Gainesville Fall Ratings

[amfmxm]

I’ve been down Gainesville the past couple weekends – at least you guys have a Too Jays LOL. I was wondering what exactly makes up the Gainesville market for radio ratings. Is it just Alachua and Marion counties? On the way through Bradford County,I was wondering if that’s part of the Jax market or that’s an areas that’s just not measured for radio ratings. There’s a lot of little communities between I-10 and Waldo Rd along 301 and I’m assuming they aren’t measured either? I’ve never been sure where the Jax market ends and Gainesville begins.

IIRC, the radio market is Alachua, Marion, Gilchrist & Levy counties--with about 90% of the population in Marion & Alachua. While Alachua/Gainesville has a higher profile with outsiders because of UF, Marion/Ocala is significantly larger--about 40% larger--giving WOGK a built-in advantage over WRUF in the Arbitron rating wars. Unless UF somehow manages to improve 103.7's coverage in Marion (uh... move the stick 20 miles south... get a big gain in HAAT... or buy an existing Ocala FM) they're basically screwed.

On the other side, the Jax market starts as soon as you leave Alachua County to the east or northeast...

 

[ThatGuyOnTheRadio]

The Gainesville/Ocala TSA (total survey area) is made up of 13 counties. These counties are surveyed in the fall and spring book while the metro is surveyed all 4.

METRO

ALACHUA
MARION
LEVY
GILCHRIST


TSA

ALACHUA
MARION
LEVY
GILCHRIST
DIXIE
CITRUS
SUMTER
PUTNAM
BRADFORD
UNION
COLUMBIA
SUWANNEE
LAFAYETTE

 

[jmtillery]

Unless UF somehow manages to improve 103.7's coverage in Marion (uh... move the stick 20 miles south... get a big gain in HAAT... or buy an existing Ocala FM) they're basically screwed.

Prior to March 2, 1987, WRUF-FM was classified as a full class "C" and could have upgraded to full "C" status with a tower move 20-miles South, closer to Ocala, as you suggested. UF filed on March 3, 1987 to move to a newly proposed 2,000 stick planned for somewhere near Williston in Southeast Levy County. I believe WUFT-TV and WUFT-FM had also filed to move to the new tower in order to greatly improve the signals in Ocala and Marion County for all three respective stations. Unfortunetely, the cut-off to file in order to preserve full "C" status for WRUF-FM was March 2, 1987, while the WRUF-FM application was not filed till March 3, 1987, resulting in UF being a literal day late and a metaphoric dollar short. Since that time, the former WDUV 103.3 Bradenton upgraded to full "C" status with a frequency move to 103.5 and a tower move to Parrish, Florida resulting in locking WRUF-FM in as a "C1" where its existing tower is currently located. The tower cannot be moved any further South than its present location and no class upgrade is possible under current FCC FM spacing rules.

 

[MN Maniac]

Wasn't it the 103.7 allocation to Vero Beach that prevented the WRUF-FM upgrade? I seem to remember 103.7 in Vero was active when WDUV was still on 103.3.

 

[vadar]

Classic example of a missed opportunity. Didn't any of these owners have vision to think that more and more stations would clutter the FM dial and the FCC would make it painfully hard to serve their market and perhaps an extended market? Let me guess it came down to add revenue and who could get wealthy off this move. Who is the genius that combined these 2 markets? Name more than 5-7 stations that clearly cover all of these 4 counties? If TSA covers Bradford and Union, then the Jax market has that covered. Odd, very odd. I'm still waiting for a true CHR to come to my town. I have to depend on 93.3 FLZ and XL 1067 both in larger markets at least 60 miles away. Thank you FCC for having my local interests at heart.

 

[redneckriviera]

Who is the genius that combined these 2 markets? Name more than 5-7 stations that clearly cover all of these 4 counties?

Entercom, wasn't it? For KTK's benefit (though UF went along for the ride). And, yeah, that was the point: it cornered the market for the handful of Class Cs, but particularly for KTK--which, at that time, had the only stick with true full-market coverage.

And, you know, it worked pretty well for a long, long time. It sure made Entercom a helluva lot of money!

 

[ThatGuyOnTheRadio]

Yes, it was Entercom and I believe perhaps the former Z-93?

All subscribers to Arbitron at the time had to sign off on the merge. Doug Gillen/WYKS were not yet subscribers... woops.

To this day, it is rumored he regrets not subscribing so that he could've blocked it.

