Clear Channel's Brandy Newman is now out. According to the trades, she resigned. What does this mean for the stations KSNE, KPLV and KWNR? We all know that KPLV and KWNR (especially KWNR) have struggled in the ratings and the entire cluster is down huge in revenue. I wonder if more changes are coming???
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- Thread starter radiopunk99
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I remember back when KWNR was a top rated, top billing station. It was one of the most live and local stations Clear Channel had in the country. I thought it was a good station but it was bashed and criticized on this board all the time back then.
Now that it's one of the lowest rated stations with tanking billing and features mostly syndication and voicetracking no one ever says anything negative about it on this board or has any criticisms. Shouldn't it be the other way around?
Perhaps not enough people are listening these days to even form an opinion. I always heard a station people love or hate is better than one that nobody cares about one way or another. Or perhaps this is just part of a wider trend where less people have passionate opinions about radio stations in general?
Now that it's one of the lowest rated stations with tanking billing and features mostly syndication and voicetracking no one ever says anything negative about it on this board or has any criticisms. Shouldn't it be the other way around?
Perhaps not enough people are listening these days to even form an opinion. I always heard a station people love or hate is better than one that nobody cares about one way or another. Or perhaps this is just part of a wider trend where less people have passionate opinions about radio stations in general?
Jay...In my opinion, you are describing perfectly what is wrong with the acquiescence to the fact that PPM is here to stay, listeners be damned. Do you remember what happened in 2007-2008? Stations that were "top-rated" and "top-billing" sank quickly, while stations that had sucked in the ratings were suddenly in the top 5. Example: We were supposed to believe that thousands of loyal listeners abandoned the Smooth Jazz format almost overnight. Not just here, but across the country. There are many other examples. PPM hasn't done listeners any favors, and there isn't any doubt what it's done to the careers of thousands of air personalities. But then, it wasn't designed to benefit either of them.
Eggman said:
Eggman:
PPM is merely a device that records what's actually being heard by the listener.
Prior to that, we had a diary system based on recall. We knew in the 70s that most people filled in their diaries at the last minute, wrote down the call letters of the stations they could remember listening to days before, not writing down those they couldn't and rounding up time spent listening.
With PPM, we now know what they're really doing....listening to six stations, not two...listening for 18 minutes between 8 and 9 AM, not listening from 8 to 9.
Listeners are doing the same things they've always done. They've been telling us to shut up and play the hits for 50 years, but then we'd get the book and say that what we were doing was working...that all our jocks were entertaining, that the audience tolerated iffy music choices, that there was a spot advertising business case to be made for entire formats.
And it wasn't true.
If you were an advertiser spending your hard-earned money on local radio, you deserved to know what you were actually getting.
PPM does a much better job of that than the diaries did. It shattered some illusions along the way, but we'd have found out eventually. And advertisers no longer feel like you would if you paid $25 for an oil change every three months for five years and then learned (when the engine failed) that they only changed it twice in that time.
Your basic statement is correct, Michael. PPM records what a listener hears. The issue I raise is whether or not they're actually listening to it.
We will disagree and I enjoy the debate. I believe that PPM has created far more illusions than it has shattered. Its inherent flaw (a debate that goes back to diaries) is to equate "hearing" with "listening" when they are most often two different things. People wearing PPM devices walking through a store may not be listening at all, but are giving stations droning on in the background the same credit as though they were in their cars or at work. What do advertisers want, people who are actively listening, or people who are "hearing" the station benignly somewhere along the line? Wouldn't that lend to the argument that those "listeners" would be less likely to hear and clearly understand an advertiser's message?
I appreciate the primer on PPM but didn't need it. It's not hard to figure out. And I believe that if you are an advertiser spending your hard-earned money on local radio, you should be wary of PPM numbers.
We will disagree and I enjoy the debate. I believe that PPM has created far more illusions than it has shattered. Its inherent flaw (a debate that goes back to diaries) is to equate "hearing" with "listening" when they are most often two different things. People wearing PPM devices walking through a store may not be listening at all, but are giving stations droning on in the background the same credit as though they were in their cars or at work. What do advertisers want, people who are actively listening, or people who are "hearing" the station benignly somewhere along the line? Wouldn't that lend to the argument that those "listeners" would be less likely to hear and clearly understand an advertiser's message?
I appreciate the primer on PPM but didn't need it. It's not hard to figure out. And I believe that if you are an advertiser spending your hard-earned money on local radio, you should be wary of PPM numbers.
Eggman said:
Rightly or wrongly, advertising has moved past active listening to exposures, especially in markets where most of the ad dollars are agency buys.
If subliminal advertising works, and we know that it does, your brain is picking up that spending 15 minutes with GEICO can save you 15 percent or more on your car insurance whether you're fully aware of the words being spoken or not.
Almost none of us hears a radio ad for the first time and rushes to spend our money. It's cumulative exposure to the message that over time has us making choices based on opinions of what the brand stands for whether we've been there before or not. Wal-Mart has the lowest prices. Subway has low-cal, healthy sandwiches. Nobody sells cars for less than ABC Nissan.
Maybe that involuntary, just-barely-there exposure is your first. Maybe it's the one that cements the impression that gets you to take action. Or maybe it's one of the however many in between in that process. The way ad agencies see it, it's all valuable enough to spend thousands of dollars a day on several stations to put it out there.
And since that's their worldview, a device that tells them what you were exposed to is what they need to decide who they spend that money with.
And then there are those of us who judge the product being advertised by the number of times an ad appears. I can easily remember the name and phone number of the personal injury/bankruptcy lawyer who advertises constantly on Phoenix TV but because she advertises that much it means she isn't getting the individual referrals. There must be a reason and I don't want to find it out the hard way.
Anyone remember Wonderful Russ? Sure you remember him but how many will contract his services?
I personally like most of the Progressive Insurance ads (Flo & company) but will not do business with them.
There is nothing scientific about my theory and at times it may be wrong. Over my long years though I have found it is true more than not and it has worked for me.
Anyone remember Wonderful Russ? Sure you remember him but how many will contract his services?
I personally like most of the Progressive Insurance ads (Flo & company) but will not do business with them.
There is nothing scientific about my theory and at times it may be wrong. Over my long years though I have found it is true more than not and it has worked for me.
landtuna said:
No, LandTuna, you're not alone. I'm hype-averse, myself. But there are enough people influenced by advertising (they don't have to get everybody) for it to be worth their while. Wonderful Russ still airs. That means two things...he has money to buy advertising fairly consistently, which isn't cheap and must come from the revenue he generates...and it must work for him because he continues to do it, which suggests he's seeing an acceptable ROI. If he was new, we could say "wait and see", but he's been doing essentially the same ad with slight variations for 30 years.
Look at all the construction, warehouses, shops, etc. and retail places that have closed. The blue collar demographic has gone down the toilet. I was up in NLV on Loosee Road, and I can not believe how dead it is, even the working class bars have closed, construction is dead and the people who served it are going or have left in some cases. I ]t used to be so busy you could not find a parking place.
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