November 2013 PPM's for Philadelphia

[hangman]

It would seem that Philly is a Sports/Talk market rather than a News/Talk market. If you combine the shares of WIP-AM/FM and WPEN you get a 9.2 share. If you combine the shares of WHYY-FM, WPHT, and WNTP [which didn't even show up in the ratings] you get a 3.7 share, with WHYY-FM taking the bigger piece of that pie. WPHT's share is even smaller than Classical Music/Jazz WRTI's share. So more people listen to Classical Music and Jazz in Philly than News/Talk on WPHT. I think that says it all.

Political right wing talk is NOT a popular format in the Philly market. That doesn't mean there are not any conservatives in the Philly market, but apparently they listen to rim shot stations that air the bloviators from the right or they work in jobs where the radio isn't available or an option, etc. Maybe they're tired of hearing the same ole same ole day in and day out like a broken record and even though they agree with Rush/Beck/Hannity/Morris/ Giordano, etc, have decided that Sports/Talk is more interesting [Philly is nothing IF not a serious sports town - a choice of discussing the Eagles/ Flyers/Sixers/Phillies or Obama, Biden, and Hillary..........not a difficult choice in my opinion]. Bottom line is they definitely are not listening to either of the two Philly right wing talk stations, be they live and local or national from the bird.

It seems the local news station KYW is also Sports Crazy, tonight driving in Center City there was plenty of police activity, they had Market street blocked off from 8th to 18th traffic snarled everywhere. Sirens blasting, people running, so I was caught in traffic, I tuned to 1060 to hear what was the problem, guess what; they were taking about the Eagles for over 3 minutes then into more sports, nothing about the problem. Also, when in tied up traffic and backup, I tune to KYW, but they are always talking about Sports, even when there is serious weather and safety problems, you tune them in and they are talking Sports so Philly must be Sports insane, when you cannot get up to the minute reports outside of Sports. Again how much can one take.

 

[FredLeonard]

It's not "quite" that bad. It sounds like you missed the traffic report and hit sports on the quarter hour. Get yourself a GPS-enabled device and get immediate traffic customized for your route and location. Traffic on the radio is obsolete. Obsolete as technology and by the time you hear it (every 10 minutes) usually obsolete information.

 

[radiophiler]

I agree that I've become increasingly disappointed in radio (for me, KYW) traffic reports compared with looking at traffic online before I leave. Google Maps' traffic flow with its red, yellow and green stripes along roads seems lots more accurate than radio traffic reports these days, with one possible exception: crashes. Radio still seems to get those first. But as for traffic speed/flow: online is definitely better.
This information isn't hard to come by. Why doesn't a radio/TV traffic service partner with Google or another such provider?

 

[aindik]

They have a national sports network. They want to be able to say that it clears full-time in a Top 10 market, and it lets them fill the station's entire schedule without any cash flowing out of the company.

Huh? That network is already being cleared on 610.

 

[FredLeonard]

Why doesn't a radio/TV traffic service partner with Google or another such provider?

They use NavTeq. That's also who produces the maps on TV traffic reports and they also operate (or coordinate) many of the traffic cams and speed sensors - for traffic clients and government agencies.