 

[Kmagrill]

Yes, it was Entercom and I believe perhaps the former Z-93?

All subscribers to Arbitron at the time had to sign off on the merge. Doug Gillen/WYKS were not yet subscribers... woops.

To this day, it is rumored he regrets not subscribing so that he could've blocked it.

The only Arb subscriber in Marion or Alachua Counties at the time was WKTK. Since combining a market (adding a county) requires 100% unanimous approval of all Arbitron subscribers, well, WKTK got to make that decision all by itself.

 

[ThatGuyOnTheRadio]

Lucky them.... and didn't KTK downgrade a touch since then for 98.7 in Tampa?

 

[MN Maniac]

I was working for WOCA/WMFQ at the time the markets were combined. I raised the issue that this probably would not work to our advantage since neither of our stations penetrated Gainesville very well. The problem with WMFQ of course is that the tower is located south of Ocala and cannot be moved any further north due to the C1 on 92.9 in Valdosta. Actually, WMFQ is lucky to have the facilities they have since they began life as a Class A on 92.7.

As I recall, nobody at the station seemed very concerned about this. They didn't sell in Gainesville anyway. At the time, the WMFQ format had just transitioned from Easy Listening to Lite A/C. Primary service area was Ocala/Belleview/northern Lake Co. The WMFQ signal was solid in all these places.

Gary Granger, GM of WKTK, was the mastermind who put the deal together to get the market combined. I believe Reynold Hawk, GM of WMMZ (now WOGK) was also on board. Obviously, these 2 entities had the most to gain with this since their signals covered both Marion and Alachua counties far better than any others. This still holds true today and the ratings bear this out.

 

[MN Maniac]

Lucky them.... and didn't KTK downgrade a touch since then for 98.7 in Tampa?

Yes. WKTK was a full Class C FM, broadcasting from the big tower near Morriston. It needed to be a full C in order to cover all that ground since it had to provide a primary contour from Gainesville to the COL in Crystal River.

Entercom was the original owner of 98.7. Mark, correct me if I'm wrong here, but I believe 98.7 was originally licensed to Sarasota as a Class A. WKTK prevented it being moved further north and into the Tampa Bay market. To get 98.7 up to Class C2 (50,000 watts), Entercom was required to downgrade WKTK from Class C to Class C1. They did this by reducing power at the Morriston site, down to the equivalent of 100,000 watts at 300 meters HAAT, the maximum for a C1.

Nearly immediately after upgrading 98.7, Entercom sold it to CBS for a very handsome profit. The whole purpose of this deal was to make money on the new Tampa station. The crippling of WKTK's signal was considered to be "collateral damage" to Entercom since a radio station in Tampa was worth much more than a radio station in Gainesville/Ocala. Especially during the mass consolidation "boom" years of the mid-late 1990s.

 

[Kmagrill]

I was working for WOCA/WMFQ at the time the markets were combined. I raised the issue that this probably would not work to our advantage since neither of our stations penetrated Gainesville very well. The problem with WMFQ of course is that the tower is located south of Ocala and cannot be moved any further north due to the C1 on 92.9 in Valdosta. Actually, WMFQ is lucky to have the facilities they have since they began life as a Class A on 92.7.

As I recall, nobody at the station seemed very concerned about this. They didn't sell in Gainesville anyway. At the time, the WMFQ format had just transitioned from Easy Listening to Lite A/C. Primary service area was Ocala/Belleview/northern Lake Co. The WMFQ signal was solid in all these places.

Gary Granger, GM of WKTK, was the mastermind who put the deal together to get the market combined. I believe Reynold Hawk, GM of WMMZ (now WOGK) was also on board. Obviously, these 2 entities had the most to gain with this since their signals covered both Marion and Alachua counties far better than any others. This still holds true today and the ratings bear this out.

The thing that made it okay for the small stations was that they could still gert the individual county reports which they would use to sell to local shops. Of course, the national business all went to the bigger players. The point that Granger made was that Gainesville was something like market 185 and when combined with Ocala it became a top 100, which was supposed to bring a lot more national money to the market. Probably, that turned out to be true, but of marginal help for smaller players. Probably doesn't help KTK that much anymore, either since they lost their dominance in the market when they downgraded their signal.

 

[ThatGuyOnTheRadio]

What was KTK's original height?

