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October 2025 PPM. If you build it they will listen.

I was wondering when we would start to see a drop in KZOK's ratings. Hot also doesn't look so hot, lowest share on the frequency since 1978. What confuses me about both Hot and Emma are that the share is really low but audience numbers are okay. Granted the only other market I look closely at is Portland, but the numbers in that market follow a pattern you would expect, with the talk stations that do well still having a lower overall audience and the music stations being higher but with overall audience trend following share. In Seattle, you have Jack, the two CHRs, Hot, and Emma all pulling a significantly larger audience than their share number would suggest.
 
1. Looking at the demo breakdown, not one country station in the top 6.
2. If the Seahawks continue their run, 710 may remain at or near the top into early 2026.
3. We on the verge of flipping to Christmas. How many will make the change?
 
DMK said:
1. Looking at the demo breakdown, not one country station in the top 6.
2. If the Seahawks continue their run, 710 may remain at or near the top into early 2026.
3. We on the verge of flipping to Christmas. How many will make the change?
Click to expand...
Hey DMK, right as you were posting question #3, I started a separate Xmas strand for your (and everybody else's) perusal.

I hear tell Country is a "summer" format. And we now have 3 powerful signals trying to carve up that share. Maybe we cannot support 3, at least in the winter.
 
The New Chico said:
Hey DMK, right as you were posting question #3, I started a separate Xmas strand for your (and everybody else's) perusal.

I hear tell Country is a "summer" format. And we now have 3 powerful signals trying to carve up that share. Maybe we cannot support 3, at least in the winter.
Click to expand...
Remember, we are seeing 6+ numbers in the public PPM releases. In 25-54 and particularly 35-54, country ranks much higher.
 
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A few notes:

1. It was fun being glued to my radio throughout the month of October for the Mariner’s incredible post season run. It’s obvious that I wasn’t alone. KIRO-AM is a great sports radio station outside of their live play-by-play coverage too.

2. 98.9 seems to have found its footing. While these numbers aren’t giving a the full story, it absolutely seems like they’re a real competitor of the wolf. That’s refreshing to see. They don’t need to do anything right now other than stay consistent and keep giving listeners reasons to choose 98.9.

3. No surprise in KZOK’s precipitous drop. Letting Sarah go was unfortunate, as I listened to the KZOK morning show for years. I’m not really sure where they go from here. As I’ve said before, iheart does a phenomenal job with KJEB. It feels very local, and it’s fun to listen to (but this isn’t too surprising, as iheart tends to do a great job with classic hits in general).

I think there’s a bit of a gap here. Classic hits of the 1980’s are, in general, consensus favorites that everyone can agree on. Classic rock (specifically) is becoming more fragmented, and I’m not really sure where it goes from here. As I mentioned in another thread, I think KISM has a better approach, with a more localized feel and a playlist that makes total sense for classic rock in the contemporary era. As for KZOK, it could go in a few different directions, and we’ll see what they ultimately decide to try with it.
 
bobdavcav said:
Hot also doesn't look so hot, lowest share on the frequency since 1978.
Click to expand...
Strictly speaking, it wasn't the same frequency, as the station (then KBRD with a beautiful music format) started out as a 950 watts from 490 ft above average terrain on 103.9. They moved to their current frequency (103.7) and boosted power in late 1979 or 1980. So in 1978 they really couldn't be received much outside of Pierce County.

So they have the lowest share going back to the entire time that they've been a Class C serving the entire Seattle/Tacoma market.
 
Keep in mind that the audience for KZOK is mostly men, who are also big fans of sports.

So the big rise for KIRO is likely drawing from KZOK. At least that's what we saw in Philadelphia during the same period.

Even KJR got a Mariners boost, and they don't even have the play by play.
 
By no means am I in any way a professional broadcast (anything).
But I do listen to radio often and Hot 103.7 KTHP and KNKX often. KNKX, being a jazz and NPR affiliate, offers a completely different listening experience. A more variety, personality from the hosts, and deeper music cuts. Curious to why they don't have a larger listening base. KUOW is just not my flavor for NPR and such more talk rarely plays music if any. But they're pulling 9's.....hmmm

Now for my opinion that doesn't amount to nothing more than the crap on the soles of my shoes, Hot 103.7 KTHP playlist absolutely sucks. (1)
That said, and this is just one listener’s humble opinion, Hot 103.7’s playlist absolutely sucks. (2) I can't say it any other way. It’s the same recycled tracks over and over, like they’re afraid to take a risk or surprise their audience. For a station with such potential and reach, it’s a real letdown.

Eric Powers being program director you know better. lol ... joking sort of.
 
gr229 said:
By no means am I in any way a professional broadcast (anything).
But I do listen to radio often and Hot 103.7 KTHP and KNKX often. KNKX, being a jazz and NPR affiliate, offers a completely different listening experience. A more variety, personality from the hosts, and deeper music cuts. Curious to why they don't have a larger listening base. KUOW is just not my flavor for NPR and such more talk rarely plays music if any. But they're pulling 9's.....hmmm

Now for my opinion that doesn't amount to nothing more than the crap on the soles of my shoes, Hot 103.7 KTHP playlist absolutely sucks. (1)
That said, and this is just one listener’s humble opinion, Hot 103.7’s playlist absolutely sucks. (2) I can't say it any other way. It’s the same recycled tracks over and over, like they’re afraid to take a risk or surprise their audience. For a station with such potential and reach, it’s a real letdown.

Eric Powers being program director you know better. lol ... joking sort of.
Click to expand...
As for 103.7: they’re the only game in town with a full market FM signal that features this type of programming. I’m sure there’s pressure to follow the path of least resistance to maintain their current audience, while not alienating anyone else. I thought that having KUBE out of the market would have given them a bit more latitude with what they play, though.

