L.A./Riverside-San Bernardino Radio Ratings: September 2013

[davideduardo]

Why is it that so many foreign-language stations manage to get no more than a 1% audience share and some just barely get a 0.1%---KCEL, KIRN, KAZN, KYPA, KTNQ, KDLD, KSSE and KWIZ among them---but they almost never change back to an English-language format? How are Korean, Iranian and Spanish stations able to survive with such low ratings?

Michael is right. The stations in the various Asian languages or Farsi don't sell on numbers and don't do transactional agency business.

Arbitron does not conduct the survey process in any language other than English and Spanish. Arbitron makes no attempt to achieve proportionality among Chinese, Persians, Koreans, Japanese, or other Asian language groups. In fact, they make no effort to include any representation of these groups.

So stations that depend on persons who predominantly speak any of the Asian languages or Farsi are not going to be easy participants in the PPM.

But those groups, particularly Chinese, Koreans, Vietnamese and Persians, have large numbers of businesses and significant communities which have their own media of all kinds, sustained by advertisers from within the communities.

KWIZ is a Class A FM, serving the Hispanic communities of northern Orange County, and in the OC breakout of the LA MSA book, it has a decent share so it's a good medium for local businesses that want to reach Hispanics in the area. I understand that it does quite well.

KTNQ does not have a 0.1. It has shares several times that, and is part of a national package of Cadena Univision covering most of the top US Hispanic markets,

So for all these stations there is a strong and likely profitable reason for existence. But they don't sell on numbers.

 

[davideduardo]

I don't want to start another 250-page discussion about KRTH, but when KRTH conducts music tests, do they ever ask "Are there artists who you do not hear on KRTH but who you wish we would play?"

Open ended questions are not part of Auditorium Music Tests because AMTs are quantitative research. Questions about feel, missing elements, annoying DJs or morning show content are part of perceptual testing, like one-on-ones, focus groups and broader perceptual studies.

But in good research, you would not ask whether there are missing artists, because stations don't play artists... they play songs. Generally, questions about "any songs you don't hear that WZYX should play" get useless answers, mostly with responses of songs taht are being played but the individual hasn't heard for a while.

At an AMT, many more songs are tested than ever get played. But if a song does not test several years in a row, you don't test it again unless it appears in a TV show or movie. With the passage of time, the song will not get better.

 

[LKellerIII]

So how do you guys think KFWB would do with a format of MOR and AC hits of the 1960s-70s-80s? They would be the only Los Angeles station playing Anne Murray, Barry Manilow, Bobby Darin, Bobby Vinton, Brenda Lee, Herb Alpert, Neil Diamond, Johnny Mathis, Perry Como, Nat "King" Cole, Dean Martin, Helen Reddy, Gordon Lightfoot, John Denver, Matt Monro, Tom Jones, Frank Sinatra, Crystal Gayle, Dionne Warwick, Henry Mancini, Kenny Rogers, Barbra Streisand, Ferrante & Teicher, the Carpenters and the 5th Dimension. And before you say that the audience would be in their 60s and 70s, keep in mind that KRTH has a younger audience and plays those same three decades...and I bet a lot of their listeners would love to hear those artists again.

Again, for a Bay Area analogy - KABL 960 AM did just that starting in about the mid 90s with Big Band era music, then morphed into the kind of 60s-70s MOR that you speak of. Jim Lange was one of the DJs. The station had a small but loyal audience. I used to hear it often in mom and pop retail stores owned by older proprieters...vacuum cleaner repair stores, and the like. And the staton had a strong signal.

But that ended in 2004...seems like just yesteray, but it was a decade ago.

I would probably listen to such a station even now - but I'm a bit strange - I listened to KNX (pre-All News), KGIL, and KMPC a fair amount as a kid, and liked some of the music, but really, I listened more to hear Bob Crane, Rege Cordic, Gary Owens, Dick Whittington etc.

 

[SuperRadioFan]

But if a song does not test several years in a row, you don't test it again unless it appears in a TV show or movie. With the passage of time, the song will not get better.

Hmmmm I wonder if they're going to test or re-test "Baby Blue"-Badfinger or (YIKES) "El Paso"- Marty Robbins ???

 

[Thomps2525]

That "testing-songs-that-appear-in-a-movie" theory is probably true. I notice that KRTH does not play Ben E. King's 1961 hit Stand By Me but KRTH does play Ben E. King's 1986 hit Stand By Me.