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Philadelphia Arbitron Radio Ratings: December 2012

So you've seen data that suggests an audience comprised primarily of 55+ caucasians and still predominantly AM is poised for growth and strength when compared against the demographics of the nation as a whole?

Where is conservative talk's audience growth going to come from in the next decade?
 
Demographics of talk radio, see this link: http://stateofthemedia.org/2012/audio-how-far-will-digital-go/audio-by-the-numbers/
Scroll about 3/4 of the way down and you will find this:
57% of talk radio audience is 55+.
Only 39% is 25-54.

I'll admit: Conservative talk, in its current form, isn't something I want to listen to. Even though I differed with him on issues, I enjoyed listening to Rush in the '90s. He had some good comic bits on at the time.
I'm also approaching 55 years old in a few years. I certainly hope radio continues to program things I want to listen to when I'm "no longer in the key demographic" (25-54).

But, talk radio skews old. Putting conservative talk on FM has had mixed results, at best, as far as lowering those demos.

By comparison, sports talk and all-news on FM have done much better in the 25-54 demo.

I suppose even if conservative talk doesn't make it on FM, there are shows on both the Internet and Sirius/XM for those who want that.
 
radiophiler said:
Demographics of talk radio, see this link: http://stateofthemedia.org/2012/audio-how-far-will-digital-go/audio-by-the-numbers/
Scroll about 3/4 of the way down and you will find this:
57% of talk radio audience is 55+.
Only 39% is 25-54.

I'll admit: Conservative talk, in its current form, isn't something I want to listen to. Even though I differed with him on issues, I enjoyed listening to Rush in the '90s. He had some good comic bits on at the time.
I'm also approaching 55 years old in a few years. I certainly hope radio continues to program things I want to listen to when I'm "no longer in the key demographic" (25-54).

But, talk radio skews old. Putting conservative talk on FM has had mixed results, at best, as far as lowering those demos.

By comparison, sports talk and all-news on FM have done much better in the 25-54 demo.

I suppose even if conservative talk doesn't make it on FM, there are shows on both the Internet and Sirius/XM for those who want that.
Click to expand...

Conservative talk on FM is doing better than it did on AM in Philadelphia, at least so far. IOW, when was the last time WPHT had a 2.7 in December?

All News on FM is doing gangbusters in DC, but that's a special case because of the way AM signals in DC are. Where else has it done well?
 
In Chicago and San Francisco where CBS put a simulcast of their existing AM all-news stations onto FM. In Seattle where KOMO is also now simulcast on FM.

Granted, there are few all-newsers in the U.S., period. It's difficult to do outside of the largest markets.

And the success of all-news on FM has been limited to existing stations moving to that band. We know what happened to Merlin in NYC and Chicago. Jury is still out on new FM all-news stations in Washington DC (run by CBS), Atlanta (run by Cumulus) and Houston (run by Radio One).

The 2.7 on IQ in December is 12+. We don't know how the station did in the 25-54 demo because Arbitron doesn't make those numbers available to the general public. According to a look at demographics recently on the All Access site, we know it's not top 5 in 18-34, 18-49 or 25-54.

I worked at an AM news-talk station in the 90s. Our demos were old then. Despite regularly being top 10 in the 12+ ratings, we couldn't crack the top 10 in 25-54. The majority of our listeners were 55 and older. If anything, the audience has become older since then.

I understand people who like what's on IQ want the station to succeed. It's going to be a lot more difficult than starting a new music or sports station. If a 2.7 on FM in 12+ ratings was good enough in Philly, the rock format would still be on 94.1.
 
The rankings for spoken word format in Philly were:

#2 KYW -all news

#12 WIP-FM - Philly sports/sports talk

#13 WHYY-FM - NPR news/info/talk/entertainment

#16 WWIQ - conservative talk (Rush/Hannity/Beck)

#18 WPEN-FM - Philly sports/ sports talk

#21 WPHT - political talk - live and local

#26 WIP-AM CBS Sports Radio

#32 WPEN-AM final days of simulcasting 97.5, now WKDN Family Radio

Not listed WNTP 990 Salem Talk Radio.

A lot of choices for spoken word programming. Interesting that WIP-FM and WHYY-FM are about 0.3 difference. WWIQ seems to be doing rather well. I'm assuming Rush/Beck/Hannity are the reason. Even WPEN-FM is doing better than WPHT. So it seems Philly listeners prefer local Philly sports talk, national NPR programming, national conservative talkers, then local Philly political talk, and then national sports talk.
 
As one of the board smartly stated earlier, "IQ needs more than just ratings: It needs to be profitable. Ratings don't automatically equal profitability. They are paying six figures for the right to carry Rush. I know: If they were playing music, they'd be paying royalties."

The truth is six figures for Rush may be more than they would pay for music and secondly, with music, it's always changing. With Rush it's the same old song.

Flipping the station to music would be far better for IQ. There are still significant holes for a good music format. A light rock station (lighter than B and WOGL) that plays greats from the seventies until now would garner better than 2.7 and would get a lot of airplay in office buildings. Also it would be much easier to secure advertisers for such a format.

Selling for a 24/7 format that consists of distant, middle-aged curmudgeon hosts has got to be an absolute nightmare. What do you say to an advertiser? "I would like you to partner with Rush and Sean by becoming an advertiser on IQ. It will greatly benefit your business because we have the very best complainers in the business. We bring to the table a large audience of male seniors that hate the Democratic Party. Ok, so by advertising on our station, you won't draw women, and those that voted for Obama in the last election, those that prefer music, and those that view the world in a positive light, but boy we're going to bring in a good number of white old men. Minorities you ask? Maybe if they don't know you advertise on our station, they'll come to your store."
 
Re: Philly Arb Radio Ratinngs

I don't listen to 106.9 as we have the same choices of Rush/Beck/Hannity that I ignore on Wilmington's WILM. For those who do listen to WWIQ during the Rush/Beck/Hannity shows, do you hear many local spots (NOT PSA's) ? THAT would make Josh's point if few or no local avails are airing during those shows, in spite of the ratings.

As both Philly and Wilmington are blue metro areas, WILM has that problem of not attracting many local spots for those shows (Lower Delaware stations WDOV in Dover and WGMD Rehoboth Beach don't seem to have that problem as those areas are more conservative than the Wilmington Metro).

So it may be that WWIQ in Philly might have that same problem as WILM. Oddly enough though, I've heard that NYC, not exactly a Red metro, the station there ( I believe WABC) does fine with local spots during the "big 3". So maybe WWIQ can pull in enough local spots to more than offset the 6 figured price tag to air elrushbo and friends.

It would be interesting to find out how any of the larger metro areas in the northeast NYC, Boston, New Haven Ct, Philly, Balt, DC, and Harrisburg do with local spots during the 9 hours of the big 3.
 
Thanks for the update. So then it will be interesting to see if CBS Sports Radio cuts into either 94.1 or 97.5. My guess is, it will pull in the less Phillycentric sports talk listener. As I tend to listen to Fox Sports Radio on 1290 WWTX (I'm not sure you can get this in Philly) as after awhile it gets old hearing the same ole same ole about the Eagles. Dan Patrick and Jim Rome did great shows on Fox Sports Radio (Rome is now on CBS Sports Radio so he's now on 610 WIP).
 
As a NYer living in Philly, I find myself listening to 610 more than I ever did. I'll even occasionally listen to it over WFAN. But I'm sure my idiosyncrasies won't translate to ratings.
 
WWIQ has an increasing number of local commercials. I don't hear PSA's. Of course, many of those commercials are for gun shops. :eek:
 
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