More Consolidation is Not the Answer to Poor Business Decisions

[Kent]

I think you missed my point, but you also bring up another good one.
1. How is it that at least commercially, AAA is aging out when the three major components of the format, Hot AC, Alternative, and Classic Rock, are still fairly healthy? I really don't understand how if we were looking at this 10 years ago, KINK/Portland and KLCK/Seattle could have attracted drastically different audiences when probably 80% of their playlist was similar.

Keep in mind that the target listener of a AAA station is a roughly 35 year old woman. What were 35 year old women listening to in 2000? What does the average 35 year old woman listen to today? How much of what they listen to today would work on a AAA station? How much of a AAA's gold library would appeal to a woman born in 1990?

 

[TheBigA]

Keep in mind that the target listener of a AAA station is a roughly 35 year old woman.

Hmmm. Not sure about that. The median age according to MRI Simmons is 51. 35 year old women mainly listen to Hot AC or Country.

The standout feature for AAA is that most listeners make over $100K and own their own homes.

 

[Kent]

Hmmm. Not sure about that. The median age according to MRI Simmons is 51. 35 year old women mainly listen to Hot AC or Country.

The one where I worked roughly 25 years ago was looking for women between 35 and 50. I used 35 based on where we started our research.

 

[ted chittenden]

I'd disagree that the primary source of rock and was just R&B. The mid-50's sound was just as much "Rock Around the Clock", Peggy Sue" and "Wake Up Little Susy" as it was Little Richard and Fats Domino.

The artists you cited--The Everly Brothers, Buddy Holly, and Bill Haley--all used rhythms that owed their existance to R&B. The only thing that made them different from R&B recordings was the fast guitar work, both acoustic and electric. The guitar work of B.B. King, for example, though the basis of the work of artists such as Eric Clapton, Jeff Beck, and Jimmy page during the 1960s and 1970s--was relatively slow. But even here, with the exception of Bill Haley, the rhythm guitar feel you got from their songs owes as much, if not more, to Chuck Berry as it does to country music.

 

[TheBigA]

Meanwhile, companies such as Hubbard, Midwest, Connoisseur, Lotus, Saga, and Hubbard hold their own with local personalities. Of those, we've only heard about layoffs of a similar size to what Audacy just went through at Hubbard once, and that was in 2020.

Earlier there was talk about Hubbard sticking to local personalities, and that they rarely lay people off. In the last week, they released the PD of their country station in West Palm Beach, and today comes word that they're replacing their local morning show in St. Louis with hosts based at their Cincinnati station. So apparently things are tight right now at Hubbard:

WIL Imports Jesse & Anna For Mornings

Hubbard Country "B105" WUBE Cincinnati morning hosts Jesse Tack and Anna Marie will begin being heard on sister 92.3 WIL

radioinsight.com

Grover Collins Takes Over WIRK Programming As Bruce Logan Exits.

Hubbard Broadcasting “B-105” WUBE Cincinnati PD Grover Collins will add programming duties for co-owned “New Country 103.1” WIRK West Palm Beach, FL, as OM Bruce Logan exits the company. Logan

www.countryinsider.com

This kind of thing has also happened at Beasley stations around the country.

 

[davideduardo]

The artists you cited--The Everly Brothers, Buddy Holly, and Bill Haley--all used rhythms that owed their existance to R&B. The only thing that made them different from R&B recordings was the fast guitar work, both acoustic and electric. The guitar work of B.B. King, for example, though the basis of the work of artists such as Eric Clapton, Jeff Beck, and Jimmy page during the 1960s and 1970s--was relatively slow. But even here, with the exception of Bill Haley, the rhythm guitar feel you got from their songs owes as much, if not more, to Chuck Berry as it does to country music.

I'm thinking more of the well documented progression of instrumentation based on Les Paul and Mary Ford and the creation of the electric guitar.

 

[bobdavcav]

Earlier there was talk about Hubbard sticking to local personalities, and that they rarely lay people off. In the last week, they released the PD of their country station in West Palm Beach, and today comes word that they're replacing their local morning show in St. Louis with hosts based at their Cincinnati station. So apparently things are tight right now at Hubbard:

WIL Imports Jesse & Anna For Mornings

Hubbard Country "B105" WUBE Cincinnati morning hosts Jesse Tack and Anna Marie will begin being heard on sister 92.3 WIL

radioinsight.com

Grover Collins Takes Over WIRK Programming As Bruce Logan Exits.

Hubbard Broadcasting “B-105” WUBE Cincinnati PD Grover Collins will add programming duties for co-owned “New Country 103.1” WIRK West Palm Beach, FL, as OM Bruce Logan exits the company. Logan

www.countryinsider.com

This kind of thing has also happened at Beasley stations around the country.

I've noticed the cuts at Hubbard over the last couple of weeks myself. It's still more of a gradual process than what comes out of iHeart, Audacy, or Beasley though. If these cuts were happening 10 years ago, I might bring them up on the radio show I do when we have a slow news week, but I feel like we've said all we have to say about major cuts across the industry.

 

[TheBigA]

It's still more of a gradual process than what comes out of iHeart, Audacy, or Beasley though.

Because it's a MUCH smaller company, and they also own TV stations. The others have no TV.

Get ready to report a lot of cuts at public radio if the government cuts funding. The cuts have already begun, but it's one station at a time.