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NYC Metro Radio Ratings: August 2022

101tm said:
My personal observation is that Cumulus will eventually go back to their roots and be primarily a small/mid market operator
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Too late for that. They are what they are. They're building a podcasting business because anyone can do it and make money. That's the future for them. With radio stations airing podcasts. But they know radio is declining. They just don't have the deep pockets to do much about it.
 
Theater of My Mind said:
Broadcasters are going to wish they invested more time and effort into evolving all-news into a format that has remained attractive to younger listeners than just letting it run its course and then having to try to start over from scratch when faced with this looming crisis.
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Isn’t this possibly NPR. The last numbers I saw in Philly had a somewhat younger audience listening to NPR (WHYY) to all news KYW.
 
Larry said:
Isn’t this possibly NPR. The last numbers I saw in Philly had a somewhat younger audience listening to NPR (WHYY) to all news KYW.
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NPR has its own style, attracts an informed, intelligent audience, and yes they do very well. But this is more about the commercial operators.

I'm not familiar with KYW's presentation but I once heard someone describe 1010 WINS "Top 40 News". It makes sense, they run the biggest news hits in a tight rotation that repeats frequently.

When you look at it like that, there's no reason why the audience has to age out. When people reach their 40s they start paying more attention to news, that's how it's always been. So keep up with the interests of that age group. Drop some of the older skewing news hits out of rotation and add some with more TMZ & Buzzfeed appeal. Mix in some music stories about artists who are not old. A good ND/programmer can make smart choices like that without compromising the more serious stuff. And be ready to simulcast it on FM.

People still listen to FM for now, but virtually no one younger than my grandfather ever pushes the AM button any more so there's more of an advantage to being on FM than just the improved fidelity.
 
Theater of My Mind said:
Drop some of the older skewing news hits out of rotation and add some with more TMZ & Buzzfeed appeal. Mix in some music stories about artists who are not old.
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Sounds like a good way to piss off your core audience.

The other problem with both WCBS and WINS is that a lot of the air staff is over 50. They've recently seen a bunch of over-65s retire. But it's hard to attract a younger audience with an air staff that's over 50. Yes I know Elvis Duran is over 50, but he sounds young and keeps up with younger interests.
 
Theater of My Mind said:
There are two all news stations in NYC both owned by the same company, essentially targeting the same audience. I mean, if one tweaks its target a bit it's not like the pissed off listeners have nowhere else to turn.
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Yet when WCBS pre-empts news for Mets, its core audience is pissed, and they post here. There was a similar series of complaining posts when they started running infomercials on the weekends. "Hey, just switch to WINS." Older people don't adapt well to change.

There are loads of equally negative posts when 70 year old talent retire. Right now there's a thread on the dentist's board about Richard Neer getting his time cut back on WFAN. Neer is 73.

But I agree that it makes no sense to me to have two stations doing basically the same thing, as though they're owned by different companies. The only defense I have for that is they each bill extremely well.
 
Gregg. said:
Eventually WINS and WCBS will have to both move to FM. You can't move one without the other. The one left exclusively on the AM dial would be doomed.

And it would make no sense for Audacy to doom two of its top billing stations in the chain, in order to keep WNYL and WXBK chugging along at the bottom of the ratings and revenues. I wish AM radio were still viable. But increasingly it's not.

A few AM-only stations are hanging on, enjoying high revenues and getting decent ratings. Someone mentioned WBZ, one of Boston's highest billing stations. Same with KFI Los Angeles and a few others. But man, that list is getting smaller. And the clock keeps ticking.

WINS and WCBS don't get the ratings they once did. Both were once solidly top 5 in the NYC ratings. But thanks to spoken word formats' ability to run more spots each hour than music stations, their billing is still among the tops in the Audacy chain, ahead of even well-rated FM stations like WNEW-FM and WCBS-FM. And CERTAINLY ahead of WNYL and WXBK.

So in the not-too-distant future, Audacy will have to do in NYC what it's done in LA, Chicago, SF and Philly. Give its all-news stations an FM simulcast.
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92.3 is the only station Audacy has available to do that
 
AceBiscuits said:
I didn't miss your point at all. In fact, this is the third time I have made some kind of statement to this point on this exact thread.

That decision is not nearly as easy as you think. It is way too early to call The Block weak, and Alt may not be netting big ratings but it bills well. Eliminating one or both of those is a loss for Audacy, especially when said AM news stations are skewing old, and they will lose the billing of whatever music format is eliminated.

Audacy does not need to put WINS or WCBS-AM on an FM signal. They could, but they don't need to. It doesn't make the format any more accessible, and isn't going to make ratings for those signals go up.

Moving either station is the equivalent to rearranging the deck chairs on the Titanic. It's not going to stop the all-news format from sinking in relevance.
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There is really nowhere to put both stations on FM
 
RadioGuy1864 said:
When that time comes, maybe 10 years from now, just one all news station survives, and Audacy sells the AM's or donates the AM's for a tax deduction.
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Business does not work the same way individuals do on taxes. Everything a business spends money for is a "tax deduction" or what is actually called a "business expense". The only exception is meals, deductible at half the cost.

While you and I can't deduct our utility bills or cable TV or Internet or lawn maintenance or postage stamps or the rent or mortgage, businesses can and do. So when a business donates a property such as a building or a radio station or an older car to a charity, whatever the remaining undepreciated book value of the item is becomes just another cost of doing business.

By the time a station becomes worthless, it has already been adjusted in value to nearly nothing via "impairment charges" which change the book value of the property.
 
RadioGuy1864 said:
When that time comes, maybe 10 years from now, just one all news station survives on FM and Audacy sells the AM's or donates the AM's for a tax deduction.
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There may be nobody left in 10 years who wants a donated AM. EMF only buys FMs, and the other religious broadcasters as well as the leased-time ethnic station operators will surely follow suit. AM is on its way to being a ghost band. Some broadcasters will surely go out of business, and every city will have much less radio, but that's the way things go as technology and public preferences change.
 
CTListener said:
There may be nobody left in 10 years who wants a donated AM. EMF only buys FMs, and the other religious broadcasters as well as the leased-time ethnic station operators will surely follow suit. AM is on its way to being a ghost band. Some broadcasters will surely go out of business, and every city will have much less radio, but that's the way things go as technology and public preferences change.
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Yep. Like short-wave today where only a few national broadcasters maintain a presence and several religious groups or brokered stations still survive.
 
I
DavidEduardo said:
Yep. Like short-wave today where only a few national broadcasters maintain a presence and several religious groups or brokered stations still survive.
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CTListener said:
There may be nobody left in 10 years who wants a donated AM. EMF only buys FMs, and the other religious broadcasters as well as the leased-time ethnic station operators will surely follow suit. AM is on its way to being a ghost band. Some broadcasters will surely go out of business, and every city will have much less radio, but that's the way things go as technology and public preferences change.
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I think you may be seriously undervaluing how fast, or slow, things change. I recall a colleague of mine telling me ABC CBS and NBC TV would not exist in 10 years, and this was in 1985. Those networks are still here. Are they what they were in 1985? Obviously not. But I would bet my last dollar some organization would welcome getting a donation of 1010 or 880 AM in NYC ten years from today.
 
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