-
Get involved.
We want your input!
Apply for Membership and join the conversations about everything related to broadcasting.
After we receive your registration, a moderator will review it. After your registration is approved, you will be permitted to post.
If you use a disposable or false email address, your registration will be rejected.
After your membership is approved, please take a minute to tell us a little bit about yourself.
https://www.radiodiscussions.com/forums/introduce-yourself.1088/
Thanks in advance and have fun!
RadioDiscussions Administrators
KMVA MAKES ANOTHER FORMAT ADJUSTMENT
- Thread starter radioresearcher
- Start date
Exactly. There is no 'format adjustment' here. So many of these tinkertoy stations i.e. 103.9 think they can compete with the real players by playing the same music. It makes no sense at all.
Saladressing said:
Yep .. just like the tinkertoy at 98.3 is #1 18-34 ...
azfmfan said:
Something different? Really? ???
J
JerryKidd
Guest
I love it. Honestly. We drop a record and add some JT library and all this? Thanks guys! It means a lot to us over here that you care so much what we do.
I really don't understand why people clown on the "rim shots" signals all the time. The towers mountain stations and KEXX all cover the entire metro with city grade coverage. There may be spots of static for some, but it's really no different from up north where most markets have Class C and Class A stations. I bet if you could buy a station and you see the bottom lines of these "rim shots" (especially the ones being run efficiently) compared to even a medium market, you'd choose the "rim shot" over the medium market. I know I would. If I'd have hit that power ball last night, I already had my offer ready.
But for real, this industry is getting smaller and smaller- Let's all be friends (except for that one guy who doesn't like me). Thanks for listening!
I really don't understand why people clown on the "rim shots" signals all the time. The towers mountain stations and KEXX all cover the entire metro with city grade coverage. There may be spots of static for some, but it's really no different from up north where most markets have Class C and Class A stations. I bet if you could buy a station and you see the bottom lines of these "rim shots" (especially the ones being run efficiently) compared to even a medium market, you'd choose the "rim shot" over the medium market. I know I would. If I'd have hit that power ball last night, I already had my offer ready.
But for real, this industry is getting smaller and smaller- Let's all be friends (except for that one guy who doesn't like me). Thanks for listening!
A
azenergyfan
Guest
I do have a question though for someone who is very tuned into the radio biz but not working in the radio biz. For the phoenix market we have the following:
Mix 96.9
The Peak 98.7
99.9 KEZ
HOT 97.5
My 103.9
Now there are differences between all five but there is a ton of overlap. What is the business sense in programming so close to another four stations? To me and I may totally be off base but it is like you are trying to cut the small pie five times and sometimes you may get a bigger piece while other times you wont. Wouldn't it make sense to go in a different direction so there wasn't so much overlap? Just curious to this point because I know people bounce around from one station to the next and if I owned a station, I would want to seperate myself from the crowd and not join the crowd.
Mix 96.9
The Peak 98.7
99.9 KEZ
HOT 97.5
My 103.9
Now there are differences between all five but there is a ton of overlap. What is the business sense in programming so close to another four stations? To me and I may totally be off base but it is like you are trying to cut the small pie five times and sometimes you may get a bigger piece while other times you wont. Wouldn't it make sense to go in a different direction so there wasn't so much overlap? Just curious to this point because I know people bounce around from one station to the next and if I owned a station, I would want to seperate myself from the crowd and not join the crowd.
I have a question. Why can't stations be a little more daring with the music being played during the middle of the night? Are there that many people listening at 2:30 AM to justify playing the same songs that are played during the day when there may be more listeners? I'm asking because I really don't know.
J
JerryKidd
Guest
Both very valid questions, and I persoanlly understand how both of you feel Az, and 2son. Unfortunately the answer to those questions probably won't be posted on a board like this one. It would be like showing your poker hand on the turn. What I can write is: this is a pretty big market, so it's safe to assume there aren't very many stations just flying blind and guessing. Realize that most of these "rim shot" stations that everyone is quick to hate on, have at least half a million in CUME. Thats more CUME than a ton of markets have in total population...so there is money being made. That's about the deepest answer I'm comfortable giving on here. I will, however, point you in a direction to find the answers to your questions: KVIT. Steve has a great program over there for radio, and I believe they offer adult education classes in the summer. I certainly don't mean that in any condescending way at all, and I'm not suggesting you NEED it. I think Steve can explain things like that without the risk of accidentally showing some cards.
With that, I enjoyed this week of fun posts! I have to go back to work this week. Best to you all (even that one guy)...
JK
With that, I enjoyed this week of fun posts! I have to go back to work this week. Best to you all (even that one guy)...
JK
JerryKidd said:
Hi Jerry...I have another question. Sometimes I'll browse through Mediabase and compare playlists with different stations, but I notice some songs listed there I rarely hear or don't hear at all. For example, on KMVA's playlist, it shows artists (or songs) that I don't see on some of the other stations like Avicii/Nikki Romero, Armin Van Buuren, Cazzette, Showtek, and Hardwell (among others), but I never hear those artists on the station. I have heard "Clarity" by Zedd, but I believe it's only played between 4-6 AM.
