Well, I live on the (Y)upper east side, low 80's near Central Park. The sort of people you are referring to are my neighbors and family. unless they have either bought into an apartment years ago or are renters protected by some form of rent control, these folks do
not have as much disposable income as you seem to think.
The priorities in this neighborhood are: Housing costs, Food (much more expensive here again due to high commercial rents) Fine clothing, (necessary for work) Health club memberships (often these are social as much as fitness) and cars. What is left over is often dissapated at bars such as Mad River, Wicker Park and Dorians. Yes, some of these people do like rock, but they also go fad-to-fad I don't know that you can build a station catering solely to them.
LinoNYC said:
Well, I live on the (Y)upper east side, low 80's near Central Park. The sort of people you are referring to are my neighbors and family. unless they have either bought into an apartment years ago or are renters protected by some form of rent control, these folks do not have as much disposable income as you seem to think.
Upper-east siders might not, but under 30 brokers living downtown and in Brooklyn do. Add that to the fact suburban people are paying $100+ a week to gas up, and you may even have greater disposable income in the city.
LinoNYC said:
The priorities in this neighborhood are: Housing costs, Food (much more expensive here again due to high commercial rents) Fine clothing, (necessary for work) Health club memberships (often these are social as much as fitness) and cars. What is left over is often dissapated at bars such as Mad River, Wicker Park and Dorians. Yes, some of these people do like rock, but they also go fad-to-fad I don't know that you can build a station catering solely to them.
Great! You mean as an advertiser I can reach a demo that buys expensive food (whole foods), I can pitch my housing developments to, or my $3650/year health club? I can reach a group who has this factored into their overhead??? Sign me up!
LinoNYC said:
As for radio, many have gone to non commercial outlets such as WFUV and WNYC, the latter has an operating budget that is millions of dollars higher than most commercial station's billings. I'am one of these listeners and I doubt that there is anything that commercial radio could do that would cause me to tolerate their dumb talk shows, tight playlists and interminable stopsets.
Years ago WNEW tried to market itself as a "sophisticated" rock station and when I was at NYU in the mid-seventies 'NEW and it's artrock approach was at it's peak of popularity but it never had much in terms of ratings.
Don't be too dismissive of the "poor' hvac repairman, all of these tradespeople are major connivers, all them do a significant portion of their work off the books and many of their wives and offspring work as well.
Billy and Mary Sixpack are not "sophisticated' but they spend and are more easily influenced by advertising imagery.
Regards, Lino
Well I can't speak to any of that because it happened 30 years ago before I was born. But popularity is important, especially given they way terrestrial radio is being crowded out of the market and ratings are falling across the industry. Radio's core business, being a progressive marketing tool for record companies is what it should stick to, because everyone from the Upper East Side Lawyers to Stapleton Artists need to buy music from ITunes every once in a while.