Is Seattle just not a radio market?

[bobdavcav]

Some stations in the midwest are consistantly pulling 8 and 9 shares, and what's the top biller in Seattle pull? a 5 or 6? WLTE flipped when having a 3.1 share aren't there many stations in this market that are below that?

 

[Bongwater]

Some stations in the midwest are consistantly pulling 8 and 9 shares, and what's the top biller in Seattle pull? a 5 or 6? WLTE flipped when having a 3.1 share aren't there many stations in this market that are below that?

They're smaller in market size compared to Seattle. Fewer stations overall mean higher numbers.

The bar is also lower here because seriously, there is nowhere else for many of these stations to go. For example, KPTK and KIXI. Both are low rated AMs, but they serve very loyal niches which considering the station of AM radio overall is doing pretty damn good. So there's no need to change them. And even if you wanted, what to? There's too many sports, right wing talk and religious stations already.....

 

[scott salvatori]

. So there's no need to change them. And even if you wanted, what to? There's too many sports, right wing talk and religious stations already.....

patriot/liberty/alt health talk: peter schiff, jeff rense, webster tarpley, joyce riley, katherine albrecht, officer jack mclamb, jesse lee peterson, and alex jones, just to name a few. just adding alex jones as the headliner would put any little AM station on the map. most of these talk hosts are on the front line of knowledge, politics, and forward conservative libertarian thinking. unlike the dumb downed corporate media circus republican enternewsment hack acts, such as hannity, rush, and even beck.

 

[Bongwater]

. So there's no need to change them. And even if you wanted, what to? There's too many sports, right wing talk and religious stations already.....

patriot/liberty/alt health talk: peter schiff, jeff rense, webster tarpley, joyce riley, katherine albrecht, officer jack mclamb, jesse lee peterson, and alex jones, just to name a few. just adding alex jones as the headliner would put any little AM station on the map. most of these talk hosts are on the front line of knowledge, politics, and forward conservative libertarian thinking. unlike the dumb downed corporate media circus republican enternewsment hack acts, such as hannity, rush, and even beck.

"Liberty Talk": Alex Jones - I've listened to this guy's show and I wonder how he actually SLEEPS! Big scary black helicopters of the "New World Order" ready to pluck him like a set of dropped keys off the ground? These Big scary black helicopters of the "New World Order" were there when CLINTON was president. Now they're back with OBAMA? COINCIDENCE? And tell me, when has living in constant FEAR because of what somebody said on the radio became "liberty"?

"Alternative Health Talk": Listen to KKNW 1150 AM

"Patriot Talk": Who is to define "patriot"?

I voted for Obama.

I work pretty much 12 hours a day. Often without much to compensate in return.

Do I know Jesus? Yes I do. Never met Him personally, but He was a SMART guy. A lot better than that Old Testament guy.......

Do I love America? Yes I do. But it's time we had a SERIOUS talk....

 

[scott salvatori]

"serious talk" hmmm, i like that positioning statment. mr bongwater your a genius, despite your obama vote record. oh well, not much of an alternative.
is that little oak harbor AM daytimer still available? dang, the pajambis got it.

 

[RealityBites]

I actually did a little research on this. The thread topic that is. Seattle was a launch point in several ways for radio folks.
If you came from a small market in the late 70's, Seattle was a perfect place to make your bones and then go to a major market like LA, SF, etc.
However by the late 80's so many of the radio people that came here, ended up liking it here and staying here. So we have a lot of
radio folks in this town. And yes we have way more radio stations than other cities with our population.

Seattle is a huge radio town.

 

[bobdavcav]

What about Cincinnati? I was just remembering someone over on that board pointing out that WKRQ pulled a 7.3 and from what I understand it wasn't even number 1 and KJR-FM's 7.7 was number 1? Wonder what WBEB's 16 shares sound like? I was hearing KJR-FM everywhere, what does twice that sound like?

 

[radioguy123]

Take a look at Atlanta and Seattle. Atlanta is a bigger market, but has half the signals. Terrain, movins over the past couple of decades like 106.9, 97.3, 104.5, 104.9, 99.9, 98.9, 103.7, 102.9, 97.7 and the list goes on have created a glut of signals and depressed shares.

I would also agree with reality bites that the competition is fairly strong. 3 CHR's split share (KBKS, KUBE, KQMV), 3 AC stations (KRWM, KLCK, KPLZ), 5 Classic Rock/Classic Hits (KJR, KJAQ, KZOK, now KMTT and The Brew) Two Countries, multiple news and talk. The only arena where one station exists is Current and Active ROCK (KISW) As a result KISW is number one 25-54. One would assume they will have the next competitor.