DJ_Perry said:
Perhaps that's why they ended up on Mediabase...which brings me to another question. Last late Spring/early Summer when KMVA was throwing in all of those dance artists, was there much promotion for those types of songs compared to the usual top 40 artists? I don't seem to remember actually hearing a lot of promotion or introductions for who these "new" artists were (for those soccer moms), but maybe I wasn't listening for it as I already knew who they artists were. Do you think more promotion for these types of artists would help gain them more popularity with the "soccer moms"? I understand that the average listeners usually go with the flow if they think something is popular or am I wrong? I know plenty of "soccer moms" who enjoy dance music including those who work with me at my place of employment (Christian university). ;D
97.5 was trying something different back then. I really don't know why it stopped, but that was about a year ago now, and I don't believe anybody really remembers that. I thought they had decent numbers at the time, but then again, I only seen 6+ ratings. Perhaps it tanked them within their demo.
Lots of these cars nowadays look the same, same sort of upside down "dove Soap shape" similar power train, etc. so they need a gimmick or a claim to fame to compete.
So some of these stations might get away with playing similar music, if they could pitch some other angle, different commercial breaks, better talent, better signal, some status appeal, marketing gimmick.
So some of these stations might get away with playing similar music, if they could pitch some other angle, different commercial breaks, better talent, better signal, some status appeal, marketing gimmick.
azenergyfan said:
Well I'm still in the biz but not in the market so I'm happy to take a stab here.
azenergyfan said:
There are a few reasons why this is the norm, and becoming more so. Short answer: It's the path of least resistance thanks to PPM.
Now the long answer. Your logic is actually pretty sound here. If there are 10 shares for the Hot AC format in a market and that pie is already being split four ways, it doesn't make much sense to split that piece a fifth way when there are say 3 or so shares for Alternative or AAA. But stations and owners do it because they need to be profitable. And to be profitable you have to have decent ratings right off the bat. Now it splits to two branches. One is the PPM branch and one is the lack of long term vision among owners in today's environment branch. We'll start with PPM.
The new methodology introduced with PPM made "Tune out" the kiss of death for a radio station. When a listener leaves the station, our ratings immediately go down (all assuming that listener is one of the 900 or so panelists in the market). That makes programmers hyper critical of everything on their station, and its important that anything on the air that risks tune out has the upside to off set that possible loss. Listeners are a fickle, pretty much awful bunch en masse. They could not like a song (totally understandable), hate commercials (no fault there), get bored (A.D.D. is a bitch), or it could be something as trivial as not liking the way a jock says call letters. But one thing that is generally true about 97 percent of the populace is they are very unwilling to give something new a chance. Most people are stuck in their ways and the same is true with their music. So to get those immediate ratings you have to be familiar. You have to play music they are already comfortable with, taking VERY few chances to break new music. Back in the diary days you could take a lot more chances because immediate tune out wouldn't hurt...chances were the listener was either going to write down they listened to you or they didn't. One song or bit didn't make the difference. Now it does.
The other branch is the short sighted, results NOW mentality rampant in the industry these days. Many station owners are so mired in debt they don't have the luxury of the time or cash on hand it takes to do something GREAT to go after that other piece of pie. To build a successful Alt or AAA brand (as examples) in Phoenix would require a hefty investment. Staff, research and most importantly MARKETING. Then you have to brand the station and educate hundreds of thousands of people why what you're doing is worth their time. It would take a considerable investment financially, and quite a bit of patience to see the ratings payoff to make it worth the owner's while...assuming it was done successfully in the first place. In short there are very few owners around who would be willing to take that risk.
To sum up, you don't have to win anymore to be profitable. All you have to do is be "good enough." And if an owner can turn a tidy profit, chances are they'd rather be safe with that then risk being in the red (in many cases moreso than they already are) chasing a pipe dream of riches down the road that may or may not come to fruition.
The last time this town had an AAA, the owner had bought the station for cash in a fire sale and operated it like his own personal jukebox.
Then he took out a loan to buy two more stations to be the second duopoly in town and was obsessed with paying the loan back early.
Suddenly we needed ratings, now, and the station morphed into modern AC.
Such is life.
Then he took out a loan to buy two more stations to be the second duopoly in town and was obsessed with paying the loan back early.
Suddenly we needed ratings, now, and the station morphed into modern AC.
Such is life.
johndavis said:
Thanks for being as vague as humanly possible!
Well yeah. We all have this romantic notion that radio used to be all about creating art.
It's not. It's about turning a profit.
Every now and then you come across a Jorgy, but for all the non-traditional things we did with him, sooner or later it was time to turn a profit. That's not a result of PPM, that's just business.
Is radio more homogenized today than before? Sure. But I think that's more a function of technology disrupting the industry than consolidation. Computers make duplicating and automating programming ridiculously cheap, and if there's one thing that's been constant over the years, it's keeping the costs down wherever you can.
It's not. It's about turning a profit.
Every now and then you come across a Jorgy, but for all the non-traditional things we did with him, sooner or later it was time to turn a profit. That's not a result of PPM, that's just business.
Is radio more homogenized today than before? Sure. But I think that's more a function of technology disrupting the industry than consolidation. Computers make duplicating and automating programming ridiculously cheap, and if there's one thing that's been constant over the years, it's keeping the costs down wherever you can.
- Status