Makes You Think

[Element9]

Here's another consideration after reading the Begging For Dollars thread:

A rare sight - a public radio station sits at the top of the ratings. Seattle's KUOW beat every other station in the market in the Winter book - both commercial and non-commercial. And San Francisco's KQED ranks second only to perennial leader KGO - with just four-tenths of a point separating the two. RRC's Joanne Church says "they're the right populations and the right stations" pointing to the market's highly-educated populations.

Makes you wonder if it could happen in Buffalo and Western New York, an area that's home to two universities, five colleges and two community colleges.

RRC's Joanne Church says "they're the right populations and the right stations" pointing to the market's highly-educated populations.

Why not Buffalo?

-9-

 

[Mark Giardina]

Here's another consideration after reading the Begging For Dollars thread:

A rare sight - a public radio station sits at the top of the ratings. Seattle's KUOW beat every other station in the market in the Winter book - both commercial and non-commercial. And San Francisco's KQED ranks second only to perennial leader KGO - with just four-tenths of a point separating the two. RRC's Joanne Church says "they're the right populations and the right stations" pointing to the market's highly-educated populations.

Makes you wonder if it could happen in Buffalo and Western New York, an area that's home to two universities, five colleges and two community colleges.

RRC's Joanne Church says "they're the right populations and the right stations" pointing to the market's highly-educated populations.

Why not Buffalo?

-9-

Why not Rochester? We have the University of Rochester, SUNY Brockport, RIT, Roberts Wesleyan College, just to name a few institutes of higher learning.

Credit for public radio's success in Rochester and Buffalo should be given to the hard-working people both on and off air.

At WXXI-AM the news department is staffed with a dedicated group of individuals, especially Bud Lowell, who work long hours and even weekends to produce a high-quality product.

Why the public stations in Rochester and Buffalo do not generate the ratings the Seattle station does could result from the lack of outside promotion. As I used to say to the management at WXXI, promoting radio over your TV station is like preaching to the choir. You need to spend a few bucks on outside promotion.

During my 14 years at the station I would still have people refer to WXXI has Channel 21.

 

[JohnW]

"During my 14 years at the station I would still have people refer to WXXI has Channel 21."

Mark,

Strange that you mention that - in our house we've always referred to WXXI-AM as 21AM & WXXI-FM as 21FM

 

[Philip_Airtime]

I really don't think the fact that the public stations here are not highly ranked is due entirely to a lack of marketing. The bottom line is that Buffalo is still a "blue collar" town that is wed to a heritage station, WBEN. I once saw some qualitative data that showed WBFO was one of the top five radio stations in the market for listeners who have a college degree. Unfortunately, there aren't enough of those listeners living in Buffalo. San Francisco and Seattle are "white collar" cities with college educated populations. Thus, their public stations are ranked at the top. The same holds true for Boston where WBUR is highly rated. The one common denominator among public radio listeners is their love of life long learning. They're curious. And public radio appeals to them. Please know I'm not being critical of Buffalo. We are what we are. Our population is aging. Our young people have moved to San Franciso, Seattle and other cities where there is more opportunity. So, there is not the population base here that would allow the public stations to rise to number one.

 

[alw]

The bottom line is that Buffalo is still a "blue collar" town that is wed to a heritage station, WBEN. I once saw some qualitative data that showed WBFO was one of the top five radio stations in the market for listeners who have a college degree.

I'd like to point out that Buffalo being a "blue collar town" has audiences that handily support 3 (count 'em 3) public radio and 2 public TV stations (one must count ThinkBright on cable). I find that remarkable.

The qualitative reports show that all three radio stations have THE top audiences in education, wealth and influence in the market. And all three have some of the healthiest TSL numbers as well.

All in all, Buffalo is a surprisingly strong public radio infiltration; after all, the audience is split up 3 ways. If it were a market with but 1 public entity, like many others. the share would be very impressive.

 

[SirRoxalot]

NPR Blues

You also have to look at the programming on the locals. WNED-FM is classical music - by design a niche format. WNED-AM is a news format, sharing some programming with WBFO, and without the resources or signal to go head-to-head with WBEN for news dominance on AM. WBFO plays jazz for a large portion of the day, which is once again a niche format.

Look at WBFO's weekend numbers. They give you an idea of what kind of audience public radio can attract when they offer a more popular alternative to commercial programming. The blues shows on Saturday and Sunday are very strong vs. commercial programming. Perhaps "blue collar" is actually "blues collar".