In addition to the fact that the Block is trying to compete with 3 other urban stations that have been around for a long time (and stations such as WKTU that have lots of throwbacks) they may be having the same issue as the former Alt 92.3. A niche format with very picky listeners that like a few of the songs, and feel the others are awful.
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New York Metro Radio Ratings: June 2023
- Thread starter pjc1961
- Start date
It goes back to having a 700 song playlist. More doesn't equal better.
If you look at the Longley-Rice coverage map for WXBK, even at it's new transmitter location you can see how it's primarily a New Jersey signal that reaches parts of NYC but not all. Half of Brooklyn, and parts of The Bronx and Queens are in the yellow. And the map doesn't even show the high levels of multipath from the urban high-rise terrain, which makes FM radio sound unlistenable with a static-prone signal coming in sideways from the west.
This is a station that should have adopted a format with a more suburban appeal. Barry was correct in that Adult Hits could have worked well. So could a rock format, as we see WAXQ just scored the highest ratings in NYC for a rock format in decades, WPLJ was also seen as a suburban targeted format for years, although there is a lot of competition in the Hot AC format now. But hip hop is absolutely the wrong choice for this signal, which is basically trash in parts of NYC where hip hop should do best.
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This is a station that should have adopted a format with a more suburban appeal. Barry was correct in that Adult Hits could have worked well. So could a rock format, as we see WAXQ just scored the highest ratings in NYC for a rock format in decades, WPLJ was also seen as a suburban targeted format for years, although there is a lot of competition in the Hot AC format now. But hip hop is absolutely the wrong choice for this signal, which is basically trash in parts of NYC where hip hop should do best.
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There is an Urban station, a n Urban AC station, a crossover Hispanic/Black Churban and this latest entry which is sort of a Churban/ Urban gold station. The market is about 45% Hispanic and Black, and over half the Hispanics are English dominant so there are four stations for about a quarter of the market. In other words, underserved.
One of the Spanish stations was not well analyzed when it was bought, and was forever useless. So there were three. With about 26% of the market being Hispanic, and around 45% of them being Spanish dominant, that is three stations for about 2.5 million Spanish dominant people. Also slightly undeserved.
Remember, neither "Urban" nor "Hispanic" are formats. "Urban" has multiple variants, including straight Urban, Urban AC, Churban and gold based as well as ones not in New York like Black Gospel.
Hispanic is neither a race nor a culture. It is a "catch-all" for anyone from a Spanish speaking country or region or their descendants. So there are really more potential formats in Spanish than there are in English... but only a couple will work well in New York.
The market is only 41% non-Hispanic white. It is close to two-thirds ethnic, and that is not counting the significant percentage of immigrants from Russia, Persia, Eastern Europe and the Middle East who are also rather non-conforming in their tastes in entertainment.
There are members of ethnic groups and immigrants all over the market, so saying that this station should serve "white people" because of the signal ignores the fact that much of the population served well by it is ethnic or immigrant.
I lived in Essex County and it's hard for me to think of Newark, Hackensack, Patterson, and Jersey City as suburban.
They may be thinking about the morning show. Not much else. But people only talked about radio in the past (outside of teens in the 50's and 60's) when there was an outrageous or highly popular morning show or a stir-it-up sports talk show.
People stopped talking about music stations in the 70's because tastes splintered and it was likely an adult would be embarrassed by saying which station they listened to if their choice was considered un-cool to the other person.
The problem is that new media has enormous reach, but is highly fragmented and is not "point of purchase."
Today, the best opportunity with very good targeting by geozone is outdoor... boards, bus shelters, transit, subway.
Very good point. Today's "real" and less ethnic suburbs can be an hour or so on the train away from Midtown.
Barry said:
There were 4 Spanish language FM’s, till Univision sold 92.7.
Thanks for reminding us of 92.7 -- itself of a limited signal. While 94.7 and 92.7 have never been co-owned, wouldn't it have made sense for one company to buy them both and pair them together since the signals don't overlap as much as butt up against each other?
92.7 was intended to be a suburban signal. 94.7 -- although equally spaced along with the other big New York and north Jersey FM's -- has always had this deficiency. Maybe tacking an eastern "annex" onto it might have been the smart way to go.
There were 4 Spanish language FM’s, till Univision sold 92.7.
Thanks for reminding us of 92.7 -- itself of a limited signal. While 94.7 and 92.7 have never been co-owned, wouldn't it have made sense for one company to buy them both and pair them together since the signals don't overlap as much as butt up against each other?
92.7 was intended to be a suburban signal. 94.7 -- although equally spaced along with the other big New York and north Jersey FM's -- has always had this deficiency. Maybe tacking an eastern "annex" onto it might have been the smart way to go.
92.7 was bought by "finance folks" who saw a 55 dbu contour on a map and thought that the station covered all the way beyond the Nassau-Suffolk county line to the east and to at least Nerk (Hey, isn't that how they pronounce it there?) to the West. I tried very hard to explain about those big tall structures on Manhattan called "building" and about how inside anything with wall you had to have at least 65 dbu... but they bought it anyway.
KTU is usually more successful in New York than two of the three urban stations they compete against and WXBK can't seem to compete with WKTU at all. WKTU is sometimes one of the most successful stations in the market/in the top 10 but is never #1. I think KTU has been successful (at times) due to the dance niche format in the market which is why it stayed in NYC for so long.
KTU is not really a direct competitor to the urban stations. If it has a core, it is primarily Hispanic. The format sits in between a bunch of stations, from CHR to Churban to AC and Spanish language music ones.
The closest rhythmic competitor is WQHT which is more of an Hispanic core station than an Urban / Black core station.
In a recent duplication analysis, the greatest percentage of duplication was with WHTZ, followed by WLTW, WNEW, WCBS.FM, WQHT, WWPR, WSKQ and WBLS. It has been commented that KTU is the "second favorite station of everyone".
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MassMusicMan
Banned
Huh? They played 275 songs at least twice last week.
I won't count songs with one spin, because those might be mix show spikes.
NYRadioFan22
Banned
I'd love to see Alt rock/Modern rock to make a comeback someday
Not going to happen, for the demographic reasons stated by David previously, and for the dismal state of rock in general, a genre that seems to have run out of ideas -- not surprising after a run of more than 60 years!
A spin is a spin. If a song is played long enough to register, it's a spin regardless of the circumstance.
MassMusicMan
Banned
Even if I bite on that argument, that gets us to 570 titles last week...not 700.
You're looking at "this week," and we're only three days into this week. Last week was 670 titles.
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