Sunday conversation....
When you strip away the personalities from both 100kW country stations you might as well compare apples to apples. While DJR leans slightly newer and TVY leans slightly older in the end, personalities (especially morning shows) help establish what a listener chooses to listen to throughout the day. Whether you admit it or not both DJR & TVY have stellar morning shows for this market.
Amie & KC have a huge following, as do Mason & Misty. I doubt any radio group would pass at the chance to have some of the biggest names in the market (on a proven format) under the same roof. Let DJR/RJM battle it out for ratings and money; either way TRP walk away a winner. I don't think any of you can dispute that. The Holladay's also don't skimp when it comes to technical aspects of their stations, I would bet my firstborn that a complete re-build of the WRJM stick/transmitter is coming soon. WRJM will be a major player on the engineering side.
I heard through the grapevine News/Talk WRJM had a good book, this is amazing considering they were either off the air, or at low power. Not to mention it's programed by a crazy old coot. With TRP keeping the format on a smaller stick will still be a win-win. While WDBT might not be a 100kW they aren't on low-power nor are they off air. Plus, believe it or not, have incredible market coverage @ 11,500 watts.
Moving right along, if I were Tragic, I'd flip WLDA to classic country, YESTERDAY! When they finally get done with the upgrades WLDA should have a similar signal to WDBT/WESP and will fill the now missing niche. I don't believe they are at full power yet.
Are there a lot of country stations? OMG yes.
1. WDJR
2. WTVY
3. WLDA
4. WDBT
5. WPAP
6. WBAM
6.5. WAKT
Are there a lot of country listeners? Duh.
Many of you complain about the lack formats in this market. It's not that the radio groups haven't tried, they just don't stick.
Some formats that have bombed:
1. Jack-ish - MY 103.9 - which is now a girl leaning classic rocker
2. Ghetto Urban - 1053 The Beat - apparently their listeners didn't have any money to spend on advertisers products
3. Urban leaning CHR - WILD 100 - Nothing against Shaddy, crappy signal
4. ESPN Radio - crappy signal
5. Satellite driven AC - The Breeze - crappy signal
6. Classic rock leaning southern rock - Rock 1025 - your listeners are growing old and the new crop of men don't care about molly hatchet
7. New Rock - 97X, they switched back to just "Rock" and their numbers doubled
8. Every format KMX has been since Duffy sold out to 'the man'. Although, nobody really knows what format KMX that used to be. I think it was AC leaning CHR leaning 80's leaning 70's leaning Triple AAA.
There are other unique issues as well:
1. It's an unusually large market, in terms of square-miles. Not many markets out there (other than major markets) have 5 county metro's. (don't believe me?
www.arbitron.com/downloads/Arb_US_Metro_Map_08.pdf)
2. With a large metro, traditionally, your big sticks always dominate because they have the 'reach'
3. Given the farming heritage, and abundance of field parties, most everyone grew up listening to country at some point
4. When boys & girls grow up and have kids of their own, listening to T-Pain rapping about his bitches and ho's - isn't family friendly. Which leaves you with two choices: Country or AC They used to have a third choice: KMX - pre-duffy sell out.
Country and AC work in this market. They also sell. I would have a hard time walking into Bondy's and asking Mitch to buy a schedule if my station was called PARTY 101.1, your home for GHETTO FUNK!!!
If those two formats didn't work or sell...then I
guarantee we'd have 7 stations with a format that DID WORK, trying to win over your ears AND your money.
....Then all of you would complain about there being 7 hippity-hop stations or whatever.
