Goodbye AM & FM & HD

[wadio]

Actually, there is factual basis for the statement. According to MRI-Simmons, the audience for News Talk format is:

60% male, 86% white, and the average age is 59, with 60% of the audience at 55+ and 38% at 65+

OK.

What we see is that this audience seeks out this format even when it's on AM and there are similar stations on FM.

Can you substantiate that?

I personally don't know any white male who listens to AM radio. They get their news from TV or NPR. Of course that's anecdotal. I still listen to commercial talk radio but for the past 6 years it's been exclusively streaming. The AM radio in the last car I bought is so bad that I completely gave up on AM at that point.

But the post I replied to said:

If you're talking about a 65+ year old white male, they're willing to put up with quite a bit of noise and distortion when listening to talk radio on AM.

That's a blanket statement. It refers to ALL white males, not 60% or even 86%.

There's a constant undertone in many of these threads that white males are all angry and all think alike. Stats can be useful for selling ads but that also leads to making overall assumptions.

I'm a fan of talk radio. So is my wife. But it hurts to be lumped in with people, of any age or ethnicity I might add, who listen to shouters like Hannity and Levin. I can't stand either and I stopped listening to Rush sometime in the 1980s.

My favorite talk hosts these days include Dave Rinelli, Mark Simone, Vince Colognese, Chris Salcedo, Rich Valdes, Greg Kelly and Mike Opelka. They're all conservative but not angry, and they're not all "white males."

I just think it would be better to use specifics rather than to simply post fly-by generalizations. That's all.

 

[TheBigA]

Can you substantiate that?

I think if you look at any market, from NY or LA or Boston, you'll see an AM news talk station that still gets good ratings, when the rest of the list is made up of FM stations. That audience is still listening despite the audio quality. That audience has extended the life of those stations beyond others in their markets.

There's a constant undertone in many of these threads that white males are all angry and all think alike. Stats can be useful for selling ads but that also leads to making overall assumptions.

I agree but those comments also are based on the tone of the programming. If you listen to some of the national hosts, they tend to be very angry and draw from a common set of talking points. There is a connection between the presentation and the majority of the audience.

 

[wadio]

That audience is still listening despite the audio quality.

But as pointed out in another thread, the percentage of streaming is increasing and not necessarily counted if from outside the broadcast area.

 

[TheBigA]

But as pointed out in another thread, the percentage of streaming is increasing and not necessarily counted if from outside the broadcast area.

Yet the on-air ratings for stations such as KFI or WRKO have not decreased if audiences have shifted to streaming.

The data for unmeasured streaming is coming from audiences who don't typically listen to the news/talk format.

What that says to me is that people who stream news/talk are doing so through speaker devices rather than earbuds.

 

[PTBoardOp94]

Many AM stations now carry ethnic programming. Are those listeners any more or less discriminating than white males when it comes to audio quality?

There's no data either way. In many cases, the stations in question don't have enough audience to register, and in all cases there's no data on the niche ethnic composition (Nielsen only has black, hispanic or white)

 

[wadio]

The data for unmeasured streaming is coming from audiences who don't typically listen to the news/talk format.

If I listen to KFI from the east coast on a speaker device the station can keep track of that via the IP address but third-party research doesn't measure it. So how do we really know what the unmeasured streaming audience is listening to? I'm not disputing what you say, just asking.

 

[wadio]

There's no data either way.

My point exactly.

 

[TheBigA]

If I listen to KFI from the east coast on a speaker device the station can keep track of that via the IP address but third-party research doesn't measure it. So how do we really know what the unmeasured streaming audience is listening to? I'm not disputing what you say, just asking.

Nielsen measures out of market streaming. If a signal is encoded, it will be detected by PPM, regardless of COL.

However, the audience may be too small to appear in the public release.

https://www.nielsen.com/solutions/audience-measurement/audio/

 

[vchimpanzee]

That depends. If you're talking about a 65+ year old white male, they're willing to put up with quite a bit of noise and distortion when listening to talk radio on AM.

Or music.

 

[Kelly A]

But as pointed out in another thread, the percentage of streaming is increasing and not necessarily counted if from outside the broadcast area.

