Poughkeepsie & Newburgh-Middletown Ratings: Spring 2011

[pjc1961]

http://www.radio-info.com/markets/poughkeepsie and http://www.radio-info.com/markets/newburgh-middletown

Age 12+ overall rankings covering the Spring 2011 survey period from Thu. 3/31/11 to Wed. 6/22/11.

 

[Fidel Ipac]

Pamal and Clear Channel have plenty to celebrate while the chickens keep coming home to roost at Cumulus. It's going to be a long, hot summer on Pendell Road after these numbers.

K104 is #1 in both markets. Congratulations to them for outworking the competition. They deserve it. Pamal has #1 and #2 in Orange County thanks to the played-out mess the WPDH morning show has become. This sets Pamal up beautifully for the switch to a Hudson Valley book, but they shouldn't get complacent. The WHUD morning show isn't as strong as it could be. It sounds old. It needs to get younger.

We don't have access to the demos yet, but you know things look pretty good on Tucker Drive. Three of the top 5 stations live there. WRWD, Kiss-FM and Lite-FM are doing what they're designed to do. Star 93.3 is the problem child here. Looks like Marino's not exactly lighting a fire under the place. Surprised? Not if you've been paying attention for the last five years. Somewhere Mark Bolger is snickering, but he shouldn't laugh too much. Doesn't look like he did anything to improve on Bob Miller's numbers at Mix 97.7. Star and Mix are depressing examples of modern corporate radio. Bolger is going to need some help in the morning to grow his numbers, but he's on a station that dumped a great local mid-day talent just to simulcast some crappy Rick Dees show. Pathetic, thy name is Cumulus.

WSPK and WPDH are textbook examples of the power and importance of a dominant morning show personality. With John Tobin PDH was number one in Poughkeepsie in the mid 9s. Tobin's exit opened the door for the resurgent Woodman and 'SPK went from a 6.8 to a 10.9. With no Tobin to carry him, Cooper took another tumble. It's not like we haven't seen this before. How many shots does Cooper get to fail? My guess is this will be his last. The once mighty PDH has fallen to a 5.6. Heads should roll, starting with Cooper.

Elsewhere on Pendell Road WRRV/WRRB scores it's usual sub-5 share in Poughkeepsie and loses a quarter of its Newburgh/Middletown audience. The Wolf (WKXP/WZAD) is just sad. This was the combo that was supposed to keep WRWD below WPDH. How's that working out Cumulus? 'ZAD got a little bump in Orange County but is still underperforming the former WCZX Oldies simulcast.

Speaking of Oldies, Fox Oldies 98.9 debuted with a whimper. Some people are going to be surprised at that 1.6 number. I'm not. Poor execution. This isn't rocket science. All they had to do to make a halfway decent splash was launch with the same sound and format clock of the old Oldies97. They are ignoring the successful template for Oldies in this market. This is an Oldies station, so for crying out loud let the jocks talk over intros. Don't force your morning man off the air for 15 minutes at a time. It's stupid. It's simple: Let Van be Van and let him hit every post and talk after every other record if he wants. Get a decent female jock for mid-days and push Corsino to weekends. Bob Miller would be a much better choice for PM Drive.

Anybody have more breakouts?

 

[MoldaMania182]

Anybody have more breakouts?

Let's put it this way, you can combine 3/4 of either book and it still won't equal WSPK's numbers. That's how strong/far ahead they are across the board. Cha-ching.

Agree Cumuless is doing exactly what their name says.

Speaking of Oldies, Fox Oldies 98.9 debuted with a whimper. Some people are going to be surprised at that 1.6 number. I'm not. Poor execution. This isn't rocket science. All they had to do to make a halfway decent splash was launch with the same sound and format clock of the old Oldies97. They are ignoring the successful template for Oldies in this market. This is an Oldies station, so for crying out loud let the jocks talk over intros. Don't force your morning man off the air for 15 minutes at a time. It's stupid. It's simple: Let Van be Van and let him hit every post and talk after every other record if he wants. Get a decent female jock for mid-days and push Corsino to weekends. Bob Miller would be a much better choice for PM Drive.

Are you really that surprised? There really wasn't even a launch, took an AM station and just threw it on FM without much change at all. You're right, I am surprised at the 1.6 number...surprised it wasn't a .9. No kidding it's poorly executed. The library is deep in odd hits and still missing big classics. It sounds forced and unnatural all the way around. No one sounds happy or interesting. Speaking of unnatural did I really hear Led Zep's Stairway into David Guetta on WJGK?? The whole group is going nowhere fast.

