Latest Philly ratings are released

[Jul]

Look at them and post your thoughts: http://cclamp.radioandrecords.com/R...&BPER=19.9&HPER=5.0&OPER=&NSD=10/17/2006&CE=0

 

[Betrayed]

Well, off the top of my head it looks like 'MGK has ridden those "rockin' and rollin' " dull Billy Joel, Elton John, and Fleetwood Mac "rock" songs all the way to Flipville.

There's a short at Wired, there's a dead Beat and Sewer 94 is, well, Sewer 94. , People consistently, and with dogged determination don't bother to listen to any of them. The frequencies are all wishing "Gosh golly let me be smooth jazz and finish 9th"

 

[SoulCrusher]

C'mon, CBS - can we admit that Free FM was a bad idea and doomed for failure? Are any of these stations succeeding? Maybe CBS wants to sell off their stations and leave the radio industry - who knows?

Cut your losses and make WYSP an Active Rock/Alternative. Your ratings will double within two books. Keep O & A and counter MMR with a Current-intensive Rock mix that doesn't daypart, and you're bound to become a player. And for Pete's sake, don't they have a Sports affiliate that can carry the Eagles games? If not, they should definitely look into getting one.

 

[Sam Horn]

C'mon, CBS - can we admit that Free FM was a bad idea and doomed for failure? Are any of these stations succeeding? Maybe CBS wants to sell off their stations and leave the radio industry - who knows?

Cut your losses and make WYSP an Active Rock/Alternative. Your ratings will double within two books. Keep O & A and counter MMR with a Current-intensive Rock mix that doesn't daypart, and you're bound to become a player. And for Pete's sake, don't they have a Sports affiliate that can carry the Eagles games? If not, they should definitely look into getting one.

1. yep, doomed for failure it was. the thing is ratings don't mean so much when you're making amazing amounts of money. let me explain...

2. clear channel -- you know, the largest owner of radio stations in the country -- decided, "hey! let's play the music on our stations REALLY, REALLY FAST so we can cram more spots in there. but of course, because we're playing our music so fast, the proportion of music to ads will actually INCREASE! HEY! we could even spin this as 'LESS IS MORE' sure we're playing more ads, but we're playing even more music! they'll NEVER NOTICE"

2a. cbs -- who, if you haven't noticed was very intensive in types of music that are unpaletteable when sped up to warp clear channel -- faced a quandry: CC could now bill less for their spots because there were MORE of them, all while actually realizing a huge gain in profits -- remember: LESS IS MORE! so what could CBS do...try speeding up their songs and certainly lose at least MOST of their listenership OR...

2b. wait a minute! we were able to run about TWENTY TO TWENTY-FIVE MINUTES OF ADVERTS AN HOUR WHEN WE TRIED TALK BEFORE! wouldn't this be the PERFECT time to try talk again!? we could even say that we were AHEAD OF OUR TIME the last time we tried it. (honestly, you really think their whole motivation to launch a hot talk network AFTER stern was just to spite him?) CBS found a way to get even more spots than CC, pushing individual bills even lower, all while hiking up the bottom line

3. all that said -- yeah, FREE sucks up the arbs, but when they sign into their online banking they're feeling PRETTY good about themselves

4. and hopefully, my next post will be a little more coherent. i just get a little testy when people throw out blind suppositions!

 

[odomski]

Julius: since you started this thread, what about your thoughts on the latest Philly radio ratings? What does you think? Why or why not?

There is nothing wrong with asking the opinions of others, however, you should include your own opinions as well...instead of relying on others to start the discussion for you. Just a piece of advice...and it's nothing that hasn't been said a ton of times before.

 

[Jul]

B-101 is a really good station to stay in the top 5 in the ratings for years. I wished the rest of the FM stations in the city will learn from B-101

 

[PaulBWalkerJr]

Geez, what a surprise.. make it Active Rock/Alternative and everything will be betetr!

 

[bringbacktherock]

Sam -

One question ... do you think advertisers would rather pay a little more and have their spots on stations with decent ratings? Won't they catch on to the failures of FREE FM (after a little help from competing sales teams) and jump ship to the stations with more listeners?

 

[radiophiler]

Or, how about this:

Would they rather pay a little more to be on a station with fewer commercials so their commercial doesn't get lost in the middle of an 18-minute "commercial block"? (I claim TM on that phrase.)

Would you rather be commercial #9 in a group of 18 all at once, or commercial #2 in a set of only four? Stations could run ten minutes an hour, in three sets, with three minutes in each of two sets and four minutes in the third.

 

[JimWilliams]

I take out from what's at the BOTTOM of that ratings report. If you're billing yourself as an alternative to WIP, shouldn't you be somewhere in the ballpark of netting...say...1/2 of what WIP gets? At least like a .8 or .9? They're doing worse than they did in their oldies/nostalgia formats!!! Give it up Greater Media, just give it up already.

