 
Miami

Miami has tremendous limitations. The Atlantic Ocean on one side, Everglades on the other. To the north, the sprawl toward West Palm is stunning, to the south it's getting stupid. And, Miami traffic is THE worst (just named #1 city in America for road rage!).

While Miami continues to grow somewhat, many down there are migrating up to Tampa, Orlando, even Jacksonville.
 
And all those towns will be just as bad as Miami in about 20 years, if not sooner. Let;s face it: you've gotta love Miami to live there... and a lot of people love Miami!
 
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