 

[aka. the steve]

i saw the demo breakouts...it's time to hit the panic button at PDH. this station doesn't work without a morning show. the stench hasn't totally infected the other dayparts, yet but the erosion has begun. Cooper show is down with young men (1834) from over a 20 share 4 books ago to a 1.9 share this spring. Morning show is out of, or barely in top 5 in key demos. Anyone see anything that resembles a plan here? Some one should swallow thier pride and get Mr. Tobin on the phone pretty quickly to appologize. It's either that or see if carlson and mackensie can be sydicated. this station needs help now or PDH will be damaged beyond repair.

 

[disney fanatic]

The reason why that "Fox Oldies" at 98.9 sounded a lot like the old CBS-FM back in the 80's and 90's when it was during the Joe McCoy era, this station is doing poorly in the ratings at a 1.6. Look at CBS-FM for example, they do really well in New York City playing some amount of 60's through 80's songs with a little bit of 90's thrown in. I hope this oldies format is not going anywhere anytime soon. Why not add a lot of 80's songs in the mix and forget the 50's and those pre-Beatles stuff on there, why not put it on 1200 AM in Kingston to get older listeners. Remember back a few years ago, 1200 AM suppose to be WJGK to have a CP permit, but that never happened, so we got 98.9 on the air. In addition to that, why not put Bob Miller, Suzy Garcia and bring back Rick McCaffery on Friday nights to do the "Solid Gold Jukebox" and an hour long segment of the "Doo-Wop Cruise" playing nothing but the best doo-wop songs on the radio. I'm a huge doo-wop fan, but I hope they should bring it back. Don K Reed used to do the "Doo-Wop Shop" for many years on CBS-FM back in the day, but I hope Rick McCaffery would do a better job to bring it back to "Fox Oldies" along with Gary Lee Schwartz as a good friend. Let's hope!

 

[MHVRadiofan]

The fact that WCZX ratings were flat after tweaking their playlist and firing 2/3 of their on air talent may be a statistical quirk , but it also points out that without knowing the demos the +12 ratings , doesn’t mean much. It would be interesting to see if Cumulus got the younger demo they were after. Since the demos are barred from, being released how can anyone allege to see them post it here? Mix 97.7 did seem to steal some of star 93.3 listeners; they dropped from a 4.4 to a 2.8. WPDH’s morning show was bad enough with Cooper & Tobin. Cooper alone may save money but it didn’t work before and now the show’s material is old to boot. 101.5’s ratings have been eroding for some time, now the drop may be to big to ignore.
As I have said before WGNY’s playlist needs to be updated to reduce but not eliminate some of the older music. They also need to expand the songs they play, to reduce repetition . Mid-day jock Bob O is by far the best on the station; he is actually pretty good. Van has his fans, but Buffalo Bob Corsino is horrible in PM drive, his ‘jokes’ are just plain dumb. Suzie Garcia or Bob Miller would be a big improvement. Joe in the evening isn't any better . Speaking of evenings why does WGNY continue to promote ' When Radio Was' at 7 PM? I have yet to hear it.

 

[MoldaMania182]

The fact that WCZX ratings were flat after tweaking their playlist and firing 2/3 of their on air talent may be a statistical quirk , but it also points out that without knowing the demos the +12 ratings , doesn’t mean much. It would be interesting to see if Cumulus got the younger demo they were after.

They certainly did not.

Since the demos are barred from, being released how can anyone allege to see them post it here?

Well, plenty of us inside and out of radio and marketing can see the breakdown numbers, and true we can't repost them, generalizations are the best we can do, up to you to believe or not.

 

[disney fanatic]

To get back into basics though, WPDH is in 4th place out of the #1 spot with Coop as a solo morning show is doing poorly without Malroony or Tobin. I hope Coop should be fired someday or losing his job and bring in Jack Hammer from "The Wolf" to do his morning show with Andre together and calling it "Jack & Andre in the Morning" on WPDH. "The Wolf" is going down in the bottom of the barrel with not a great morning show to begin with along with Yankee baseball which is still carrying it on "The Wolf" as simulcast on WCBS-AM on FM clarity, just like it was being heard on WCBS-FM's HD3 channel on 101.1 in the same clarity as "The Wolf". Why not move the Yankee game back on WKNY and on WEOK and WALL as part of "True Oldies". They should bring it back on AM. To get back to WPDH, the rock music has been on that station for 35 years where they did the "35th Anniversary Weekend" since I've posted airchecks from WPDH back in June where they brought back some of the original jocks from WPDH back when it first started back in 1976, just like CBS-FM did where they used to do the "Rock & Roll Radio Greats" weekend back in 1984 under Joe McCoy where they brought back some of the legendary jocks from WABC and WMCA back in the 60's. As for the whole format, they might be a winner there. Look what happened to WRXP, they pulled the plug on this whole rock thing after Randy Michaels' Merlin took over last week and brought in some of its former RXP listeners to WPDH to get their music, and so does WDST, and so does WBPM. I mentioned last week in the "New York" board about the loss of WRXP.