As for KNKX: I think there’s a pretty big divide in the flavor of NPR served on 88.5 as opposed to 94.9. KNKX is much more about straightforward news coverage (with most of their programming focusing on music content). On the other hand, 94.9 is an affiliate of NPR, but much of the content is intended to appeal to the left leaning audience in Seattle. I’m not sure I can classify KUOW as “talk radio,” but realistically, it’s the left-focused version of KIRO. Most of their core listeners are in Seattle (or close to it), while KIRO performs better in the suburbs where listeners tend to be more conservative.
 
KUOW by intention is news/talk because that is what the listeners and underwriters want. They don't want the limp music shows that NPR and PRX distribute, and I think their last local music programming was some swing music show buried on Saturday nights.

KNKX by dint of saving themselves from an acquisition by the UW a while back has made it their mission to use the classic public radio mixture of music and NPR news. They don't have the listenership that KUOW does because fewer people want to listen to jazz than want to listen to news.
 
TheBigA said:
I also think their signal, based in Tacoma, isn't as strong in the city as KUOW.
Click to expand...
Well, on paper, KNKX has a significantly better signal than KUOW. They’re on Tiger Mountain and cover the entire region. KUOW is on Capitol Hill and has a relatively poor signal in some parts of the market. In the city of Seattle, the difference between the two stations is negligible, but you’re bound to find many KUOW listeners due to the demographics, how people tend to vote, etc.

The key difference that I see is that KUOW knows that most of their listeners are likely to be in Seattle anyway. They run up the numbers there and don’t see value in trying reach listeners on the outskirts as much. From a technical standpoint, I believe KUOW could upgrade 94.9 and move it to either Cougar or Tiger (if they really wanted to), but they chose not to.
 
A friend and I were just talking about public radio yesterday, and of course Seattle came up. What I don't understand is why NPR doesn't demand market exclusivity for its products. In most of the market, you can hear both Morning Addition and All Things Considered on both 94.9 and 88.5. The sale of then KPLU would have eliminated that and put all jazz on 88.5, but listeners came together and funded the group that bought it to keep it as is. In many other markets, we're seeing music and news programming being split, and that's what we would have seen in Seattle as well. I think Seattle is a bit of a unique situation in that you have three different operators running the public stations while in most of the country there's one operator that runs everything.
 
bobdavcav said:
What I don't understand is why NPR doesn't demand market exclusivity for its products.
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Because they're membership organizations, not ad supported. The more stations that carry their programming, the more money they make.

Market exclusivity would cut half of their money from Seattle. Plus leave the listeners of one station without programming. They leave it up to the stations to create a presentation that makes one better than the other. That may be in the local breaks or the times the stations run the programs.

Remember the stations run NPR. They sit on it's board of directors. If they didn't like the current situation, they'd vote to change it.

 
bobdavcav said:
A friend and I were just talking about public radio yesterday, and of course Seattle came up. What I don't understand is why NPR doesn't demand market exclusivity for its products. In most of the market, you can hear both Morning Addition and All Things Considered on both 94.9 and 88.5. The sale of then KPLU would have eliminated that and put all jazz on 88.5, but listeners came together and funded the group that bought it to keep it as is. In many other markets, we're seeing music and news programming being split, and that's what we would have seen in Seattle as well. I think Seattle is a bit of a unique situation in that you have three different operators running the public stations while in most of the country there's one operator that runs everything.
Click to expand...
LA has two NPR affiliates that both air Morning Edition and ATC. KCRW and KPCC.
 
bobdavcav said:
A friend and I were just talking about public radio yesterday, and of course Seattle came up. What I don't understand is why NPR doesn't demand market exclusivity for its products. In most of the market, you can hear both Morning Addition and All Things Considered on both 94.9 and 88.5. The sale of then KPLU would have eliminated that and put all jazz on 88.5, but listeners came together and funded the group that bought it to keep it as is. In many other markets, we're seeing music and news programming being split, and that's what we would have seen in Seattle as well. I think Seattle is a bit of a unique situation in that you have three different operators running the public stations while in most of the country there's one operator that runs everything.
Click to expand...

While that is something that Congress surely wants (at one time, Washington D.C.'s classical station did carry some of the NPR news programming as well), there are still a few towns that have more than one NPR news station serving them. In most cases, there is a primary NPR outlet in the city and then a satellite of another NPR outlet from outside of the city. Richmond, VA, is a good example of this. There are still a few cities that have more than one primary NPR news station serving them. Seattle is one of them. Others include Detroit, MI (the city's own WDET and Ann Arbor's WUOM); San Francisco, CA (the very powerful KQED and the much less powerful but still relevant KALW); Los Angeles, CA (Santa Monica's KCRW and Pasadena's KPCC); Oklahoma City (the simulcast of KGOU/KROU and Stillwater's KOSU); Syracuse (WAER inside the city and the station out of Oswego); Atlanta, GA (WABE and the GPB affiliate on 88.5); and, the city, that as far as I know, has the most different NPR news outlets, Grand Rapids, MI with three (WGVU-FM, Allendale, the FM at 104.1, and WBLU-FM, which is mostly classical but does carry some NPR news programming).
 
ted chittenden said:
While that is something that Congress surely wants (at one time, Washington D.C.'s classical station did carry some of the NPR news programming as well),
Click to expand...
This is s first hearing this, are you saying Congress wants to mandate only one NPR affiliate in a market???

Ad far as I know Congress only wanted to defund CPB.
 
ted chittenden said:
While that is something that Congress surely wants
Click to expand...

Congress has nothing to say about it. NPR is a private company with no connection to congress.

All of these stations are independently owned. NPR doesn't force anyone to carry their programming. It all decided locally. The stations pay based on the amount of programming they carry.
 


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