Not with 65+ white males that typically listen to AM talk radio. Local AM stations carrying right-wing talk have market exclusivity to protect the affiliate's, so wide-area, non-geofenced, live streaming these particular talk hosts isn't typically available. Another reason why white male senior citizens are willing to put up with inferior audio quality of AM, because that's where this programming resides.

 

[PTBoardOp94]

Local AM stations carrying right-wing talk have market exclusivity to protect the affiliate's, so wide-area, non-geofenced, live streaming these particular talk hosts isn't typically available.

I can't say I've heard of this on a talk station. Since it's apparently common, let me know a station or group who does it... I'd like to see how they execute it.

 

[davideduardo]

I can't say I've heard of this on a talk station. Since it's apparently common, let me know a station or group who does it... I'd like to see how they execute it.

This is not a station policy; it is the policy of the show's syndicator. Basically, they allow streaming only in the station's market or the county of license of a small unranked market station.

Ones I am familiar with restrict the stream. They may put a rerun of a local show on the stream while, let's say, Hannity is running on the AM or FM signal.

At night, most syndicators use the stations protected groundwave coverage for protection. They know that next to nobody listens to noisy, fading skywave any more so it is irrelevant.

 

[wadio]

I stream talk stations from all over the country and I have never encountered geofencing. The only time a station's real-time content is not avalialbe is when there's a sporting event, but I suspect the event is blocked from streaming even in the local area.

 

[Kelly A]

I stream talk stations from all over the country and I have never encountered geofencing. The only time a station's real-time content is not avalialbe is when there's a sporting event, but I suspect the event is blocked from streaming even in the local area.

Much depends on whether a particular station is also Nielsen-encoding it's stream. As has already been mentioned; if a station is encoding it's stream same as OTA, then they'll get market credit outside the intended market. Nielsen though, generally discourages encoding a non-geofenced web stream because it potentially encroaches on markets other than the intended market. For example; someone streaming a syndicated host from WABC's encoded stream while they're visiting say, Los Angeles, where the same syndicated host plays on a local station, is being unfair to the LA station and it's advertisers.

 

[anotherguyTN]

I stream talk stations from all over the country and I have never encountered geofencing. The only time a station's real-time content is not avalialbe is when there's a sporting event, but I suspect the event is blocked from streaming even in the local area.

I've tried to get WKIM 98.9 in Memphis for University of Memphis football since they're the only station that carries it now, but on Tune In they carry another talk show instead. Is that being blocked locally or by Tune In?

 

[TheBigA]

I've tried to get WKIM 98.9 in Memphis for University of Memphis football since they're the only station that carries it now, but on Tune In they carry another talk show instead. Is that being blocked locally or by Tune In?

Why do you use TuneIn? The website has a big red button on the top of the website that says "Listen Live." I'm listening to the syndicated Brian Kilmeade show right now. There was a brief local pre-roll spot.

 

[anotherguyTN]

Why do you use TuneIn? The website has a big red button on the top of the website that says "Listen Live." I'm listening to the syndicated Brian Kilmeade show right now. There was a brief local pre-roll spot.

I tried the Listen Live option and got the talk show as well, so I guess it may be cut off locally.

 

[wadio]

Nielsen though, generally discourages encoding a non-geofenced web stream because it potentially encroaches on markets other than the intended market. For example; someone streaming a syndicated host from WABC's encoded stream while they're visiting say, Los Angeles, where the same syndicated host plays on a local station, is being unfair to the LA station and it's advertisers.

That might be true, but no station that I know of is doing it. Instead they're inserting ads that are location-appropriate. Sporting events are a different matter as others have pointed out.

 

[TheBigA]

Nielsen though, generally discourages encoding a non-geofenced web stream because it potentially encroaches on markets other than the intended market.

Are you sure about that?

 

[Kelly A]

Are you sure about that?

Yes, for both TV and radio. Have had more than one discussion with Nielsen about live web streaming out of market while using the same encoding as in-market OTA. One time the topic came up regarding a classical station I was helping out. They had quite a few listeners to the stream all over the U.S. and world, and feeding their live stream via their OTA program line, including encoding. The Nielsen rep asked the station stop using the in-market encoding for the web stream. My reply asked how are we expected to get credit in-market if we don't encode? His answer was that eventually Nielsen is supposed to provide a different encoder for specifically a live stream. Ran into the same here in D.C. with TV.