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Country In NYC?
- Thread starter Mac Daddy
- Start date
I believe that it will work if they used the concept that I've adopted for my internet country station. My station is on I-Tunes and is number one in country #24 overall on the live 365 internet radio network. My main concept is that country listeners are not like top 40 listeners. First of all they are (older 35+). It has been proven that they listen much longer than your average top 40 listener. My station averages 1+ hours per listener. You must program today's hits which I do and add in lots of new releases but I don't repeat them over and over until it makes you nauseous! I add some oldies from the 70's and 80's and some "hall of fame" cuts like Marty Robbins, Tammy Wynette and Patsy Cline. Despite what the "bright" consultants say - THIS WORKS!!!!! Consultants will say that the playlist should be short and songs should repeat every two or three hours! THIS DOES NOT WORK FOR COUNTRY!!!! They are ridiculous! My station is CONSTANT COUNTRY KRS. You can find it on i-tunes under Radio then the "Country" category. You can also find it at www.live365.com/stations/constantcountry89 or at www.edgewaterradio.freeservers.com.
I know we have been constantly fed with the thoughts that you can't mix new country with old country. I don't know who came up with that idea. If you frame the "Gold" or "hall of fame" cuts properly, it works and the audience actually looks forward to hearing them!!
Jim Murphy
Constant Country KRS
I know we have been constantly fed with the thoughts that you can't mix new country with old country. I don't know who came up with that idea. If you frame the "Gold" or "hall of fame" cuts properly, it works and the audience actually looks forward to hearing them!!
Jim Murphy
Constant Country KRS
murphmac said:
I'd suggest there's a difference between what works on an online station and an on-air station.
Regarding repeating songs every 2-3 hours, there are only a handful of country on-air stations that do this. KSD in St. Louis is one that comes to mind. What it does is it drives down the median age of the listeners. Younger listeners prefer more repetition than older listeners. They also want more currents. A typical country station, one that aims at listeners in their late 30s to early 40s, plays its Top 5 songs in heavy rotation once per daypart. That means once every 5 hours.
Regarding the playlist size, that's inside baseball. The size of the playlist isn't as important as the songs on the list. Radio is a song medium. The quality of the song is important. So if a station has a full playlist, and George Strait releases a song that's obviously a huge hit, you add it regardless of the playlist size. The make-or-break for a station isn't the currents it plays, but the recurrents & gold. That's where the rubber meets the road. Those songs change all the time, and the playlist needs to be fluid enough to recognize that.
As for classics, that's a function of the market. Everybody loves Johnny Cash, but not everybody wants to listen to his music. A lot of stations have tried adding one classic an hour and promoting it as a special feature. Other stations do classic shows on the weekends. There are lots of ways to do it. I agree that NY would be a place where you'd need to play a lot of classic country.
The example of The Wolf in San Francisco is interesting. That used to be a huge country market in the 90s. KSAN was always a Top 10 station, and KNEW-AM was successful with classic country. But since those stations left, no new station has been able to duplicate the ratings they had in the 90s. You have to believe country fans are still there. But just because you build it doesn't necessarily mean they will come.
The problems with country in NY are multiple. For one thing, the format has been gone for over ten years, so there's an entire generation of people who haven't heard huge hit songs by artists who haven't crossed over. There's a perception problem about the music from both the audience and advertisers. There's a geographical problem, in that the country audience is mainly in NJ and LI, and not the 5 boroughs. And lastly, there's a facility problem, in that which station would be willing to blow itself up, start from scratch audience and advertiser wise in a market as expensive and as critical as New York? The stations most likely to do it don't have the signal coverage to guarantee success. The best chance for country is an AM station, but we all know about music formats on AM. So that's why country remains off the air in NY.
murphmac said:
Radio ratings don't work the same way Internet statistics work. Radio is a combination of total listeners plus the time the listen weekly, which gets you the share of local audience and the number of people that are tuned in at any given time. You see, advertisers can't evaluate the total reach... they need to know how many people are listening at any given time in a specific market.
Until a cross-media (web streams, iPhone streams, etc) ratings system is developed, radio will be bought market by market.
Nobody in radio ever suggested they were. Top 40, called CHR since the 70's, is principally an 18-34 female play, while country is a 25-54 play, and is actually 25-64 (but 55-64 is unsalable, so we don't look at it much).
That is the art of saying the obvious. Top 40 developed on a teen base...
Proven where? In many cases, like KIIS in LA and WHTZ in NY, the adult TSL for CHR rivals that of country stations in the PPM ratings. A lot depends on other factors, like competition, etc.
