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Huge Ratings Story in Portland

A

adbuyer1

Apparently Threefer was absolutely correct. The Fall Ratings appear to be quite memorable; if not monumental.
WTHT has taken down WPOR in the A25-54 demo quite hard, along with a number of other demos.

A25-54

WFNK
WBLM
WTHT

This is monster. Frank #1, The Wolf #3. Whoa.

Free Beer and Hot Wings blew Opie and Anthony out of the water. Holy whoa.
 
I'll be the first to say--I was wrong. I'm shocked. Not at the being wrong part (happens all the time) but that Frank and the Wolf did so well. Congrats. How were the mornings?
 
Haven't had a chance to review the numbers - but I'm quite surprised by Wolf, as I think POR is a superior product. And speaking of surprises - looks like Christmas music worked for WYNZ. (though I haven't seen the last phase information)
 
I think POR has been playing with fire for a number of years with the heavy Paul Harvey presence. Is/was he relevant at all to anyone under 35, even 40? It's the same story as Oldsmobile and their "this ain't your father's Oldsmobile", but it was. POR is very strong 55+. The question is can POR lose a possible stereotype of being grandpa's country station. We've seen very strong 18-34 numbers from The Wolf in the past, so I'm sure they are very strong 18-49 and pulling in the 25-54 numbers.

I agree with you about WYNZ and holiday music. They seem to have taken WHOM out from the knees with it this year.
 
media buyer said:
Haven't had a chance to review the numbers - but I'm quite surprised by Wolf, as I think POR is a superior product. And speaking of surprises - looks like Christmas music worked for WYNZ. (though I haven't seen the last phase information)
Click to expand...

i'm in agreement with the product/sound idea of por v wolf. but the christmas music thing would only account for the final few weeks of the book for hom/ynz. it'll be interesting to see the week-by-week breakdown when the full breakouts become available.

kudos to those who get to enjoy a favorable book for 6 months, and condolences for those who may have taken a hit. now - let's how the sales hounds are able to turn numbers into, um, numbers. :)
 
<it'll be interesting to see the week-by-week breakdown when the full breakouts become available> A big bump in the third phase could have really helped YNZ. YNZ didn't market while HOM poured a ton of money into TV -- wasn't a great spot - but none the less they were there with TV money. I'm assuming a rather large cume was all they needed to let folks know they were x-mas 24/7
 
Actually it's Wolf and WPOR tied, then WBLM and Frank A25-54 in mornings.

Frank is tops in middays followed by WBLM WTHT WGAN A25-54

Frank is tops in afternoons followed by WGAN, WMGX, WZAN and The Wolf A25-54

WGAN would've had a great book, A25-54, if not for mornings.

Mornings saved WPOR from a real disaster ratings book A25-54.
 
Congrats to the Captain and Celeste, still with the strongest rock and roll morning show in Maine. Truly the way life should be. I'm not worried about WBLM's book on the whole at all, Frank's gains were minimal.

I'd like to see how Frank would do if they took away their Payroll Contest. They can't hack it with their music and jocks alone.

WBLM is still the better station at the end of the day.

Oh, The Bone doubled their last book! Maybe by 2010 they'll be back amongst the big boys again!
 
Threefer...don't get too high on the blimp morning show. there was less than half a point seperating them from the most music morning show on frank. but that's ok you keep drinking the kool-aid.
 
Some additional observations from this book:

1. O&A have some serious issues with their "new" show that they have to get fixed quick. Portland is reflective of similiar problems they are having in many markets. Target demo - Men 18-34. WCYY goes from a 21+ share to 8 with O&A as the morning show? I wonder what Robin Ivey's thinking at this point?

2. The Coast "Purse Promotion". It was risky because you could alienate all of your male AQH's. Coast took a real bad beating with Men across the board. They did very well with women, however the significant loss of men drove down their Adult numbers pretty bad. I think they hurt themselves with this promotion and can be a stronger A25-54 station if they don't tell the men to go away. This promotion is better suited to WHOM.

3. WGAN. What happened in mornings? It unusual that your "live" daypart, especially mornings would be the big weakness of the day. As I mentioned before, WGAN could have been huge A25-54 with a decent morning number. The syndicated shows did great. Is it possible that the lack of any significant local Maine political races hurt them, yet the national shows which focus on national politics helped?

