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July Ratings

wjf82

wjf82

Arbitron ratings for July (covers June 20th-July 17th)

WLW drops from 13.2 to 12.0, but still in first.
WGRR still second. Should drop a little once "Old School" has been around for a few months. WGRR benefitted the most by MOJO being dropped. Their ratings went up by almost two shares, and they overtook WLW for the top spot for March ratings.

Q102 is doing great, up to third with an 8.0. They've gone 5.8-6.9-7.5-8.0 the last four months.
WYGY 97.3 The Wolf, B105's flanker, continues to climb. Four month trend 1.7-2.0-2.0-and now a 2.5.

WARM98 is up to a 6.0, has increased ratings last four months, while Rewind 94.9 continues to drop. Down to a 3.8, has dropped the last four months.

The billboards did nothing for FM 100 The Fan. Their final full ratings report is a 0.1, tied for last with Fox Sports 1360. The Fan topped 1360 in cume 26,400 to 21,700. The next ratings book that comes out will cover July 18th to August 14th, so 100.3's ratings will be for two weeks as "The Fan" and two weeks as "Old School 100.3."

http://ratings.****************/cgi-bin/rol.exe/arb031
 
Bill, does this sweep cover the period of time that the boards were up?

Heck, QRT Cumed more than that....
 
Given that 96 Rock is down to a 2.5. I wonder how well they bill? Could Cumulus try Sports talk on 96.5 & have more success than Radio One, since they distribute CBS Sports Radio?
 
You're the same one who had this quote on July 13th, regarding 96ROCK changing to a sports or talk format.

"Talk has been tried and failed on 96.5 so that's out. They could always swap frequencies with 94.1. I am betting active rock would do better on 94.1 than on 96.5. 96.5 does have a history with several country formats so brand it NASH 96.5."
 
billf82
I made that quote before Radio One decided to return to music. There is now a hole for local sports talk in the mornings now that is not being filled. I doubt CC will fill it anytime soon.
 
microbob said:
billf82
I made that quote before Radio One decided to return to music. There is now a hole for local sports talk in the mornings now that is not being filled. I doubt CC will fill it anytime soon.
Click to expand...

No real "hole" to fill. The fine people of Cincinnati are saying that they are happy with the current group of sports offerings.
 
Jry,

I disagree with you as the combined ratings for the existing sports stations add up to just a .06 share so it's hard to say people are happy since there are not many listening to the existing to out of town sports talk, which primarily discusses what's going on in New York and the Yankees in the mornings. I also believe that its hard to expect ratings when you pull the plug right before the NFL season on a signal that few even knew existed with little promotion after 6 and 1/2 months . Cincinnati has always been a local personality market.
 
microbob said:
Jry,

I disagree with you as the combined ratings for the existing sports stations add up to just a .06 share so it's hard to say people are happy since there are not many listening to the existing to out of town sports talk, which primarily discusses what's going on in New York and the Yankees in the mornings. I also believe that its hard to expect ratings when you pull the plug right before the NFL season on a signal that few even knew existed with little promotion after 6 and 1/2 months . Cincinnati has always been a local personality market.
Click to expand...

Great points.You do have to include WLW in the mix as well. I wouldn't have done sports on 100.3 if i couldn't give it a good run. We gave QRT 3 years.
As i have said before, spoken word is a long, slow build.
 
jry said:
microbob said:
Jry,

I disagree with you as the combined ratings for the existing sports stations add up to just a .06 share so it's hard to say people are happy since there are not many listening to the existing to out of town sports talk, which primarily discusses what's going on in New York and the Yankees in the mornings. I also believe that its hard to expect ratings when you pull the plug right before the NFL season on a signal that few even knew existed with little promotion after 6 and 1/2 months . Cincinnati has always been a local personality market.
Click to expand...

Great points.You do have to include WLW in the mix as well. I wouldn't have done sports on 100.3 if i couldn't give it a good run. We gave QRT 3 years.
As i have said before, spoken word is a long, slow build.
Click to expand...

Just wanted to point out a few things here.

WLW only has a sports show in the evenings between 6-9pm and that's only during the winter/spring months. There is no sports in the morning with the robotic sounding Jim Scott morning show on WLW. If you count WCKY they are local in the afternoons and on Monday mornings during the NFL Season.

