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October 2023 Bay Area Radio PPM Ratings
- Thread starter HenryOchs
- Start date
Covering the survey period from Thu. 9/14/2023 thru Wed. 10/11/2023, age 6+ overall alternate views:
radioinsight.com
OR https://www.urbaninsite.com/wp-content/uploads/2023/10/SAN-FRANCISCO-1.htm
Top 5+ demo rankings analysis from Research Director Inc.:
researchdirectorinc.com
25-54: 1. KOIT 2. KMVQ 3. KISQ 4T. KMEL 4T. KRZZ 6. KQED
18-34: 1. KOIT 2. KMEL 3. KMVQ 4T. KITS 4T. KISQ (up from #7) 6. KQED 8T. KYLD (down from #3) 8T. KRZZ
18-49: 1. KOIT 2. KMVQ 3T. KMEL 3T. KITS (up from #7) 6. KISQ 8. KQED (down from #5T) 9. KYLD (down from #5T)
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As mentioned by Henry above, San Jose was unavailable due to Nielsen Audio technical difficulties.
Please stand by
for the report to be reissued on Tue. 10/31/2023 at:
radioinsight.com
OR Radio Industry News, Radio Show Prep, Radio Promotions, Radio Station Data, Podcast News
San Francisco
Nielsen Audio PPM Monthly Ratings San Francisco (Market #6) Population: 6,600,600 Black: 430,500 – Hispanic: 1,605,200 Average Quarter Hour Share for Persons 6+, Mon-Sun 6AM-Mid All ratings are Copyright © 2005-2024 The Nielsen Company. All rights reserved. Nielsen radio audience estimates and...
radioinsight.com
Top 5+ demo rankings analysis from Research Director Inc.:
Radio Ratings Roundup, October 2023, Part I | Research Director, Inc.
Welcome back for more ratings tomfoolery. Or is it folderol? Perhaps brouhaha. The Ratings Experts from RESEARCH DIRECTOR, INC. – along with our co
25-54: 1. KOIT 2. KMVQ 3. KISQ 4T. KMEL 4T. KRZZ 6. KQED
18-34: 1. KOIT 2. KMEL 3. KMVQ 4T. KITS 4T. KISQ (up from #7) 6. KQED 8T. KYLD (down from #3) 8T. KRZZ
18-49: 1. KOIT 2. KMVQ 3T. KMEL 3T. KITS (up from #7) 6. KISQ 8. KQED (down from #5T) 9. KYLD (down from #5T)
****** ****** ******
As mentioned by Henry above, San Jose was unavailable due to Nielsen Audio technical difficulties.
Please stand by
for the report to be reissued on Tue. 10/31/2023 at:
San Jose
Nielsen Audio PPM Monthly Ratings San Jose (Market #39) Population: 1,648,900 Black: 47,200 – Hispanic: 403,500 Average Quarter Hour Share for Persons 6+, Mon-Sun 6AM-Mid All ratings are Copyright © 2005-2024 The Nielsen Company. All rights reserved. Nielsen radio audience estimates and data are...
radioinsight.com
To me what's interesting is how similar the currents playlist is to KROQ, and yet it's getting much better results at KITS.
Someone else asked that question on the L.A. board, and here's my answer:
Very different situations. Beyond the ethnic makeup of the market being more receptive to that format (in the Bay Area, the largest single group is non-Hispanic white at 39.2%---in the L.A. metro, that number is 28.7%) , Live 105 is being positioned as a comeback of an old friend. KROQ's glory days are further back and fewer people (in an attractive demo) remember.
Conversely, KITS has NO morning show and no local talent.
Adding a not-quantifiable factor - Los Angeles is not San Francisco. Don't let the predominance of the technology industry steer you: San Francisco is more parochial in nature and hangs on to cultural benchmarks longer. Los Angeles seems somewhat more dynamic in this regard.
Maybe all these things are related. Maybe the nature of the SFBA attracts and keeps more substantive residents than L.A. Maybe those people spend their time working hard instead of commuting hard, and prefer to hear music rather than babbling. Maybe trendiness is lower down on their priorities list than in the Southland. Obviously not every person conforms to this broad brush, but in general this has been my observation.
