One of the supposed proofs that Air America is a "failure" is the claim that the AAR station in New York City has "lower ratings" than it had when it had a "Caribbean format." I thought readers of this board might be interested in my response to this claim recently on the Tampa Bay board.
>> In New York, Air America should do well, but it has lower
>>ratings than the Carribean format it replaced.
Sigh. This has become something like a right-wing urban legend. The Air America station in New York is WLIB, which has a lousy signal and therefore will never have very good ratings. Since it changed formats there have been a couple of Arbitron books where its 12+ share was one-tenth of one percent lower than it had with its former format, but generally its shares have been as good or better than during its Caribbean music days. Not that there's anything wrong with a Caribbean format, since the number two radio station in New York has a tropical music format. And the current WLIB audience -- relatively affulent liberals -- is more desirable to advertisers than Caribbean immigrants.
Meanwhile, despite its lousy signal, WLIB has become the number two political talk station in New York in the demographic that advertisers really carry about -- 25 to 54. It beats 50,000 watt WOR (Bill O'Reilly and Michael Savage) in that demo and isn't that far behind 50,000 watt WABC (Limbaugh and Hannity) in 25-54.
(As John Mainelli of the arch-conservative New York Post recently pointed out, in the 25 to 54 demo, WABC ranks #18, while WLIB ranks #22.)
By the way, the latest Arbitrend shows that WABC has lost 29 percent of its overall audience since last fall, while WLIB has increased its overall audience by eight percent.
>> In New York, Air America should do well, but it has lower
>>ratings than the Carribean format it replaced.
Sigh. This has become something like a right-wing urban legend. The Air America station in New York is WLIB, which has a lousy signal and therefore will never have very good ratings. Since it changed formats there have been a couple of Arbitron books where its 12+ share was one-tenth of one percent lower than it had with its former format, but generally its shares have been as good or better than during its Caribbean music days. Not that there's anything wrong with a Caribbean format, since the number two radio station in New York has a tropical music format. And the current WLIB audience -- relatively affulent liberals -- is more desirable to advertisers than Caribbean immigrants.
Meanwhile, despite its lousy signal, WLIB has become the number two political talk station in New York in the demographic that advertisers really carry about -- 25 to 54. It beats 50,000 watt WOR (Bill O'Reilly and Michael Savage) in that demo and isn't that far behind 50,000 watt WABC (Limbaugh and Hannity) in 25-54.
(As John Mainelli of the arch-conservative New York Post recently pointed out, in the 25 to 54 demo, WABC ranks #18, while WLIB ranks #22.)
By the way, the latest Arbitrend shows that WABC has lost 29 percent of its overall audience since last fall, while WLIB has increased its overall audience by eight percent.
