It's not just KRTH, and not just Los Angeles.

[davideduardo]

Geez. If they keep this up, they’re likely to wind up with a fourth month at number one.

Let's see... in latest PPM 25-54's since January, KRTH is always been between 1st and 3rd. KCBS is 7th, and KNX AM & FM growing in 25-54, although is barely in the top 20 in that demo which is not totally its target. KTWV averages 9th, but has higher months recently. KROQ is the black sheep of the herd, stuck around 20th in 25-54.

The formats that Chris Ebbott has the most to do with are doing very well.

 

[DOB]

Every market is different, particularly in the borderline songs. I put that test chart on as an example, and it is not from an actual market.

Again, that was an "example" test to display use of the software.

Aren't Just Dance and Pokerface so much stronger?
Seems to make sense to just play The songs that test best. A 1999 or Sweet dreams will bridge you to these so that they really don't stand out.
But I personally don't care about trainwrecks, they sell variety better than any sweeper ever created.

 

[101tm]

On page 5, tall_guy1, from his underground bunker in the Midwest, asks why "Cat's In The Cradle" (a 49-year-old record) isn't a staple on Classic Hits, since he's heard it on Soft AC stations.

Actually, some of IHeart’s classic hits stations, which lean more in to the 70s than Audacy’s generally speaking, still play the track.

Heck, most iHeart classic hits stations still give Cat Stevens (“Wild World”) spins. They’re very different from Audacy.

 

[michael hagerty]

Actually, some of IHeart’s classic hits stations, which lean more in to the 70s than Audacy’s generally speaking, still play the track.

The part you didn’t quote:

….Sean Ross piece on how Classic Hits stations around the country are adding newer songs, much as KRTH in Los Angeles has been doing.

 

[101tm]

The part you didn’t quote:

….Sean Ross piece on how Classic Hits stations around the country are adding newer songs, much as KRTH in Los Angeles has been doing.

Correct, I’m just saying it’s not outside of the realm of possibility for the Chapin track to be played in 2023 as one poster mentioned.

It comes down to different strategies. Audacy has been much more aggressive purging 70s tracks and adding more 90s, 00s, and even 10s tracks to their playlists as well as tightening them. iHeart and Cumulus have taken a much more measured approach with many still having a wider variety on the older end while being more conservative on adding 90s tracks. I apologize for not being clear.

 

[RayydioLA]

Ad buys seldom look at the income levels of station listeners. They look at age, gender and ethnicity for the most part.

The issue with older consumers is that their preferred products and services become deeply seated as they age and it takes so many "impressions" for an ad to create sales that there is no profit left for the client.

Don't look now, but age, gender and ethnicity often do indicate income levels of adult-human-consumers in America. The fact that they still exist and live long and consume media and music is enough to want to attract them. They certainly have more income and leisure time than 20-somethings, GenX, GenY, and GenZ-ers who are struggling under the crushing economic conditions of incomes not keeping pace with cost of living, or the younger ones not suffering through graduating during or after the recession of 2009-10, or even now not being able to get a job out of college and still living with said Baby Boomers (or GenXers, for that matter).
As for the poster who alluded to Baby Boomers having enough money to pay for subscription services rather than listening to the radio with ads...neither they, nor the rest of us, would have to seek out subscription services (or podcasts) if radio properly served audiences anymore. Those of us who are veterans are well aware that various permutations of 18-54 are the target demos. But, hello--perhaps radio needs to also target -64 and -74 demos in order to keep them.

 

[RayydioLA]

Geez. If they keep this up, they’re likely to wind up with a fourth month at number one.

"Number one" at what? There are tons of ways to parse out target demo age groups. Serving up chaos isn't a great long-term way to maintain that, in any case.

 

[PTBoardOp94]

"Number one" at what? There are tons of ways to parse out target demo age groups.

Take your pick:

#1 cumulative audience 6+
#1 share persons 6+

They also do quite well in the major age demographics, meaning persons 18-34, 18-49 and 25-54. Pretty reliably top 3 in all of those.

