There are small town exceptions to the rule, but the statement that a bank can't remain in business without tellers and in-person back hours? Simply isn't true.
You are ignoring the fact that with consolidation, it is a hell of a lot cheaper to have homogenized, identical playlists than it is to hire local leaders who research each market. Of course iHeart or Audacy will have national playlists; why would they localize anything?
Miami has a completely different ethnic makeup than Medford. And music is much different than TV. The musical tastes of Miami have little in common with those of most people in Medford, OR.
Then why are operators like iHeart investing in more local talent in big markets? Check out iHeart's CHR stations in Philadelphia and Boston, for example.
In fact, many studies that involved actually chatting with satellite subscribers showed that satellite was vastly more likely to have replaced consumers' use of cassettes, CDs or even flash drives in the car. Because of the plethora of narrow formats, it comes close to being a direct substitute for people's own personal playlists in a simple to use system that has plenty of alternatives to satisfy nearly any mood.
It's rather telling that in my own experience around Latin America, in genres that were not strictly indigenous, the same songs were hits everywhere. In some cases, the songs were covered by local artists in different nations, but the songs were the same from Chile to Puerto Rico and from Venezuela to Mexico.
Each market will have it's particular assortment of formats, but within specific formats the playlists will be quite similar.
Things we used to think were the sign of a star, such as "hitting the post" are considered hateful to today's listeners... not a "skill" when people think it sucks big time.
Local "leaders" (whatever that means) don't do music research. Generally, one of a couple of national companies do those projects. And they are very expensive in an era of declining revenue.
But within individual formats, the audiences are going to be about the same.
Yet in most dayparts in most markets, they are using the same talent for voicetracks for multiple markets. Seacrest seldom visits the studios of KIIS in Los Angeles and is on dozens of stations with the same content because he has something unique to offer listeners that local morning show hosts in Milwaukee or Boise or Birmingham don't have and never will.
Nearly all the SiriusXM listening is in vehicles. Less than half of all radio listening is in vehicles. And remember that a significant percentage of satellite subscriptions are in rental cars, which are a separate unmeasured universe.
But the streaming is still not heavily used... when radio stations do their own listener surveys it is not uncommon to find a measurable in-car audience for both the satellie delivery and streams in "connected cars" but to find no usage of SiriusXM in homes or offices.
SXM has always stretched (aka fudges) their 'subscriber' numbers to include vehicles produced, or scheduled to produce with SXM-capable systems installed. That includes vehicles sitting on lots, schedule to be built, purchasers during the trial basis, and even after the trial basis has expired. Now they're including owners of GM cars with their "360" system that includes streaming, and streaming-only trial subscriptions. Essentially, if SXM is available it's counted, whether it's an actual subscription or not.
Local leaders means PDs and MDs. In 1995, nearly all stations had individual PDs and MDs and many had APDs and AMDs. Said "leaders," who were locally based, were charged with getting to know the tastes of their markets.
You are changing the goal posts here. I am not talking about very small markets like Albany, GA or Tallahassee. I am talking about top 50 markets. And there was a huge ethnic difference between my home market and the larger one 50 miles away. The CHR station, for example, was radically different in my home market than it was in the larger, more distant market.
Look at afternoon drive in both Philly and Boston. iHeart has put significant resources into that slot at both CHR stations.
I am not arguing about whether things have changed. I am arguing that playlists have become homogenized and FM music radio, by and large, has become a huge bore.
Yet there is huge difference in ethic make up and tastes between markets. Miami CHR should not sound the same as Des Moines CHR. Miami Country should not sound the same as Tuscaloosa Country.
So again, we agree.
Then why has iHeart invested in local afternoon "yakkers" on the CHR stations in two of its biggest markets - Philly and Boston?
We clearly lived in different areas. I was able to witness huge diversity from my own bedroom. My home market was West Palm Beach and the distant market was Miami. When I was growing up, there was a gigantic difference between WOVV in West Palm and WPOW in Miami.
I think this is the exception to the rule. iHeart has gutted their cluster in my local market of West Palm. In other markets I follow, Cumulus, for what it is worth, has gutted airstaff too. I noticed this on the Space Coast.
No, local PDs had the job of acquiring, interpreting and implementing research. Basically, the personal tastes and preferences of a PD have to be suppressed for that person to do a good job serving their audience.
Often differences in implementing a specific format have to do with the competitive array in the market. A CHR in a market with a Churban is going to be less ethnic than one that has to serve both sets of listeners.
And don't they use the talent on other stations as well? We are rapidly approaching the model used in nearly all the rest of the world which is the same that showed TV, way back in the 50's, that a national night show would beat any attempt at a local show in every market.
WPOW was always, until recently, a Churban station that was predominantly targeted at Hispanics. So it was not a CHR, it was an Hispanic station that also got some Black and some non-Hispanic whites.
And listeners seem to like the stations without the chatter.
And when I was growing up, WPOW was the closest thing Miami had to a CHR station. In fact, before 6 PM, WPOW played some Rock-leaning songs that Churban stations did not play. I have a tape of WPOW from 1993, and Duran Duran's "Ordinary Word" was played during Kid Curry's midday show. At the time, Y-100 was best described as Hot AC and it was targeting Fort Lauderdale more than Miami.
I have known several '90s-era MDs who conducted local research. They were from top 50 markets, not Albany or Tallahassee.
Of course this is a factor. But how can one ignore the ethnic make up of a market today? Y-100 in Miami sounds a heck of a lot like KGOT/Anchorage, at least musically. Those markets have zero in common.
If the latter were the case, then why isn't there a national program on every daypart on every station? It's telling that iHeart, which has the bodies and resources to do it, still has local programming in mornings and afternoons in the biggest markets.
And I'm not saying your comments are wrong. I was responding to Casey who claimed SXM, at a reported 30+ million "subscribers" must have more than 2% of the 'radio' listening audience.
Maybe a huge bore to you, but your tastes are not an indicator of a much larger audience.
The common aspect though, is successful radio stations play the hits. The hits, as divided between formats and cultural aspects of taste, are still hits. There are hits in every format.
As David pointed out; talent is utilized across multiple markets via live simulcast or voicetracks. As someone else pointed out (apologies for missing who), that I can see a day where remaining radio talent are, like most movie and TV actors/actresses, become contractors instead of employees.
Again, it was a format that principally targeted Hispanics and was what maybe we could call Hispanic Rhythmic.
Ownership does not like to pay for things that are not needed.
That is a different issue involving options with no commercials that you have to subscribe to and pay for vs. those with commercials but which are free. That's not at al related to the fact that most listeners in demographics that are salable don't want DJ chatter unless it has interesting and unique content.
For it to be worthwhile, it has to be done with professional recruitment by a professional research company. A couple of large groups have had their own research divisions, such as Clear Chanel and HBC. Most hire companies like NuVooDoo or Harker or Coleman or Edison.
And Y-100 totally destroyed its heritage of being highly Hispanic focused and very rhythmic. That is the mistake of management.
That is where we are heading, but the biggest issue is that no company owns a set of stations in the same format in all of the top 50 to 100 markets. So the process of doing what is standard nearly everywhere in the world is just not yet implemented here.
