Why on 107.7? San Francisco and the North Bay hardly has Country listeners.
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KSJO Universal 92.3 to Drop Brokered Programming
- Thread starter Radiomusik
- Start date
Why on 107.7? San Francisco and the North Bay hardly has Country listeners.
Country does work in the north bay, they even have there own country stations, it only really doesn't work in San Francisco and Oakland.
Agreed that "idiocy" and Cumulus go hand-in-hand!!!
Here are some of Cume-u-Less' biggest hits in recent months:
--The self-destruction of 107.3 in Washington. Once a consistent top 7 or 8 ranker in A25-54, the station for the past year has been hovering around 20th. Their CHR effort to date has had *ZERO* effect on Clear Channel's Hot 99-5 and has allowed CBS competitor 94.7 Fresh FM to improve its market position
--The abortion known as All News 106.7 in Atlanta: high-budget All News format failed to gain any traction in A25-54 or 6+, resulting in low billings and big losses. They are trying to reshape the station into the 2014-version of WGST (remember them?). Yeah, *that* will work well. LOL
--Passing up the opportunity to flip Rock 100.5 in Atlanta to the adult-friendly Modern Rock format that Clear Channel ultimately chose for its 105.7 in the same market. Before 105.7 flipped to Modern Rock, the best 100.5 could muster was a 2.8 share with its active rock-leaning Mainstream Rock format. Within 90 days of CC's 105.7's flipping to Modern Rock, they were beating Rock 100.5 by a 2:1 margin in the ratings. Today, 100.5 continues to search for an identity (Cumulus hired a hack PD from Nashville who earlier in his career ran Miami's Zeta into the ground) whereas 105.7 is now a Top 5 station in A18-34 and near Top 10 in A25-54 (recently inching ahead of Star 94 in the latter category).
--WABC in New York: dumping Rush from middays and putting Rita Cosby (who is beyond awful) on the air in afternoon drive. 'Nuff said.
--WPLJ in New York: dumping Scott Shannon from the morning show in an apparent budget cutting move. Since that decision, week-long ratings have dropped 30% - 40%, which will likely compel advertisers to choose competing CBS-owned stations such as Fresh 102.7 over WPLJ.
--Last but not least, how can I possibly leave out 104.5/97.7 KFOG?!!! The way Cumulus has run that brand has been a comedy of errors from day 1! After a couple years, they seem to *finally* be acknowledging the error of their ways. Remember when they hired that shock jock from Lexington, KY (of all places) to co-host mornings there? Ya know, a guy who's worked in Active Rock and Shock Talk radio his entire career? That turned out REAL well, didn't it?
I live in a market with a "Nash FM" branded station. A few observations:
--Their "Country Christmas" to introduce the station last December featured some of the crummiest, hokiest music I have ever heard on the radio. Stiff, after stiff, after stiff. No mainstream Christmas music and very little in the way of mainstream Country artists to be found.
--Their freeway billboards are HORRIBLY designed! A goofy looking "N" with rounded corners in the middle with "FM 93.1" in font so tiny that it is almost impossible to see if you are driving past at 70 mph. They expect to increase brand awareness with THAT? The only brand positioning used on the billboard is "Country for Life" (again, in small type). The billboards also do NOTHING to communicate any sort of value proposition. If I had designed it, I would've quadrupled the size of the font used to show the dial position and would've used a clear, easy-to-remember message, such as "The Most Country Music...Biggest Stars!" or "Hear Detroit's Best Country NOW on FM 93.1! Fewer Interruptions!"
--They expect a syndicated morning show hosted by a puker such as Blair Garner, with flat tinny audio, to outperform (or even be competitive with) the local show on CBS's powerhouse country station in my market? This might be an OK strategy in market #125 or market #150 if the "other" station is equally low budget, but in a Top 15 market (such as Detroit)?!!! No way in hell will this ever fly. Good luck trying to sell advertising using outsourced, generic personalities with weak ratings against a 100% local station that has been around 20 years and is usually #1 in A18-34 and top 3 in A25-54 in my market.
Summary:
If & when Nash comes to your market, expect a marginally executed product with no more than two local personalities (middays and afternoons) backed by poor promotion. The only reason this station will see any sort of ratings in the Bay Area at large is because KRTY does not reach the Central Bay and East Bay quite as well as KSJO. I predict about a 1.2 share in ages 6+, with similar ratings in A25-54, in market #4.