 

[michael hagerty]

Don't look now, but age, gender and ethnicity often do indicate income levels of adult-human-consumers in America. The fact that they still exist and live long and consume media and music is enough to want to attract them. They certainly have more income and leisure time than 20-somethings, GenX, GenY, and GenZ-ers who are struggling under the crushing economic conditions of incomes not keeping pace with cost of living, or the younger ones not suffering through graduating during or after the recession of 2009-10, or even now not being able to get a job out of college and still living with said Baby Boomers (or GenXers, for that matter).
As for the poster who alluded to Baby Boomers having enough money to pay for subscription services rather than listening to the radio with ads...neither they, nor the rest of us, would have to seek out subscription services (or podcasts) if radio properly served audiences anymore. Those of us who are veterans are well aware that various permutations of 18-54 are the target demos. But, hello--perhaps radio needs to also target -64 and -74 demos in order to keep them.

Dunno how to break it to you, but people in their 30s and 40s aren’t all starving. They are adults in their peak earning years, buying homes, cars and consumer goods for growing families.

 

[michael hagerty]

"Number one" at what? There are tons of ways to parse out target demo age groups. Serving up chaos isn't a great long-term way to maintain that, in any case.

Parse this:

#1 6+ three months in a row.

#1 18-34 adults

#1 25-54 adults

They’re doing fine, and clearly the audience doesn’t think they’re “serving up chaos”.

 

[Daryl Lynn L.A.]

Don't look now, but age, gender and ethnicity often do indicate income levels of adult-human-consumers in America. The fact that they still exist and live long and consume media and music is enough to want to attract them. They certainly have more income and leisure time than 20-somethings, GenX, GenY, and GenZ-ers who are struggling under the crushing economic conditions of incomes not Hikeeping pace with cost of living, or the younger ones not suffering through graduating during or after the recession of 2009-10, or even now not being able to get a job out of college and still living with said Baby Boomers (or GenXers, for that matter).
As for the poster who alluded to Baby Boomers having enough money to pay for subscription services rather than listening to the radio with ads...neither they, nor the rest of us, would have to seek out subscription services (or podcasts) if radio properly served audiences anymore. Those of us who are veterans are well aware that various permutations of 18-54 are the target demos. But, hello--perhaps radio needs to also target -64 and -74 demos in order to keep them.

Hi. If you're in L.A., do you ever listen to Jack FM 93.1? They're an Audacy station, but a lot of times, they play a range of songs, some of which go back to the 70's. They're most likely to play softer AC songs or artists like Cat Stevens. I agree w/ you that seniors are completely left out of consideration of what constitutes an economically viable audience, so we kind of have to take what we can get. Jack does go back to the 70's, while KRTH is now focusing on late 90's- to present day.

P.S. I noticed that you spelled "alluded" correctly. You're a good writer.

 

[davideduardo]

"Number one" at what? There are tons of ways to parse out target demo age groups. Serving up chaos isn't a great long-term way to maintain that, in any case.

It's #1 in the most broadly accepted sales demos. And seems to be growing more.

 

[davideduardo]

Dunno how to break it to you, but people in their 30s and 40s aren’t all starving. They are adults in their peak earning years, buying homes, cars and consumer goods for growing families.

And those age groups are the ones most likely to try new or different products and services. Those over 55 or 60 are not, which is why advertisers avoid them.

 

[sfradio]

Hi. If you're in L.A., do you ever listen to Jack FM 93.1? They're an Audacy station, but a lot of times, they play a range of songs, some of which go back to the 70's. They're most likely to play softer AC songs or artists like Cat Stevens. I agree w/ you that seniors are completely left out of consideration of what constitutes an economically viable audience, so we kind of have to take what we can get. Jack does go back to the 70's, while KRTH is now focusing on late 90's- to present day.

P.S. I noticed that you spelled "alluded" correctly. You're a good writer.

If he thinks that kearth is serving up chaos, he will probably be horrored by jack fm.

 

[TheBigA]

But, hello--perhaps radio needs to also target -64 and -74 demos in order to keep them.

If it was up to radio, they'd gladly do it all the time. Bob Pittman of iHeart is 69. He's too old for his own stations. But these targets are set by advertisers and agencies. News/talk generally reaches older demos, but national advertisers usually don't buy talk because it's too controversial. Public stations get older demos. I suspect KCSN & KUSC have older demos. But they don't need to satisfy advertisers.

 

[davideduardo]

Don't look now, but age, gender and ethnicity often do indicate income levels of adult-human-consumers in America.