 

[MN Maniac]

Even as a full Class C, WKTK had a few "dead spots" in Gainesville. It did not penetrate the steel and concrete of the Oaks Mall very well, as I remember. Given the distance from the transmitter, that was to be expected. But the signal suffered quite a bit with the drop to C1. Not in terms of flat-out range: that was about the same as before. In Florida, as I'm sure you're aware, the main coverage limitation is co-channel and first-adjacent channel interference, not lack of RF energy. But inside Gainesville buildings, you really noticed the difference. Especially on cheaper radios.

The reason none of the Ocala stations subscribed to Arbitron in the pre-hyphenated-market days was because it wasn't cost effective to do so. Ocala was only listed as a supplemental market to Orlando. I don't know the exact criteria and specifics used in supplemental market surveys back then, but I was told by both programmers and salespeople that it was basically "worthless" to the Ocala stations and not worth sending a check to Arbitron for.

 

[MN Maniac]

What was KTK's original height?

Mark, do you know? I seem to remember around 1,400 feet HAAT. Just slightly less than WMMZ/WOGK.

 

[ThatGuyOnTheRadio]

WOW!! That's a hell of a downgrade. 400 feet is a big deal.

 

[MN Maniac]

There were some strange things going on in the 'ol market back in those days! When I was at WTRS, I asked about their tower west of Ocala which was still relatively new at that point. I was told they could have built it to a full 1,000 feet which would have made WTRS a C1 instead of a C2. More importantly, it would have delivered a city grade signal over Gainesville from that height. I was told that "Yeah, they could have gone 100,000 watts, but they didn't want to spend the money. All they cared about was hitting Ocala and being legal in Dunnellon (COL.)"

To this day, I'm still not sure whether or not this was true. But if it is...if they passed on a C1 because of an extra 500 or so feet of steel...that was an EXTREMELY short-sighted decision!

 

[ThatGuyOnTheRadio]

Same with WKZY, they had an option to built a 1,000 foot stick in Trenton but passed it up for quite sometime, then when they wanted to, the land owners around the site wouldn't sell, only lease and they didn't want to lease the land.

 

[jmtillery]

Wasn't it the 103.7 allocation to Vero Beach that prevented the WRUF-FM upgrade? I seem to remember 103.7 in Vero was active when WDUV was still on 103.3.

No. The Vero Beach allocation was not assigned until after the deadline. ALL previous class "C" FMs, regardless of power or antenna height, were given till March 2, 1987 to at least file an application on Form 301 to specify the new minimum "C" standards (100kw at 981 feet or higher) to preserve their full C status. Beginning March 3, 1987, the FCC began accepting applications for the new C1 and C2 sub-classes, many of which were class "A"s that were able to take advantage of upgrading to class C2. The C3 sub-class was authorize several years later to allow class A stations that did not qualify for C2 upgrades to realize some kind of upgrade with the C3. The class C0 was authoirized much later; However neither the C0 nor the C3 were a part of the original Docket 80-90 which created the sub-class "C"s (C2 and C1) and forced many full "C"s to downgrade to "C1"s because the licensee did not file Form 301 by the March 2, 1987 deadline. By way of example, WQHL-FM 98.1 Live Oak, which was originally a full C, was downgraded to a C2.

 

[Kmagrill]

Wasn't it the 103.7 allocation to Vero Beach that prevented the WRUF-FM upgrade? I seem to remember 103.7 in Vero was active when WDUV was still on 103.3.

No. The Vero Beach allocation was not assigned until after the deadline. ALL previous class "C" FMs, regardless of power or antenna height, were given till March 2, 1987 to at least file an application on Form 301 to specify the new minimum "C" standards (100kw at 981 feet or higher) to preserve their full C status. Beginning March 3, 1987, the FCC began accepting applications for the new C1 and C2 sub-classes, many of which were class "A"s that were able to take advantage of upgrading to class C2. The C3 sub-class was authorize several years later to allow class A stations that did not qualify for C2 upgrades to realize some kind of upgrade with the C3. The class C0 was authoirized much later; However neither the C0 nor the C3 were a part of the original Docket 80-90 which created the sub-class "C"s (C2 and C1) and forced many full "C"s to downgrade to "C1"s because the licensee did not file Form 301 by the March 2, 1987 deadline. By way of example, WQHL-FM 98.1 Live Oak, which was originally a full C, was downgraded to a C2.

Yup. WRUF could still have upgraded after the deadline. It took a couple of years longer for stations to encroach from the south. The dean was opposed to it for several reasons, most of which weren't very good in retrospect.