Nash FM is only trying to appeal to the teenyboppers and 20-something countrypolitans who don't mind hearing Florida Georgia Line and their twang in the middle of Manhattan (no, not Manhattan, KS, the one in NY). They are also copying Clear Channel/iHeart by using national personalities, voice tracked and from 1000 miles away. That I feel is disgusting. LOCAL WORKS.
-crainbebo
-crainbebo
Will it be country tomorrow?
It looks like Nash FM is the winner for KSJO, it began stunting at 9:01 PM. Currently its playing a train sound effect and introducing Country artists that will be played on the Nash FM format.
http://player.streamtheworld.com/liveplayer.php?CALLSIGN=KSJOFM
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So how long this format going to stick?
There's no speculation on how long the format will last, but if Nash FM does not do well with the Nielsen ratings in the area then more likely KSJO will resell by another buyer.
But most likely it will do good on ratings in the South Bay, KRTY-FM has a 5.0 share last month. Ranked 6th in ratings, the highest in the area.
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Remember, Nash is not going to take all the listening from KRTY. It is likely it will not even take half... which leaves ones station with a 3 share and the other with a 2 share. Nash, with a 2 share in the San Jose book, would rank 20th. There is no transactional business in that market that buys 20 deep.
Even now, KRTY is beaten by KQED, KBAY, KBRG, KCBS and KUFX.
It's also interesting to look at the ratings for Cumulus country stations that were country before becoming Nash and analyzing the before and after ratings.
Thanks for the info David, much appreciated. I have a question for you, do you know what happened to Principle Broadcasting Network, which I remember it operated KCNL, KSJO, WESK, WLIE and KLOK. Did the "Principle" organization change its name to Universal Media Access when KSJO became Universal 92.3 of last year?
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The parent corporation continues to be Principle. It is not unusual for individual licenses of a company to be in different corporate names; on inspection, each is a wholly owned subsidiary of the parent.
nobody listens to Nash in NY, who are you kidding? They pull in generally a 1.5-1.7 and aren't a full market signal. Cumulus sells ads for Nash on a national level. Ratings, I believe are of less interest to them. It's a brand and they're convinced it'll work. I've listened to Nash in NY and even if I liked country I would think it to be a terrible station. It's a juke box with the same 20 songs and syndicated shows. They bought the station on the cheap, syndicated it to death and made a big deal about NY having a country station after a 17 year absence. The only thing is that it's doing no better than when the last country station died 17 years ago.
They've done a similar thing in SF.
They've done a similar thing in SF.
There are two kinds of "national". One is national spot, where a campaign is mounted using local spot buys on individual local stations. The other is national network, where a single buy gets somewhat compatible stations in multiple markets at a single combined rate.
National network is by far the smallest of the three types of spot sales... local direct, agency and network. In no case is it enough to cover a significant part of the operating expense of a station. The bulk of the money comes from non-network agency (local, regional and national) and local direct sales.
In all cases, rates are based on audience delivery. In network, it is the sum of delivery of all the affiliates. But a low-delivery or non-delivery by any station means money that can not be billed. Network sales is extremely ratings based.
Cumulus is highly unlikely to resell KSJO 92.3 if Nash does poorly. If that happens, 92.3 will just flip to another format.
I doubt Cumulus will consider ratings and ad sales the only barometers of success with Nash FM. Cumulus has said Nash is a national brand that will be used to promote Nash Weekly (the soon-to-be name of Country Weekly), concerts, and even Nash restaurants. So, if the Bay Area ends up with a successful Nash restaurant and Nash Weekly sells well, Cumulus may consider Nash a success, even if it doesn't muster in the ratings department.
So, the question is will a combination of Nash FM, Nash Weekly and anything else Cumulus decides to do in the Bay Area be successful? At this point, it's anyone's guess. Country music has always sold better in San Francisco than country ratings would indicate. No one else, however, has been able to take advantage of that. Can Cumulus really make the Nash restaurant concept work? It has the capital, but does it have the stomach to ride out the early losses that are almost guaranteed with restaurant operations? I suspect Nash restaurants will be franchised, but corporate still has to support its franchisees.
I can see how, maybe, Cumulus could make the aggregate Nash concept worth its while in the Bay Area. However, I also remember the joke we used to tell when I worked at Cumulus. How do you make $1 million in radio? Invest $10 million in Cumulus!
It's better than putting $10 million in to Citadel.
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