Today, you can't make blanket assumptions about the consumer behaviour of people based on age or gender or ethnicity.

The fact that they still exist and live long and consume media and music is enough to want to attract them. They certainly have more income and leisure time than 20-somethings, GenX, GenY, and GenZ-ers who are struggling under the crushing economic conditions of incomes not keeping pace with cost of living, or the younger ones not suffering through graduating during or after the recession of 2009-10, or even now not being able to get a job out of college and still living with said Baby Boomers (or GenXers, for that matter).

Simple answer for today's "longest sentence award": The older people get, the less they respond easily to advertising. It takes many more impressions to sell a "senior" on a product or service than a younger consumer.

As for the poster who alluded to Baby Boomers having enough money to pay for subscription services rather than listening to the radio with ads...neither they, nor the rest of us, would have to seek out subscription services (or podcasts) if radio properly served audiences anymore.

If ad-free services had existed in the 50's, media would be very different today. It's a different environment, but radio still reaches over 85% of all people today and that makes it a viable medium for advertisers.

Those of us who are veterans are well aware that various permutations of 18-54 are the target demos. But, hello--perhaps radio needs to also target -64 and -74 demos in order to keep them.

There is no money there. Even huge and influential organizations such as CBS Television have spent over a decade visiting marketers at the highest executive levels to try to get the 18-49 or 25-54 focus expanded, but with no luck at all. Advertisers come back with the fact that seniors can't be efficiently (meaning "profitably") targeted with ad campaigns while still representing a profit.

 

[davideduardo]

Parse this:

#1 6+ three months in a row.

#1 18-34 adults

#1 25-54 adults

They’re doing fine, and clearly the audience doesn’t think they’re “serving up chaos”.

His "chaos" is the listeners' "variety".

 

[michael hagerty]

If it was up to radio, they'd gladly do it all the time.

This.

Radio programmers and executives would LOVE to be able to sell EVERY demo. It would make life so much easier and more profitable.

But ad agencies decided---way back in the 50s----that 18-49 or some permutation of it (25-54) was where the action is at in terms of sales. And in the decades since, research into how people buy things and what motivates them has proven that the most efficient use of an advertising dollar is on someone in the sales demo and the least effective is on people over 55.

Yeah, for a couple of decades, Boomer teens were a hot commodity, but seniors never have been.

There may have been stations that played music they liked, either deciding to serve an underserved audience and make a little (or a lot) less money or because it's what the owner was most comfortable programming.

There absolutely have been stations that thought they'd figured out how to sell 55+ to advertisers, usually via local direct, at a scale that would be almost as good as selling 25-54 or some segment of that.

Apart from talk, it doesn't work. And while talk could reliably get you the agency beer, bank, automaker and airline accounts in the 70s and 80s, it's reverse mortgages, MyPillow and male enhancement supplements now---at much lower spot rates.

 

[Huff]

The formats that Chris Ebbott has the most to do with are doing very well.

Speaking of Mr. Ebbott, a great quote from him in the article linked below: "I spend very little time analyzing meters and weeklies and monthlies, I give myself an hour every month after a book comes out to find any stories, get some market trends and then I put it away and I worry about what the radio station sounds like." Amen to that.

We see on these very boards people going into deep analysis about monthlies, clamoring over the slightest moves and discussing whether adding a few songs might have led to a station going up or down a tenth of a share... often not realizing how much those figures can (and do) wobble, and how small those sample sizes can be in even the largest market when you start whittling down to dayparts and demos. What often gets left out here is many buyers still look at quarterly averages and smart programmers aren't flinching when their stations make small wobbles in monthlies.

Radiodays NA panel tackles question of whether PPM has made radio worse - Broadcast Dialogue

Has PPM made radio worse? That question, posed by Edison Research President Larry Rosin, was followed by a long pause at Radiodays North America as a panel of programmers tackled the efficacy of the measurement system as it marks its 10th anniversary.

broadcastdialogue.com

 

[vchimpanzee]

Apart from talk, it doesn't work. And while talk could reliably get you the agency beer, bank, automaker and airline accounts in the 70s and 80s, it's reverse mortgages, MyPillow and male enhancement supplements now---at much lower spot rates.

Don't forget funeral homes, insurance, investment advice, doctors and car dealers.