What format is Mega 97.9? Wouldn't it make sense to have a Spanish Language CHR for the youth?
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NYC Metro Radio Ratings - Holiday 2022
- Thread starter pjc1961
- Start date
Im happy cause i only like top40 & country stations.
In my neighborhood in Flushing. Queens, there is a bagel bakery where the owner listens to 1010 WINS all the time. I asked her if she would prefer to listen to music. She replied, "I like the news". Likewise, there is a Subway sandwich shop in the neighborhood that always plays WINS. To each his own. To me, the proverbial 22 minutes is enough.
Amy. BigA doesn’t hate you. That is reserved only for me. 🤪 He just tells it the way it is. Nothing personal. Welcome aboard. My guess is your not a fan or in the target demographic for WINS-FM, right? Radio is a thin line profit business and its sadly all thinning out more every year, so things have to change. This change, I believe, will actually pay off and will turn out to be a good decision for the company. Off the subject a bit, WCBS-FM’s holiday number and Scott being gone should make for some interesting conversation in the next 90 days.
I may be wrong, but most of the youth they would target are bilingual or do not speak the language, and may not prefer a strictly Spanish-language presentation.
None of their FMs are going to be sacrificed for The Block to get higher ratings. That is just unfathomable.
The million dollar question is what would they flip The Block to? They are not going back to country or alt, and those are the only real format holes. We've been down this road too many times. The status quo is their best bet.
They'll probably flip it to WCBS 880 simulcast at some point. Then New York would be down to 5 English-language commercial FM music stations that aren't targeting minorities, religion or special interests.
The "youth" that listens to Spanish language radio is mostly composed of first generation immigrants who arrived here in their late teens or as young adults. Those who grew up here tend to have acquired a taste for the same stations that other young people listen to, generally Hot 97.
However, the strength of raggaetĂłn has made a considerable percentage of bilingual Hispanic youth listen to Spanish language radio. The crossover of artists like Bad Bunny will only strengthen this.
Non-Hispanic whites are a minority in the New York Metro Survey area, representing today less than 42% of the population. In 18-49, it is even less.
So we have 58% of the market made up of Asians, Blacks and Hispanics.
Of course, you are ignoring the fact that stations like Hot target all those groups as well as non-Hispanic whites and the Nielsen data shows them to be about the broadest appeal station in the market.
Anyway, with that said there would be no reason to flip a limited signal to simulcast WCBS (AM) as they need full market coverage to match the AM.
X96.3 has virtually the same programming as Mega 97.9, yet always lags behind them in ratings. Would it make sense for the former to switch to a more youth oriented format? It could play more reggaeton, as well as English language pop songs. Some hip-hop could be included. Salsa could be played far less frequently, if at all. The personalities could switch between Spanish and English, as many Hispanic people do.
Right now, Dominicans are vastly oversampled in the PPM survey, and 18-34 Spanish dominants are considerably undersampled. So a youth format is not an option while the ratings work against it.
As I often say, this becomes more of a music problem than a radio problem. From the country music perspective there are really only two ways to handle this: Either accept the fact that country will be a 2 share format, and that its target audience live in zip codes outside of core city areas, or change the sound of the music in order to appeal to those growing minorities. Some will say the music HAS in fact changed, and is hurt by negative stereotypes, or changing the music will kill the integrity of the genre. The bigger problem is that the country format, as it's done now, is a national unified format that is built around stations drawing from the same bank of music regardless of market demographics. If a New York station played different music in order to appeal to its unique demographic situation, it wouldn't contribute to the national chart or move the meters in a useful or tangible way for artists and labels.
A few years ago, when 94.7 was Nash FM, owned by Cumulus, they experimented with adding in a few soft pop tunes. As I recall, an example was "Daughters" by John Mayer. That may have been an attempt to broaden the audience for Country in New York.
The reaction from listeners on social media was universally negative, and the idea was scrapped after a few weeks.
The reaction from listeners on social media was universally negative, and the idea was scrapped after a few weeks.
If you check back to the playlists for WHN, they played a lot of acoustic pop music.
Billie Eilish is talented? She whispers over a monotonous beat. What am I missing here?
94.7 would cover the market well enough in combination with the 50kw AM simulcast to give it full market coverage. It's the only remaining FM music station in the market that Audacy could consider sacrificing if they want to follow the same strategy as they did with WINS. They're not going to give up CBS-FM or WNEW. Not that I'm rooting for them to kill yet another FM music outlet but The Block is doing pretty poorly and its format is pretty redundant.
WCBS 880 is considered the suburban news station anyway, and 94.7's signal covers much of that territory pretty well. And the AM signal booms east better than it does west, not a terrible combo considering the options.
Any post on here towards you is not to be taken personally. In addition, a comment or critique on what you post is not meant to be personal.
Yet as David (and others) has/have said on here numerous times, The Block is actually doing quite well in core demos, regardless of 6+ and 12+ (and I believe getting very close to Hot cume-wise), and billing has improved compared to country.
Answer: Taste.
In Spanish there is a saying, "para los gustos se hicieron los colores" which means "for different tastes there are different colors."
What you don't like I may love. And what we both love may be dreadful for our SO.
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