 

[Sam Horn]

Sam -

One question ... do you think advertisers would rather pay a little more and have their spots on stations with decent ratings? Won't they catch on to the failures of FREE FM (after a little help from competing sales teams) and jump ship to the stations with more listeners?

1. honestly, no. it's always a lot easier to get somebody to spend $1 than it is $2

2. and in philly especially, it's all about the demos. FREE is really only competing with MMR, MGK (in part), and WIP for the same demo, and it's co-owned with one of those. on top of that, advertisers typically buy on all of the stations in demo. it's really a question of who they spot on more -- CBS offers a lower price, so you'll hear more spots from the same advertiser on FREE. no one's competing for exclusive sponsorship anymore.

3. that said, advertisers aren't concerned with ratings as much as they are price. if they run spots on MMR once an hour, they're still on the highest rated station in demo once an hour. if CBS is going to offer them a lower price, they may buy 2 or 3 spots an hour on YSP for the same price as one on MMR

 

[StemCell]

Geez, what a surprise.. make it Active Rock/Alternative and everything will be betetr!

There you go again, the rockers are gone from this board, its getting better...... but you and your clan have to keep the pot stirred with your sarcastic compliments. I think you all get your kicks slinging derogatory remarks when the rockers made their plea, now that you don't have them to kick around you want to revieve their memories.

 

[bringbacktherock]

good point ... i guess ratings are only a piece of a much larger puzzle when it comes down to advertisers, demos, and clusters.

but then is it really better for CBS to keep FREE as is with the ability to run more spots, despite its low ratings??? or perhaps they are banking on O&A being a strong enough force to carry the station like Stern did for many of the CBS Radio affiliates.

 

[RunWithScissors]

Geez, what a surprise.. make it Active Rock/Alternative and everything will be betetr!

There you go again, the rockers are gone from this board, its getting better...... but you and your clan have to keep the pot stirred with your sarcastic compliments. I think you all get your kicks slinging derogatory remarks when the rockers made their plea, now that you don't have them to kick around you want to revieve their memories.

I would not say all the Rockers are gone, some of us still lurk here from time to time. The problem with MGK is this, as long as they have to protect the sacred cow MMR, their ratings will continue to slide. This problem has been going on for years, with MGK always giving way to heritage MMR, the last few good books with MGK are a thing of the past, unless they open wide up.

 

[livingfruitvirus]

C'mon, CBS - can we admit that Free FM was a bad idea and doomed for failure? Are any of these stations succeeding?

KLLI in Dallas does well, but mainly because the star of the station is afternoon fixture Russ Martin. Even when Stern was on, Russ Martin outshined him.

 

[eatspaste]

There's a short at Wired, there's a dead Beat and Sewer 94 is, well, Sewer 94. , People consistently, and with dogged determination don't bother to listen to any of them. The frequencies are all wishing "Gosh golly let me be smooth jazz and finish 9th"

For fun, let's look at Arbitron ratings vs. (approximate!) time doing format:

1. WBEB - 13 years (as "B")
2. KYW - 41 years
3. WDAS - 26 years
4. WUSL - 25 years
5. WOGL - 19 years
5. WXTU - 22 years
7. WMMR - 38 years
8. WPHT - 10 years
9. WJJZ - (13 years)
10. WIOQ - +/- 12 years with some type of CHR-type format
11. WBEN - 1 1/2 years
11. WPPZ - 1 1/2 years
13. WRNB - 2 years
14. WMGK - 5 years (as classic rock)
15. WPHI - 1 1/2 years on 100.3 signal
15. WRDW - almost 3 years as Wild/Wired
17. WSNI - (4 years)
18. WIP - 19 years
19. WYSP - less than 1 year

With the exception of WIP's current bad book, one could argue that anything "new" can't compete with Philadelphia's more historic stations. Why is that? Is this really a city that doesn't like change, or are the "new" stations just not connecting with people? Is flipping to the (sometimes untested) "next best thing" in a hurry not working? Are stations' promotions not clicking? I mean, this is market #6 and one station is doing a "$50,000 Cash For Dat Ass" contest (they killed Y100 for that) and another station duct tapes roll banner to overpasses (it ain't KYW).

 

[fred flintstone]

Why is that? Is this really a city that doesn't like change, or are the "new" stations just not connecting with people? Is flipping to the (sometimes untested) "next best thing" in a hurry not working? Are stations' promotions not clicking? I mean, this is market #6 and one station is doing a "$50,000 Cash For Dat Ass" contest (they killed Y100 for that) and another station duct tapes roll banner to overpasses (it ain't KYW).

Philly radio has always been a moribund, copy-cat market.
It's not change they don't like, it's risk.
But listeners are used to mediocrity and no competitor is raising the bar, so why worry?