Look at which stations are at the top of the ratings chart. In music, it's #1 KOIT (light rock), #4 KMVQ (CHR), #5 KISQ ("The Breeze" soft rock), and #6 KITS, none of which lean heavily on personalities and blather. But there's also #2 all-news KCBS, and #3 KQED, NPR news/information. You don't see a sports talk station until #11, or a politics talker till #21.
What a lesser number of people note is that LA has gone through an immense outward migration of middle income educated non-Hispanic whites in the last several decades. Texas, Nashville, Atlanta, Florida, Nevada, Arizona are some of the primary destinations, but not the only ones.
The end result is an increasing percentage of both Asians and Hispanics, no growth among Blacks and a poorly documented expansion of people from the Middle East, Iran, Armenia and the former Soviet block.
The biggest effect of this is a huge set of listeners who do not know the musical history of LA or LA radio and may like other kinds of songs and not even know of many past hits from LA Radio.
More of this will happen. in my case,, I just contacted my Realtor about selling before it is too late. The "straw that broke the camel's back" is the legislation that will charge higher income residents more for the kwh of electricity. I am in an area with about 120 days a year over 100° and many over 120°. I can't "conserve" electricity and I calculate my bill at nearly $2000 a month, average, with this new absurdity.
I'm limited to some extent as to destinations as a market that is not at least 25% Hispanic will not be my choice. So we are, for the first time considering Monterrey, Mexico or San José, Costa Rica or Mendoza, Argentina.
I mention these items, despite them seeming to be remotely related to radio because changes in market cultures will affect radio programming, entertainment options. Historically successful formats and fun DJs may not work at all in the new environment in markets that are now mostly a mix of people from other states and countries and cultures.
For format research, I'm concerned as to whether stations are thinking beyond age and gender and, maybe, the "big three" race/ethnicity groups of (non-Hispanic)white, Hispanic and Black. To start, perceptual and music research should measure things like time in the metro, prior residential zone, distance (in generations) between the family's arrival in the USA and today, gender identity and education of both respondents and their parents.
We have "a bunch" of participants on this board of different national heritage as well as interesting rural vs. urban contrasts, religious affiliations, gender identities and education levels. I'd love to hear some perspectives
It's not my place, or my desire, to dissuade you from making the kind of move you've described, David, but I have to question your logic in this. Not that I'm in favor of the electric rates going up even more than they have in recent years. (I'm in PG&E-land, so I'm not unsympathetic.) But if your electric bill doubled -- i.e., if you're currently paying an average of $1K a month and this legislation would increase you to (using your own estimate) $2K, that's $12K a year. You're a man in your mid-70's, as I recall. After your cost of scouting locations, buying a replacement house, selling your current one, moving your possessions to a distant country and re-establishing your (and your wife's) life, what's that going to cost you? How long is it going to take to amortize that change in annual electric rate increases? Probably way longer than a reasonable estimate of your remaining lifespan. You could tell us you don't want to be around if the orange-utan returns to the White House and I'd sympathize completely, but for an electricity rate increase? Seems like it would be way more cost-efficient to load up on all the solar panels your roof can support.
I'll try to write this in a way that doesn't clutter up the discussion with my own personal trivia, but since I've just gone through a move, I may be able to add a useful perspective.
After a quarter-century in the Bay Area, we decided this was the year to leave. We wanted a reasonably mild climate and wanted to be in a "blue" state. We needed to be in a state that would respect same-sex marriage. We wanted to be in a walkable neighborhood. We wanted to get away from wildfire dangers, deliberate electrical blackouts to try to prevent fires (because PG&E underinvests in its infrastructure), far-far-left politics, and other factors. These and other factors limited us to Colorado and New Mexico. I had some background with New Mexico and there are many things about it that I love. But it's nearly impossible to find a walkable neighborhood in any city in the state; people there still drive everywhere, even in Santa Fe. But we strongly considered a house in Santa Fe that met most of our criteria. But we had not been to Colorado yet, and so we made one more trip, to Denver. There we found a house that met most of our criteria (though fewer than the Santa Fe house) and a truly walkable neighborhood. And that's how we ended up here. Neither of us had any history with Colorado until now. The closest I've lived to Denver would probably be Kansas City - and a lot of Denver reminds me of the better aspects of KC.
