Well to me, that's pretty respectable! Maybe 6+ isn't as accurate of a success indicator after all, eh Tall Guy?
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Entercom's alternative experiment not a success?
- Thread starter tall_guy1
- Start date
Then why did they kill off "the buzz" and lay off people and change the sound last September?
I don’t see where you answered the question. It’s perfectly acceptable if you can’t as it’s a question that would be tough to answer. I’m just simply stating that in Boston there is an obvious trend between the stations at the bottom of the 6+ ratings that flip formats, which would indicate the demos and billings were not all that great.
I have no agenda other than wishing the radio pros would stop pretending these ratings means “nothing” when I see station after station disappearing when they appear near the bottom. Not 100 percent of the time obviously, but a noticeable trend.
I've definitely seem that trend in kc. In 2019, x1051 a cumulus alternative flipped to harder rock, while probably having similarly high young male numbers and even a more "youthful" sound than krbz at the time.
In the two cases I'm aware of, both stations (WBOS and WOGL) were bottom dwellers in all demos.
The fact that they were also low 6+ is coincidental.
WTDY Philly had been stuck at the bottom 6+ for years. But they're Top 5 18-34. So no flip expected.
To be clear, my point is that the ratings within a demo are most important but a station declining and/or appearing at the bottom of the 6+ ratings seems to often indicate a problem for the station. The reverse holds true for stations doing well in 6+. It does not tell the entire story for sure.
My question did not actually ask for any proprietary ratings data. It just asked for publicly available data on the 6+ ratings of stations that flipped formats.
WAAF and WODS are two other recent flips from 2020. Both near the bottom of 6+. Those were not alternative stations though. If we we are only talking about alternative since that is the topic of the forum, WFNX is one from several years ago, but I can’t say for sure what the 6+ were. I assume they were not good.
WAAF was sold, not flipped.
I meant to say WODS, not WOGL. WODS flipped because it didn't deliver enough young listeners. 6+ was not a factor.
I stand corrected but it’s an example of a station that disappeared that was a consistent bad performer in 6+
Once again, coincidence. They buyers didn't care about the ratings.
Probably due to cluster strategy.
Well, it sounds like they're backed into a corner though, since 6+ numbers represent an average. If they can't get advertisers who specialize in the 25-34 male demo, they're screwed.
It was a format strategy created in order to cut costs (a lot of staff everywhere were fired) and experiment with nationalizing the format's music in the direction the format captain thinks alternative is going. Many Audacy stations share an MD or even a PD right now.
There is a real possibility that even the stations bombing out right now (KITS, KVIL) are still turning a profit due to lack of overhead and local staff.
If they sell the three male-oriented stations in a package, they can do very, very well. In fact, they are doing enormously well.
While most ad buys are in the 18 to 54 range, many if not most are very specific. You might find "English dominant Hispanic females 25-44" on a buy spec.
There are lots of male buys, which is why sports and heavily male rock oriented formats do so well in billing. There are plenty of cases of stations that are not even top 10 in 6+ or 12+ that bill at very high levels because their target is desired by advertisers and they do well in that target.
That makes sense. I'm obviously not the typical 25-34 yr old male....I think they sound terrible! I wonder if Sacramento is having luck outside that demo for the 6+ numbers to be that good?
And that's the simple summation of all your comments in this thread: Because you don't like some of the music choices on the station, there's no way the station/format can be profitable. It doesn't work that way.
But again, that's the point. Unless one is able to drill down to the actual data based on the target demo(s) for the station, there's no way you see even part of the picture. That data is proprietary. 6+ means nothing, because stations don't sell based on 6+, let alone as some sort of weathervane as to how well their music selections are doing.
In this case it's true, and when a niche demo is being served, but sometimes an overall number can indicate how the general population receives a station. For example, the alternative stations can serve the younger demo quite well, but they must have abyamal numbers for the older crowd to get something like a 2.3 in the 6+. Here's the 6+ numbers of kc stations that flipped the month before:
997 kiss fm 2.0 (2010)
997 gen x 1.9 (2011)
1037 the dam 1.1 (2012)
Alice 102 2.1 (2014)
1051 jack fm 4.6 (2016)* cumulus has tao other classic hits in town
X1051 2.3 (2019)
So the trend is low 6+, format flip. Some can indicate no audience is being served
But you can't make the generalization without knowing the actual factor in the flip.
As I pointed out, WTDY Philly is low rated 6+, but Top 5 18-34.
On the other side, WBZ-AM is Top 5 6+, but low rated in 25-54.
Back in the 80s, there were "beautiful music" stations such as WRFM in NYC that were Top 5 6+, and most of their audience was over 50. So that entire format went away, even though the stations appeared to be getting great ratings.
The other thing you guys don't consider is the expense of making a format flip. Unless there's good research that the new format will make more money than the one it replaces, it's cheaper to stick with the old format. Because the flipped station will have to go through 6 months of no sales until the ratings are consistent on the new format.
It's also a chore for sellers, who have been telling clients how great the station was and who, now, have to say it was not so great and that it is being blown up and changed. There is a big credibility issue there.
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