Detroit Radio Ratings: January 2023

[MarkW]

I agree with David that streaming should not be blamed for *all* of the decline in radio listening.

A variety of factors are responsible.

 

[davideduardo]

You said all that, and didn't mention hip hop lyrics one time. Playing the wrong songs or wrong version of songs doesn't translate to hip hop lyrics are causing a decline in urban radio. You're jumping to conclusions, and your assumptions are wrong. If a radio station is not playing the music that their listeners want, that's a programming issue, and the focus should be on researching better music that the audience will actually like.

We have to accept that radio does not any longer have the exclusivity in "breaking" new hit songs. Potential listeners to a particular format know what the "best songs" are at any given moment because they do not rely solely on radio to hear them.

So if you are responsible for an Urban or Churban or CHR station, you know that there are valid and confirmed hits that you can not legally play. At the same time, you know that your listeners know about those unplayable songs and that they will reject any effort to sanitize them via editing.

The end result is that FCC licensed radio stations can't play all the hits. For listeners who keep up with the latest songs, that is a bad situation to be in.

For the record, I was born in 1989. I grew up in the 90s and early 2000s. I'm in every major demo. I'm not on the outside looking in. I am a P1 urban listener. I'm not an old guy who has to study what millennials want.

The way radio "studies" what millennials want via research. The age of the station manager or programmer does not matter; research maps out what listeners want to hear.

Again, radio listening continues to decline in PPM markets. It didn't bottom out in 2008 to 2010. It continues to decline in PPM and every other type of market.

I did not say it bottomed out in the roll-out years of the PPM. A decline began in the mid-90's due to new technology, mostly video games, absorbing some of the time 12 to 14 year olds would have spent with radio.

But, still, the biggest factor in changing the amount of time people of all age groups, genders and ethnicities spend with radio has been the roughly 35% decrease in Time Spent Listening (TSL) and the resultant deficiency in PUR caused by the introduction of the PPM measurement system.

An important sidebar to this issue is that what has replaced over the air radio is the array of paid services. And because they are paid, there is a significant group of people who can not or will not spend money on connectivity and are left with terrestrial radio as their primary audio entertainment source.

 

[davideduardo]

It's not complicated. If I want to hear Foreigner, I can say, "Alexa, play Foreigner." I don't need to sit through 20 minutes of commercials, the weather (sponsored), the traffic (sponsored), and the top of the hour ID (you guessed it, sponsored) - to hear it.

Keep in mind that 2/3 of the population does not have an Amazon device or an equivalent. And those that do must have the additional cost of Amazon Prime to get generic music streaming ; to get a personal playlist you have to add a music service to the Prime service.

A percentage of the population can't or won't pay extra money for subscriptions at the same time that essentials are increasing in cost faster than salaries in an era of 6% to 8% annual inflation.

The bottom line, no matter how much older people who grew up with it insist it isn't happening, the internet has killed it - and it's less and less relevant by the minute. It's just not hard to figure that out.

Let's see that in real statistics.

Most general market ad campaigns target 25-54 or some subset of that spread. In that demo, terrestrial radio reaches just a tad under 90% of all people every week. While the amount of listening is less, radio does not sell cume, it sells AQH persons so rates are based on delivery.

As long as radio efficiently delivers advertisers' target consumers, there will be a market for it. In the meantime, broadcasters have to figure out if ad supported programming will be viable in the more distant future and... more significantly... how to be profitable while paying the huge rights payments digital streaming involves.

Furthermore, radio hasn't done ONE thing to up it's game. It's doing the same old thing it's done since the 80's. EXACTLY the same thing. People are bored to tears with it.

The alternative is, of course, just the traditional "iPod on shuffle" of streaming or the creation of custom playlists via most streaming alternatives. Or music-less podcasts.

And music radio has been doing about the same thing since the 50's. When stations actually talk to listeners, the issues are not "boring programming" but "too many commercials". The problem is not the programming itself but the need to sell ads to pay for it all. Not everyone has the money for connectivity and streaming services.

 

[PTBoardOp94]

Furthermore, radio hasn't done ONE thing to up it's game. It's doing the same old thing it's done since the 80's. EXACTLY the same thing. People are bored to tears with it.

Not quite. 20 years ago, you didn't hear everything sponsored. The "Bass Pro Shops 94Q Studio" is a relatively new phenomenon, at least in large markets.

 

[Antruiz]

The alternative is, of course, just the traditional "iPod on shuffle" of streaming or the creation of custom playlists via most streaming alternatives. Or music-less podcasts.

Youtube. Easy.

When is the last time you heard radio in a store or at a party?

 

[davideduardo]

Youtube. Easy.

When is the last time you heard radio in a store or at a party?

You missed my point about cost. Terrestrial radio is free. Youtube is not.

 

[TheBigA]

Furthermore, radio hasn't done ONE thing to up it's game. It's doing the same old thing it's done since the 80's. EXACTLY the same thing. People are bored to tears with it.

Radio is NEVER going to replace a personal music service. That lesson was learned in the 1980s, when people had access to personal CD and cassette players. That was when reliance on radio as primary source for music started to drop.

There are lots of other areas where radio is still dominant is in providing personalities. You're not going to hear Dave Chruck & The Freak on Amazon or Spotify. If sports talk is your thing, you won't find it on Apple Music or Pandora. People who use those services want to just hear their favorite songs, and it's easier to make your own playlist than find a station that will reflect personal taste.