The END is the only real alternative station, but a series of bad programming choices has hurt it a great deal, same for KMTT when it was AAA. These two formats are also most hurt by internet radio, pandora and other music choices.

 

[bobdavcav]

Wow, I thought Portland had a lot of move-ins! They've only had 3 and I counted 7 on the list you just put up for Atlanta. Wait, they have a 99.9? Must be a very weak signal due to WWWQ at 99.7. You also left off 100.5. If that list was supposed to represent Seattle, the only one I'd call a move-in is 104.5 and possibly 97.7, but they're still a rimshot, as is 102.9, which moved north several years ago. I thought The Brew was modern-leaning activer rock? Where's the line between rhythmic CHR and pop CHR these days? Seems as if it has gotten really blurred over the last couple years.

 

[AQH]

It might not suit the taste of many here on the board, but yes, Seattle is a radio market.

Even if you compared markets with the exact same number of people, it's still not a fair comparison. For example, let's hypothetically say that New York and Seattle have the same population. And let's focus in on the All-News format for the sake of this discussion. Usage of an All-News station is going to be dramatically different in New York simply from the traffic component. Both New York and Seattle have miserable traffic, but the commute times and how often and frequently people would use the All-News stations for traffic would be dramatically different.

That's number one of about a million components to use to "compare" markets.

Good question, very hard to answer in a precise way.

 

[TexasTom]

Take a look at Atlanta and Seattle. Atlanta is a bigger market, but has half the signals. Terrain, movins over the past couple of decades like 106.9, 97.3, 104.5, 104.9, 99.9, 98.9, 103.7, 102.9, 97.7 and the list goes on have created a glut of signals and depressed shares.

How are 98.9 and 99.9 move-ins? They've been licensed to Seattle as long as I can remember, going back into the seventies.

97.3 and 103.7 (and perhaps you should have included 106.1) are arguable as move-ins, as they're Tacoma stations, and thus certainly part of the Seattle-Tacoma radio market. That does represent a change from the seventies when Seattle and Tacoma had separate radio ratings and the Tacoma stations didn't really come in well in Seattle and were mostly ignored once you left Pierce County. But the Tacoma FM stations all boosted power to cover Seattle as well as Tacoma in the early eighties and have long served both cities.

Just out of curiosity, does anyone know when separate ratings for Tacoma were eliminated?

 

[radioguy123]

Meant to say 99.3 moved in to South Mountain by Bustos. not 99.9. Most of the remainder were Tacoma, Bremerton, Olympia,or outlying areas or lower power signals that got moved up to Tiger Mt or Cougar during the last thirty years. Forgot about 106.1. By making the move to Tiger or Cougar they became full market signals. Makes for a crowded market. I think years ago KMTT actually used a translator to two to cover the market until they moved their stick.

 

[Bongwater]

Meant to say 99.3 moved in to South Mountain by Bustos. not 99.9. Most of the remainder were Tacoma, Bremerton, Olympia,or outlying areas or lower power signals that got moved up to Tiger Mt or Cougar during the last thirty years. Forgot about 106.1. By making the move to Tiger or Cougar they became full market signals. Makes for a crowded market. I think years ago KMTT actually used a translator to two to cover the market until they moved their stick.

KMTT moved to Tiger from Three Sisters around 1993. They had a translator in Bellevue on 103.9 and one on 104.1 (I think) in Olympia as well as the West Seattle 103.3 translator up until then....

(Speaking of translators, is the 95.7 translator on 103.3 in Edmonds still going? They had one in Everett on 106.3 until 106.1's move to Tiger. I've NEVER heard the 103.1 translator in Everett for 100.7)

The first move to Tiger was 97.3 in 1988. The initial results were spectacular. Areas in Snohomish County and elsewhere where 97.3 was a noisy mess, 97.3 suddenly became the loudest thing on the dial.

Then 94.1 moved in 1989, 106.1 in 1991. From there it becomes a blur, a mass exodus off Cougar and Queen Anne during the '90s.

The benefit of Tiger was/is better coverage in hard to reach places like downtown Everett with better height and lower power. The downside is spottier coverage in areas outside the general Seattle-Tacoma-Everett area. But it's getting the $$$ areas like the Eastside that mattered most.....