Cuntry listeners may listen longer per incident, but CHR listeners tend to come back a little more often. It evens out.
A day? A Week?
If a listener wants to hear the big hits, then a station should play them often.
Consultants don't say that... listeners do. If a station wants 25-54 listeners, they test the music with people who like country in that age range, and if a song does not do well in the demo they want, it is not played. Generally, the 25-44 part of a country audience will not want to hear Earle Flatt and Lester Scruggs.
Listeners determine the playlist on country stations. Generally, it is between 600 and 800 songs, and big hits will play every 4 hours roughly. That's none too often, given that the listeners will want to hear them often.
Your proof that something else works is anxiously awaited. What is on country radio is there because radio stations have the $100 k a year or more it takes to research listeners and each and every song.
Radio does not feed things to listeners, the listeners, upon being asked, tell radio what they want, song by song, and in overall blend.
Here we go again. In 2002 when y107 left alternative media was not yet a factor.Today, you can download freemp3 stream cuts from wpur-cat country.You can make cassettes from internet radio using a fm transmitter and a boom box.You can synch your ripped songs unto your mp3 player.You can buy a cambridge soundworks hd radio and TRY to listen to 103.5 hd2---I live in midwood and the ONLY station that is a problem is ktu-hd2.Who needs a country station anymore??? My daughter who is 15 and is gonna spend july in camp listening to thunder 102.1 WOULD LOVE A NYC COUNTRY STATION.Ihave been listening to country since 2/26/73, the day WHN,of blessed memory,went country--I am 57 yrs old and have given up any/all hope--nobody cares about my demo!!!!!!
If there were enough people excited about Country, who actually lived in NYC, to make a country station viable there would be one... what about NYC besides the Naked Cowboy at Times Square (who usually doesn't sing country music btw) says New York would be target for country music?
The demographics? NOT REALLY
The music scene? NOPE
Country record sales? HARDLY
Am I against a country station? No, I grew up in suburban/rural NY, where country was radio GOLD in the ratings... but the City has been without it for a long time and doesn't seem to miss it. When country events happen, its mostly people coming into town to see it, not actual people from the City. I just think it'd be an expensive format for NYC to get the star power to make a splash and get attention and the return might not be there to level they want.
Then again people have been asking these questions on here since this site started.
The demographics? NOT REALLY
The music scene? NOPE
Country record sales? HARDLY
Am I against a country station? No, I grew up in suburban/rural NY, where country was radio GOLD in the ratings... but the City has been without it for a long time and doesn't seem to miss it. When country events happen, its mostly people coming into town to see it, not actual people from the City. I just think it'd be an expensive format for NYC to get the star power to make a splash and get attention and the return might not be there to level they want.
Then again people have been asking these questions on here since this site started.
It would totally work if they did not have to sell ads.
Mac Daddy said:
As for as I recall reading, The Wolf is not in the Top 10 25-54.
K~
Just for the record, David, it is Lester Flatt and Earl Scruggs.
David is obviously one smart radio guy, but probably won't be consulting WSM anytime soon 8)
David is obviously one smart radio guy, but probably won't be consulting WSM anytime soon 8)
Justin Case said:
Star power in terms of artists? Most of the big ones already play NYC. Chesney, Rascal Flatts, Taylor Swift, and others have sold out Madison Square Garden. They reegularly play the Today Show concert series, Good Morning America, and Letterman. Plus the label pays for bringing the stars to NY, not the station.
Star power in terms of on-air talent is another story. I think it would take a special staff to attract an audience in NYC. Most of the former country DJs in the NY market have either retired or are a bit long in the tooth. Start out a new format with a staff of unknowns, and no one will listen. Stealing a well-known talent from another station is a possibility. Jim Kerr, Dan Taylor, and Ray Rossi are still around.
The country demo is very sellable. Adult format, slightly more female, and would make a great alternative to all the bland and boring AC stations targeting the same demo. But it would take a very different approach to make it work. Most folks don't have the imagination and the determination. The one guy who COULD have done it, Dan Halyburton, left town a couple years ago.
TheBigA said:
It's not hard to sell out MSG for all sorts of concerts in NYC. Even Brazilian, Greek, etc. concerts have sold out Madison Square Garden in the recent past. Filling 20,000 seats in a metropolitan area of 18.5 million means absolutely nothing as far as the potential of success for a radio station of that format.
As for playing the Today Show, Letterman, etc., those may be based in NY, but the broadcast is intended for a NATIONAL audience.