I really liked what you trying to do on WQRT during the last year or two when it was talk. I think if the signal was better in the Winter months perhaps the Newstalk format would have been more of a success for you.
 
Thanks.

What killed it was losing Ramsey and the morning merry go round of talent. At one point, I had a chance to dust Deters and take Imus. It would have been a cheaper solution to the same ratings. The other stupid thing was Ingraham and Savage leaving radio.

Then there was the employee theft situation.....
 
Radio One made several mistakes with the Fan because they had no one in the station who understood sports radio and company consultants who took a safe approach.

First they should have put the Two Angry Guys on in the morning. This was critical for them to pull some audience away from Mike and Mike and Jim Scott as well as WSAI. People in the market know the Two Angry Guys and this would have be a huge plus. Management needed to require Tom and Skinner to make at least on public appearance during the week and be out either in a paid remote or summer event each week end. This goes beyond their weekly appearance in the sports bar. This is Grass roots marketing.

Second, invest in hiring someone who knows the local market and will also be out in the community.

Third, start with doing high school tourney basketball this past season and carry on with doing high school football. Coverage of high school sports brings in much needed revenue and audience awareness.

Fourth, yes they had a good show with Joe Price at 6 pm and Pick being interviewed with Skinner in the afternoons, but they missed out on so many opportunities to make additional revenue with special Reds programming.

Fifth.. A GM and PD who really understood sports programming could have created a number of very good short programs with the local flavor to run in regular programming. The problem Radio One has is on how much they allow consultants to dictate the programming. I never allowed consultants to tell me what I had to do. Their job is to consult.

But the bottom line is even if they did all the above their poor or no marketing plan gave the station No Chance to make it.
 
I agree with many of your points but I think the main problem is that Radio One did not know how to sell the format to advertisers. I wonder if their sales staff made an effort because I didn't hear many local ads at all.

The only other FM talk format that Radio One has is News92 in Houston.
 
It is true you just can't take any radio sales rep and think they can sell sports. It takes a GM and Sales Manager to determine who on their staff can sell sports. This is a format that is not about ratings but results to the targeted demo.

In addition, you can not start out trying to sell a ROS schedule in sports radio. You need to create special programming elements to generate interest such as special reports on the Reds, Bengals (if they had gotten that far), high school sports and so on. They could had made a real statement that their were serious about the format doing a week's worth of shows from Spring Training.

The bottom line is if the past GM and sales team had no experience selling sports radio either don't flip the format or get someone in their who did have the experience. Trust me there is no question there is money to be made their. Clear Channel makes money on WLW but their two sports stations are very much under sold.
 
If Clear Channel sold 1360 what would suggestions does everyone have for a format change for any possible new owners on the station?
 
I'd dump Fox Sports Radio and then go Live and Local Real Radio Talk format, Similar to The Bone in Tampa. It would be highly interactive using Social Media as well. Not totally relying on phone callers. I also would instruct the hosts not to dwell on one topic for no more than 20-30 minutes. Think a fast paced morning show. Younger audiences have a short attention span and they don't want to hear the same thing everyday. I would also try to get on a FM translator if possible.
 
jry said:
billf82 said:
Yes the billboards went up around July 1st.
Click to expand...

Then the next book may be a little more telling. These numbers include part of June.
Click to expand...

Can you explain how it would be more telling? I would think it'd be difficult to tell if The Fan got an increase in ratings, seeing as it switched formats right in the middle of the ratings period. Let's say for example 100.3 gets a 0.5 for the August period. How would we know how much of that was from The Fan and the billboards, and how much of that was people listening because of the urban oldies returning?
 
Radio 25 said:
If Clear Channel sold 1360 what would suggestions does everyone have for a format change for any possible new owners on the station?
Click to expand...

Clear Channel will stay pat with 1360 and keep the format the way it is now. I'm guessing it still makes money, regardless of the ratings. If they dropped the format they'd need a new home for NASCAR, Louisville football / men's basketball, and the national NFL rights they have. 1530 doesn't have room for all that on their schedule (except for Louisville if UK isn't playing at the same time).
 
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