 

[CassChopper96]

I hear many people saying that CHR is struggiling right now nationwide. But i see many CHR stations doing very well in some markets lately>

 

[MarkW]

You missed my point about cost. Terrestrial radio is free. Youtube is not.

There is a ton of free music on YouTube.

 

[CassChopper96]

is radio in trouble for the future. Will listernship decline

 

[CLTRadio]

We have to accept that radio does not any longer have the exclusivity in "breaking" new hit songs. Potential listeners to a particular format know what the "best songs" are at any given moment because they do not rely solely on radio to hear them.

So if you are responsible for an Urban or Churban or CHR station, you know that there are valid and confirmed hits that you can not legally play. At the same time, you know that your listeners know about those unplayable songs and that they will reject any effort to sanitize them via editing.

The end result is that FCC licensed radio stations can't play all the hits. For listeners who keep up with the latest songs, that is a bad situation to be in.

The way radio "studies" what millennials want via research. The age of the station manager or programmer does not matter; research maps out what listeners want to hear.

I did not say it bottomed out in the roll-out years of the PPM. A decline began in the mid-90's due to new technology, mostly video games, absorbing some of the time 12 to 14 year olds would have spent with radio.

But, still, the biggest factor in changing the amount of time people of all age groups, genders and ethnicities spend with radio has been the roughly 35% decrease in Time Spent Listening (TSL) and the resultant deficiency in PUR caused by the introduction of the PPM measurement system.

An important sidebar to this issue is that what has replaced over the air radio is the array of paid services. And because they are paid, there is a significant group of people who can not or will not spend money on connectivity and are left with terrestrial radio as their primary audio entertainment source.

Dude you just won’t admit that you don’t know what you’re talking about. You keep talking about things that have nothing to do with the topic at hand, and refuse to directly answer the question. At this point it is a waste of energy to keep going back and forth with someone who thinks he’s the “smartest person in the room”. Let me know when you’re ready to have a serious conversation. Until then, this conversation is over. ✌️

 

[davideduardo]

Dude you just won’t admit that you don’t know what you’re talking about. You keep talking about things that have nothing to do with the topic at hand, and refuse to directly answer the question. At this point it is a waste of energy to keep going back and forth with someone who thinks he’s the “smartest person in the room”. Let me know when you’re ready to have a serious conversation. Until then, this conversation is over. ✌️

Simple statement of the problem: CHR, Churban and Urban can’t play a significant percentage of new and recent hits due to FCC regulations. Those stations have suffered a greater decline in both cume and TSL because partisans of that music can’t hear it on FCC licensed stations.

Data confirms that loss of cume and lessened TSL are greater in those formats than in any other.

 

[MVB13]

Is CHR in danger in the future? I love CHR Pop stations.

 

[davideduardo]

Is CHR in danger in the future? I love CHR Pop stations.

CHR is going to be a Top 10 format, if not at the moment Top 5 in all markets.

As discussed here, the format has issues: the younger partisans are using more streaming, some of the hits can't be played on radio due to lyrics, recent production has been criticized as not being as good.

But CHR targets 25-44 women specifically, so there will be a large percentage of that demo that still uses terrestrial radio so the format is in no danger.

 

[PTBoardOp94]

Is CHR in danger in the future? I love CHR Pop stations.

Yes, especially if you're the 2nd or 3rd CHR station in a market. CHR definitely won't go away, but weaker stations in the format will be axed.

 

[Antruiz]

Keep in mind that 2/3 of the population does not have an Amazon device or an equivalent.

Even most homeless people have phones.

Why so Many Homeless People Have Smartphones (And How They're Making Social Isolation Worse) | Savannah Aleckson

I challenged him a bit: "How do you know your relationship is as healthy as you think?" Immediately, his eyes glazed over and, wordlessly, he pulled his phone out and began scrolling absentmindedly. He ignored my presence and left my question hanging in the air, unanswered. It made him...

fee.org

https://socialinnovation.usc.edu/wp-content/uploads/2018/02/Rhoades-et-al-2017-final.pdf

https://www.cnet.com/tech/services-and-software/homeless-not-phoneless-askizzy-app-saving-societys-forgotten-smartphone-tech-users/

The only real future of radio is basically any form of talk. However, it must be done well and it must model itself after a lot of podcast with very few commercials. It's revenue cannot come from commercials from the past. It has to be built in to other technology aside from being on the actual signal. A radio station playing the same 80 songs, yet playing literally 18 minutes of commercials per hour - along with traffic, weather and in some cases (especially in mornings) news. OM's and Regional VP's of Programming scream about being LOCAL, but they have 75% of the talent on all their collective stations from other markets. It doesn't work. WE HAVE THE INTERNET - you're not fooling anyone.

I could go on for hours, but it's a waste.

 

[TheBigA]

The only real future of radio is basically any form of talk. However, it must be done well and it must model itself after a lot of podcast with very few commercials. It's revenue cannot come from commercials from the past. It has to be built in to other technology aside from being on the actual signal.

What do you mean by being "built in to other technology?" Other technology, whether it's YouTube or Spotify, is either based on advertising or subscription. Those are the choices. Which do you prefer? You either sit through commercials or give me your credit card number.