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MARCH PPMs

P

Parttimer

The Fan has officially crashed and burned. Less than half of 1250's AQH (interestingly, their cume is slightly higher than 1250's, so people are sampling and not staying).

BOB-FM is now #3 in the market, Kiss has numbers that match or exceed the glory days as 96KX. Star and the X are also up.

So does the Fan try top re-tool and make changes, or should we start the countdown to B94 III?
 
Start the countdown to B94 Part III. If they can't do any better with all the Big Ben talk, the Pens in the playoffs, etc. then its time to close up the shop. The chemistry is not getting any better. The presentation outside of a chosen few is dull and lifeless. Mark my words, as I have said it before, and I will say it again. This station will go down as one of the biggest busts in Pittsburgh radio history. It is by far the worst programmed, poorly marketed, and above all poorly managed station. Ever. What will it take for CBS to realize how much of a mistake this station is?

I also found it funny how KDKA TV gave very little coverage to their FM counterpart until the other night with the Big Ben coverage. I almost assumed they were going to interview someone over at 1250 or 970 before they went to promote their OWN station!

Oh, and I guess congrats to West Virginia Radio Corporation down in Morgantown. They are actually beating a full market coverage station with a signal that barely gets north of Washington County. Perhaps they should start looking into some national ad contracts!
 
On last night's KDKA news they had a prerecorded radio interview with Big Ben's attorney commenting on recent developments. Did they pull it from the Fan? Of course not. Ol' 1250 gets the credit in bold letters across the screen. You know, if I were the PD of The Fan, I'd think I would speak to the news director and ask them to stop promoting the competition!
 
Jkf said:
On last night's KDKA news they had a prerecorded radio interview with Big Ben's attorney commenting on recent developments. Did they pull it from the Fan? Of course not. Ol' 1250 gets the credit in bold letters across the screen. You know, if I were the PD of The Fan, I'd think I would speak to the news director and ask them to stop promoting the competition!
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What are they supposed to do? It's the only place his attorney commented, and it was on an ESPN national show, not a local one. His comments are relevant, and you can't air them without attributing the source.
 
Personally I think the Fan can be fixed. They made a coule of mistakes with the lineup but even a shuffling of some time slots and eventually getting play-by-play (I'm already hearing Pitt rumors) will at least get them even with ESPN. The cume is there, they just need to get those folks to stay longer.
 
I was sorry to see them kill off B-94 a second time, and I have no real interest in the Fan (not a sports junkie), but it's still far, far too early to judge the fate of 93.7.

C.
 
The FAN nneds to promote itself! Grant it, I'm in steubenville, but almost every sports junkie at work doesn't even know the station exsists!
 
Well, let's see here.

I saw lots and lots of TV spots this winter promoting the switch.

The Post-Gazette has been all over the station and now is working with them.

Furthermore, if I go on the PG's website I see a big ad and link to the station.

My guess is like all the other media entities in Pittsburgh, they don't really try to market a small town of 21,000 people in another state that is an entire media market to themselves and instead leave Steubenville to the WSTVs of the world.
 
cingram said:
I was sorry to see them kill off B-94 a second time, and I have no real interest in the Fan (not a sports junkie), but it's still far, far too early to judge the fate of 93.7.

C.
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Very true...it still needs time to catch on in the 'burbs for the numbers to improve, which is the advantage of it over the AMs...you can actually hear it past the city. I think this station is here to stay.
 
When you consider that probably none of the listeners to B94 are listening to the FAN and that they already have a larger cume than 1250, this is a pretty good start. They are taking listerners from somewhere--104.7?
 
Although I wouldn't listen unless they were airing calls from Queens about how bad the Mets are (that can be really funny---I think), I think sports on FM can work because of the ability to reach well beyond the city limits. I just hope somebody buys 106.7 and 98.3 and takes them back to commercial broadcasting with music formats. I still don't see how a market this big can be without an Urban station or even a Churban. But I guess this has been talked to death.
 
pman44 said:
When you consider that probably none of the listeners to B94 are listening to the FAN and that they already have a larger cume than 1250, this is a pretty good start. They are taking listerners from somewhere--104.7?
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They probably aren't "taking" listeners from anywhere.. sharing with 1250, DVE, 970 and the X and then the listeners are going back to their favorite... the Fan needs to build time spent listening now... the telling stat next month will be to see if the cume drops off, that would be bad because the people who sampled and didn't like it aren't going back. If the cume is at least level then it means the Fan is people's second choice and you can build on that.

The later ratings will also reflect 1250's schedule change where they dropped Cowherd in favor of four hours of Stan & Guy. That might actually widen the gap.
 
I suspect that CBS will stick with The Fan, come Hades or High-Water, until the PBP rights come open for one of the local pro teams. Selling a package FM/AM deal to carry the games would be the Holy Grail of this enterprise (and likely the longer term salvation for 1020). If they end up not winning any of the bids then I think you'd see things change rapidly at both stations.

I still suspect ESPN will make a supreme effort to get on FM here, for all the same reasons.
 
My view of AM isn't quite as cynical as many of the other posters on here for a variety of reasons.

One of which being that on the first day of The Fan I heard one of the hosts talking about how you would now be able to hear sports talk in a tunnel- and then when I went through the Liberty Tubes I couldn't get 93.7 but I could get 1250.

If we're talking music- I agree with you. AM is obsolete.

But talk is different. And if you want to ask "What about 104.7?" I am not going to say that 104.7's frequency hurt them, but I think that the programming on the station had as much to do with its success as anything.

Just as 93.7's "Man Station's" programming had as much to do with its demise.
 
Obviously you need programming, but a generation that has grown up on static-free FM isn't going to tolerate the crackling quirks of most AM signals.

Take a look at the demo breakdowns on AM listening sometime.
 
CBS has had huge success in other markets with these FM sports flips... Detroit has done very well and Boston's also a success.

They have struggled in Dallas and the issues are primarily the same as here, no compelling local star to drive the station.
 
In Washington, CBS' sports talker will probably go below a rimshot suburban hot a/c soon and is already below a noncomm religious station and Danny's AM/rimshot FM simulcasted sports talkers. Previously one of CBS' poorly marketed Free FM's, 106.7 is always a rumor of a format change or frequency swap.
 
Boss Radio said:
Obviously you need programming, but a generation that has grown up on static-free FM isn't going to tolerate the crackling quirks of most AM signals.

Take a look at the demo breakdowns on AM listening sometime.
Click to expand...

I'm aware of what the demos are. But again, you're only seeing half the issue here.

KDKA and WJAS have average age listenership of 65. What would it be if they were on FM? 64?

Their programming simply doesn't appeal to a younger set. The last I looked ESPN 1250's average age was 45. That was older than WDVE- but not by a tremendous amount (I think WDVE's was 38-39).


Now I grew up with music on FM and talk on AM. If I'm scanning the dial in an out of town market for sports talk, I'm hitting the AM scan button first. So is everyone else.

Let's take the Fan out of the equasion. If Fox Sports 970 suddenly moved to FM, would they start beating out WEAE?
 
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