TheBigA said:
Have you ever been to any of those things? Concerts at Madison Square Garden draw far more people than those of us in the City... they come from Upstate, Long Island, Connecticut, Pennsylvania, obviously Jersey and even tourists... and speaking of tourists, they are who usual fill the concert series shows at the morning programs. Actual NY'ers are working at 9am not jumping up and down in Bryant Park or on the Street at Rock Center.
B
BACKnUSSR
Guest
Country has NEVER been a major success in NYC.
Country has NEVER been a major success in NYC.
Not WHN, Not WKHK, Not WYNY (when it was a NYC signal), Not WYNY (when it was a suburban signal)
So how come no one is taking their very valuable radio station and filling the void?????
Because.........
Country has NEVER been a major success in NYC.
Country has NEVER been a major success in NYC.
Not WHN, Not WKHK, Not WYNY (when it was a NYC signal), Not WYNY (when it was a suburban signal)
So how come no one is taking their very valuable radio station and filling the void?????
Because.........
Country has NEVER been a major success in NYC.
C
cspotrun
Guest
this is probably ONLY important to those in the RECORING business in Nashville, that there be a NYC Country station. and you are correct.BACKnUSSR said:
BackNUSSR, your statement about country in NYC is simply not true.
WHN was a big success in the mid and late 1970s. I'm looking right now at a front page article from Billboard's August 31, 1974 issue titled "Country Booming In N.Y." It mentions that WHN is now the 6th most listened to radio station in NYC.
March 26, 1979 article in New York magazine about the success of WKTU also mentions WHN and their 3.8 rating which is better than WXLO and twice is good as WNEW-FM.
July 4, 1976 article in the New York Times about the success of WHN and how "its 1.5 million listeners are eagerly sought by local and national advertisers”
According to ads in Broadcasting Magazine, several times WHN was #2 in adults 25-49.
So to say that: "Country has NEVER been a major success in NYC. Not WHN..." is a lie.
WHN was a big success in the mid and late 1970s. I'm looking right now at a front page article from Billboard's August 31, 1974 issue titled "Country Booming In N.Y." It mentions that WHN is now the 6th most listened to radio station in NYC.
March 26, 1979 article in New York magazine about the success of WKTU also mentions WHN and their 3.8 rating which is better than WXLO and twice is good as WNEW-FM.
July 4, 1976 article in the New York Times about the success of WHN and how "its 1.5 million listeners are eagerly sought by local and national advertisers”
According to ads in Broadcasting Magazine, several times WHN was #2 in adults 25-49.
So to say that: "Country has NEVER been a major success in NYC. Not WHN..." is a lie.
Country indeed has seen success in NYC in the past. However, one has to look at how far back in the past the format enjoyed that success. One also has to look at the numbers of more recent attempts to go country in NYC and the suburbs. And while it's been 20+ years since country has really done well in the market, more recent attempts have failed, even in the supposedly "country-friendly" suburbs.
The fact that Lite, Fresh and PLJ might play a few selected crossover hits also means nothing...they're called "crossover" hits for a reason!
The fact that Lite, Fresh and PLJ might play a few selected crossover hits also means nothing...they're called "crossover" hits for a reason!
Success is a relative term. Today, the #1 station in NY attracts a small percentage of the population. And you have several stations in NY that attract 2% of the population. Is a 2 share the measure of success? If so, then WYNY was a success. At one point, WYNY did better than a 2 share. That's better than what K-Rock gets NOW. That would be a HUGE improvement for WRXP. One could make the case (and Allan Sniffen often does) that Rock has NEVER been successful in NYC. Yet, because it attracts certain demos, there are now multiple rock stations in NYC.
The question isn't ratings success, but financial success. I believe the real reason there is no country station in NYC is because it would be tough to make money with it. In Chicago, CBS owns US-99, which is typically a Top 10 station and is one of the highest cuming stations in the country. But it isn't one of the top revenue producers, and there are stations with lower ratings that bring in more money. CBS owns country stations in several other major markets, and they have the same problem at those stations, even though a few of them are among the highest rated in town. THAT is the real issue.
The question isn't ratings success, but financial success. I believe the real reason there is no country station in NYC is because it would be tough to make money with it. In Chicago, CBS owns US-99, which is typically a Top 10 station and is one of the highest cuming stations in the country. But it isn't one of the top revenue producers, and there are stations with lower ratings that bring in more money. CBS owns country stations in several other major markets, and they have the same problem at those stations, even though a few of them are among the highest rated in town. THAT is the real issue.
Ummm but K-Rock isn't rock anymore... at least not on it's analog signal...
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