 

[crainbebo]

I don't think the 103.3/95.7 xlator is on now. I've only noticed KMTT's Downtown Seattle xlator on 103.3 in the Edmonds/Mukilteo area.

-crainbebo

 

[IndigoCoyote]

The KMTT translator in Olympia is still going strong.

 

[Dusty Dale Brooks]

I only came here in 2006 and all I bring to the party is a long history of having worked many other markets though not Seattle (except I did work briefly in Olympia).Seattle has long been considered by the industry as a great “personality” town where radio had a high entertainment factor. And I have always believed that great stations have to entertain or serve—preferably both.

One unfortunate fallout from consolidation, media convergence, and all the evolutionary changes has been the death of the suburban station. Every significant market in this country at times had one or more successful suburban stations. They were usually signal-challenged or privately held but they scaled. They embeded themselves into the fabric of a particular county, “side” of the metro, or a suburb that for which ARB would do a breakout —at a reasonable cost.

Inevitably owners and managers got frustrated with huge swings in local sales at such stations and with their inability to compete for national business, or even the big regional accounts. The rep firms poured sugar in their ears and consultants of both the programming and engineering ilk leaned on them to upgrade and “move-in” to the easy money game that was being played by the metro stations. Truth-be- told there was nothing easy about the money downtown stations made. Rating periods were gut-wrenching experiences for all and remain so today.

Now we still have viable communities chock full of listeners who care about what happens in Tacoma or Everett, or Bremerton, or the eastside to the exclusion Seattle proper. Their life is lived in the south sound or the North Sound whatever. The really don’t want to know what goes on in Seattle.
But sadly the radio horse left the barn years ago. Now those local advertisers have community portals where they can spend their ad dollars. They continue to spend on yellow pages ads (?), local newspapers, and support schools and youth sports. Radio could have had a share of those dollars, but frankly I think too many broadcasters let greed, laziness, narrow-thinking, and low expectations color their actions. For a creative class they showed very little.

Of course it depends on whom you ask. The programming people will tell you that sales and management types were devoid of creativity and always have been. The sales types will tell you that jocks and PDs held inflated opinions of their talent and creativity. Now scores of both sales types and programming types are out of work or out of the business. They all lost and so did listeners.

Dysfunction led to dissolution and seemingly always does.

 

[Bongwater]

I only came here in 2006 and all I bring to the party is a long history of having worked many other markets though not Seattle (except I did work briefly in Olympia).Seattle has long been considered by the industry as a great “personality” town where radio had a high entertainment factor. And I have always believed that great stations have to entertain or serve—preferably both.

One unfortunate fallout from consolidation, media convergence, and all the evolutionary changes has been the death of the suburban station. Every significant market in this country at times had one or more successful suburban stations. They were usually signal-challenged or privately held but they scaled. They embeded themselves into the fabric of a particular county, “side” of the metro, or a suburb that for which ARB would do a breakout —at a reasonable cost.

Inevitably owners and managers got frustrated with huge swings in local sales at such stations and with their inability to compete for national business, or even the big regional accounts. The rep firms poured sugar in their ears and consultants of both the programming and engineering ilk leaned on them to upgrade and “move-in” to the easy money game that was being played by the metro stations. Truth-be- told there was nothing easy about the money downtown stations made. Rating periods were gut-wrenching experiences for all and remain so today.

Now we still have viable communities chock full of listeners who care about what happens in Tacoma or Everett, or Bremerton, or the eastside to the exclusion Seattle proper. Their life is lived in the south sound or the North Sound whatever. The really don’t want to know what goes on in Seattle.
But sadly the radio horse left the barn years ago. Now those local advertisers have community portals where they can spend their ad dollars. They continue to spend on yellow pages ads (?), local newspapers, and support schools and youth sports. Radio could have had a share of those dollars, but frankly I think too many broadcasters let greed, laziness, narrow-thinking, and low expectations color their actions. For a creative class they showed very little.

Of course it depends on whom you ask. The programming people will tell you that sales and management types were devoid of creativity and always have been. The sales types will tell you that jocks and PDs held inflated opinions of their talent and creativity. Now scores of both sales types and programming types are out of work or out of the business. They all lost and so did listeners.

Dysfunction led to dissolution and seemingly always does.

VERY well said.

In the '80s, little KWYZ 1230 AM Everett, with it's Radio 123 country format stood surprisingly well against the FM boomers of KMPS and KRPM. KWYZ also had a seriously locally oriented format in personality, news as well as advertising.

That alone was their greatest hedge against the Seattle/Tacoma FMs......