Culturally, it's a little slower pace but not so slow as to be boring. The sports fanaticism is something I'm having to get used to. The airport sprawls and its setup for parking is confusing, but has lots of connections to places we would want to go. It's also much easier for me to maintain my ties to Iowa and Missouri from here. Mass transit is governed by the Regional Transit District, a/k/a RTD, a/k/a "Reason to Drive". That's one thing that really needs to improve in the Denver metro. And I miss having a radio station that's good for local news. KOA does an incredibly poor job with news, as I've mentioned before, and something about Colorado Public Radio just doesn't resonate with me. Generally in Denver, there's way too much rabid right-wing radio that's out of step with what Colorado has become, but the operators of those stations seem to be totally bereft of ideas and aren't adapting to changed realities. The local daily newspaper has been famously trashed by one of those hedge-fund outfits. So it's going to be an effort to learn about the community, its issues, and its politics. But we have so much so close to us, most people here don't have a transactional attitude as is often found in Oakland or even San Francisco, most public services are efficient and cost-effective, and we even got through our first snowfall this weekend (8 inches!) in fine shape and, two days later, most of the snow is gone already. It's one of the best markets in the country for AAA radio with three such stations. The house we have here is of better quality than our Oakland house, with price levels that are about the same. Actually, a lot of Bay Area housing is lousy: poorly insulated, shortcuts taken in construction, etc. It's a lot better in Denver. We are enjoying our life here.
It was a hard decision to leave the Bay Area, no doubt about it, but we now realized that we put up with a lot to live in the Bay Area. We built good careers there, but we're both now retired and it was time to make a change.
For what it's worth - I'll just conclude by saying you have to decide what's important to you and have a clear idea of what you're looking for.
And keeping this about radio, the issue here is how the "mindset" of the population is changing in many places. people who can are moving to and from areas that match their perspectives. So if, in a totally theoretical example, those who like AAA are leaving areas with certain characteristics and going to others match their tastes and outlook, then the percentage of fans of each format may vary even if ethnic and age breaks are seemingly the same.
One factor that seems to be escape notice when it comes to California's IOUs (investor-owned utilities) is the role of the California Public Utilities Commission. Disclaimer to start: I used to work for PG&E, though in IT and most of my interactions were with the gas line of business, which actually was fairly well run after the post-San Bruno housecleaning. The electric line of business - not so much. But the CPUC doesn't help matters. It listens too much to a set of advocacy groups, known as "intervenors". The main one is TURN - The Utility Reform Network - whose professed goal is to keep rates down. In this it has failed utterly. TURN and CPUC staff focus too much on trivia and require reams of paperwork that serve no purpose. CPUC commissioners are political appointees, coming out of a union-dominated political machine - and the public employee unions leverage union solidarity with IBEW and the other unions at PG&E - and PG&E has very good relations with its unions, which use their political muscle in alignment with PG&E's objectives. The result is that a lot of shadowboxing happens, and a lot of performative huffing and puffing but, in the end, the IOUs get most of what they want from CPUC commissioners who want to stay on the good side of all the unions. At least at PG&E, the decision-makers know this and often give sloppy performance a pass. The internal politics can also get very nasty there. The bankruptcy a few years enforced some discipline regarding spending, but I'd be willing to bet that there's been some reversion to old habits since the exit from bankruptcy. A strong regulator is needed to keep some of these tendencies in check, but a row of unwatered plants would do a better job than CPUC staff and commissioners when it comes to representing ratepayers' interests.
I know I've steered this way, way off-topic but since electric rates were mentioned....
Very true, and I think we've been a part of that. It seems like these trends have been accelerating over the last 10-15 years, too.
KROQ also has KYSR to compete against. Plus, KITS is still in a "honeymoon" phase. I will be interested to see where it settles in 12 months from now.
What's really surprising is how well it's doing with younger demos.
Which demos? 18-35.
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