4. The Wolf - Commercial Free Nine to Noon, Commercial Free Nine to Noon, Commercial Free Nine to Noon.
I'll bet we'll see the 6a-10a morning show numbers driven by the 9a-10a commercial free part. The Wolf v POR battle is less of a shock when you look back over the past five ratings books and see the spread between the two narrow in every book. Still big, but the train was definitely on the tracks.

5. WBLM - Mornings are a strong player, no question. The problem is the rest of the day because formatically they have no chance with "at work listening" because it's female driven and controlled. This greatly impacts their A25-54 numbers.
 
I think POR has been playing with fire for a number of years with the heavy Paul Harvey presence.
Click to expand...

The folks at the radiothis! newsroom would like to note that they have heard rumblings that P. Harvey is no longer on the 'POR (they can't confirm this because the newsroom folks hate both drawling, preachy old guys and country music. Which might be the same thing, come to think of it). The official line is something about contractual stuff (and there's likely truth to it...ABC is very protective of Harvey) but [speculation warning] maybe the Saga folks saw what you're saying...
 
Its too bad that the ratings don't include online radio streeming. I have heard that TOS picking up several displaced listeners everyday in the portland area with their new online radio stream


radiothis! said:
I think POR has been playing with fire for a number of years with the heavy Paul Harvey presence.
Click to expand...

The folks at the radiothis! newsroom would like to note that they have heard rumblings that P. Harvey is no longer on the 'POR (they can't confirm this because the newsroom folks hate both drawling, preachy old guys and country music. Which might be the same thing, come to think of it). The official line is something about contractual stuff (and there's likely truth to it...ABC is very protective of Harvey) but [speculation warning] maybe the Saga folks saw what you're saying...
Click to expand...
 
adbuyer1,

Your posts are always very intelligent and insightful, but this time around, I'm going to spar with you a little on a couple of your hypotheses, if you'll forgive me. :)

1. I wouldn't read too much into WCYY's M18-34 numbers. With a continuing frightening low number of respondents, one or two diarykeepers can swing a book. Seriously. Then when you narrow it down to one daypart, morning drive or not, The Book becomes fiction.

2. I vote for you here. You nailed it. What was WMGX thinking? Please. They might as well have given away tampons!

3. WGAN's morning weakness problem? Hey, again, it's just one daypart. It might not mean anything.

4. You nailed it again. And when you get new listeners listening from Nine to Noon, they tend to seep over into all the other dayparts, too.

5. Midday listening is "female driven"? Maybe in 1980, but not anymore. The concept that the receptionist makes everyone listen to Celine Dion all day at work has proven to be fiction. Office listening is only a small portion of midday quarter hours, and even then, it's a cubicle world, each with its own individually-controlled radio. And the guys on construction worksites and at Jiffy Lube sure as heck don't have their listening controlled by females. If WBLM has a midday problem, it's either just because (and here we go again) it's only one daypart we're looking at... or they have some other kind of problem. Let's not blame it on women!

Thank you. I am done now. :)
 
radiothis! said:
I think POR has been playing with fire for a number of years with the heavy Paul Harvey presence.
Click to expand...

The folks at the radiothis! newsroom would like to note that they have heard rumblings that P. Harvey is no longer on the 'POR (they can't confirm this because the newsroom folks hate both drawling, preachy old guys and country music. Which might be the same thing, come to think of it). The official line is something about contractual stuff (and there's likely truth to it...ABC is very protective of Harvey) but [speculation warning] maybe the Saga folks saw what you're saying...
Click to expand...

That's correct. As of two weeks ago, Paul Harvey is no longer on WPOR.
 
Ray ting

Your point on at work listening today versus yesterday is well taken.

Regarding WCYY. I wasn't referencing WCYY as I was the O & A problem, and it is a problem. O & A are having serious ratings issues with the younger male demo's in a lot of markets, not just Portland. If their ratings slide was only Porltand, then I would agree with your statement about a fluke number with a challenging demographic, but this is the same story for them just about everywhere.
 
As for Coast "what were they thinking"... with heavily skewing male formats on their other properties, they may purposely focus on women in order to find a balance of numbers cluster wide. It's what you do as a group these days that matters. That said, (and I'll need a closer look at the numbers to confirm) but it appeared that this was a male skewing book. I'm willing to bet that Arbitron's in tab diaries were higher for me this book... just a guess right now though. But the bottomo lines is that Coast still leads the market in women... and women drive the economic bus (so far as advertisers are concerned.) I'd say MGX is in a pretty good spot right now.
 
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