Phase Two 12+

[Element9]

The second phase of the Fall book showed up on Radio & Records and there's WBEN, WYRK and WGRF sitting atop the pack. Any surprises? Looks like the October 12-13 snow storm re-introduced WBEN to thousands of listeners and propel the station to a smashing Fall book. Money can't buy that kind of promotion!

Not a great trend for WJYE, WBLK and WHTT. Looks like CHWO is picking up more listeners. Wonder if Regent will restore the Standards format to WECK. Did anybody ever think the mighty KB, with 50 thousand majestic Watts, would get beat by WXRL and strain to get a better rating than WLVL?

Very sad.

-9-

 

[SirRoxalot]

Ups and Downs

I find it odd that WBEN is the only station that went up by a significant number. We're talking shares, not rating points, so the numbers ought to add up to 100 - minus the "below the line" stations.

If these trends hold, Christmas music isn't helping WJYE or Star. Lack of Christmas music isn't helping or hurting WHTT in their 3-way race.

It all seems odd. Very odd.

 

[ThePickleReport]

I went and dug out one of my old M-Street books to look at WECK's numbers. The four books in 1995 were 5.2-6.5-4.9-5.9. Wow! Times sure have changed.

The Lake seems to have hit the wall. I COULD support that station if they would also play new music that would work with that format, but alas.............

 

[NeedsMoreCowbell]

Guys, this trend barely takes into account the effect of Christmas music. Both JYE and Star started on November 16th, and this can only loosely be defined as a November trend, based on Arbitron methodology. More like a half October/Half November rating, and unweighted to boot. Look for big jumps on both stations in December, as always, but TSS seems to have the early edge.

You also can't draw many conclusions with the 12+ numbers, since the 25-54 picture is considerably different:

1. YRK
2. GRF
3. BEN
4. BLK
5. TSS
6. JYE
7. KSE
8. HTT

Can't officially quote "real" numbers here, but there are big drops for Joy, Kiss, and HTT, big gains for Star and YRK. Should be interesting to see the final Book!

NMC

 

[Radknowski]

True that. The Fall book ended December 13th, which means the last month commenced November 16th, which means the full impact of Christmas music won't be known until the complete book is released in January. Reliable sources have told me that WBEN absolutely scorched the market, Persons 25-54, in all dayparts. I'd concur with other posts that suggested the October snow storm and subsequent power outage drove listeners to WBEN, generating immense numbers in the first month. The November elections and the residue of Ralph Phillips were likely to have driven the second month. Apparently, WJYE and WHTT are not getting traction with their AC formats while WTSS is pulling ahead of the pack. If memory serves correct, WTSS has a strong Fall book last year. Good point about weighting, NMC. Equally interesting will be the distribution and in-tab counts. Although Arbitron pooh-poohs the notion of hot zip codes, stations have them and benefit from areas that for whatever reason, tend to gravitate toward listening to a particular radio station.For example, WJYE continuously showing up strong in Northtown zip codes, especially Amherst and East Amherst. Yes, January will be very interesting indeed.[/MR]

 

[Debaser]

So where are all the WBEN-haters? Nobody wants to spin the book into one of those statements that the numbers make no difference since all of their listeners are so old?

Who's laughing all the way to the bank?

 

[Mike Sheridan]

I think this is why the big 3 Buffalo AM's (WGR-WBEN-KB) were able to hold on so long in the face of FM...Information during bad weather. This is not to imply they were not great stations, they were. What do you say folks?

 

[Steven21]

I think this is why the big 3 Buffalo AM's (WGR-WBEN-KB) were able to hold on so long in the face of FM...Information during bad weather. This is not to imply they were not great stations, they were. What do you say folks?

Many bad weather cities have AM stations that get help from listener's desire to get info, but bad weather doesn't usually sustain a whole book. Even the October storm and it's aftermath lasted not much more than 2 weeks. Yes, that is a nice chunk of time during a book, but that's an extreme scenario. Most bad weather situations last about a day--and even in WNY are so frequent that they prompt constant tuning in.

A lot of factors, especially personality, drive AM stations---just as music genre popularity impacts FMs. The one thing many successful AMs have, is that they are NOT one-trick ponies when it comes to WHY listeners go there.