To get back to WGNY though, the station needs to tweak them and adding some disco hits like the Bee-Gees "Stayin' Alive", "How Deep Is You Love", "Night Fever" and a few others from "Saturday Night Fever" soundtrack, or possibly Donna Summer or any of the artists that you've known from the disco era to be on that station. As I said, the music sounded way too old, it's like the way it used to be like the old CBS-FM and the former "Cool 92.9" did. They need to drop those pre-Beatles stuff including lots of 50's songs on there. 50's music on FM is getting too old, just put it on AM for example WCKL under Brian Dodge. CKL needs to improve this station for playing deeper 50's music on that station. The signal is weak, why not adjust the signal to 50,000 watts to get listeners from Kingston and Poughkeepsie to hear the music on this station. As I said WGNY-FM at 98.9 went off to a really start at a 1.6 in the ratings.

This must be the last of the ratings periods, I hope Arbitron will get the Hudson Valley ratings period to replace the "Newburgh/Middletown" ratings in the Fall book, but the Poughkeepsie ratings is not going anywhere hopefully.

 

[Fidel Ipac]

i saw the demo breakouts...it's time to hit the panic button at PDH. this station doesn't work without a morning show. the stench hasn't totally infected the other dayparts, yet but the erosion has begun. Cooper show is down with young men (1834) from over a 20 share 4 books ago to a 1.9 share this spring. Morning show is out of, or barely in top 5 in key demos. Anyone see anything that resembles a plan here? Some one should swallow thier pride and get Mr. Tobin on the phone pretty quickly to appologize. It's either that or see if carlson and mackensie can be sydicated. this station needs help now or PDH will be damaged beyond repair.

I'm not at all surprised by those numbers. Cooper is bad radio, period. He doesn't have the chops. The guy sounds angry and physically unwell. Who wants to wake up to that? The numbers make it clear Coop's time has run out, but instead of fixing what's wrong with PDH Cumulus will probably do more cost cutting. Hopefully Robyn Taylor won't be the next to suffer because of Atlanta management mistakes. Mid-days are apparently as unimportant to Cumulus as holding on to good staff. Just look at the Rick Dees mess on Mix97. The morning sidekick on 'RRV does middays on The Wolf. More cost-cutting stupidity.

Pamal and Clear Channel are laughing all the way to the bank. It's amazing how penny wise and pound foolish the bozos at Cume-U-Less are.

 

[disney fanatic]

Imagine if Cumulus taking over the Citadel stations a few months back are WPLJ and WABC? The whole town's laughing at us.

 

[Fidel Ipac]

Imagine if Cumulus taking over the Citadel stations a few months back are WPLJ and WABC? The whole town's laughing at us.

Huh? Is there a disney fanatic translator on the web somewhere I could use?

 

[disney fanatic]

Huh? Is there a disney fanatic translator on the web somewhere I could use?

LOL

 

[alwayson]

Pamal is getting rewarded for local live radio. They work hard at being local and keeping it live - and it shows through and through. 'Nuff said!

CC's got country right with WRWD even minus Paty Quyn they OWN the format, and know the demo. CC's "Wall of Women" is performing well. PKF seems to overacheive every time. They are the little engine (or signal) that could! Star will rebound because the brand is very strong and Marino is an excellent talent.

Let's talk about underachievers. CUMULUS - as a group got spanked! WPDH is ignoring the elephant in the room. No need to discuss further, it’s been discussed on here over and over and over. WCZX tossed a PERFECT LIVE local female personality with a significant following, to put on a 61 year old man from across the country. (Not defending local Cumulus management here), but Rick Dees was not just a local decision. There were some 25 Cumulus stations affected across the board. In late January the decision was made behind closed doors in Atlanta to replace local shows with Dees. It was a matter of which stations were going to "take the hit". This station should NOT have been one of them.

On to Bolger. He's a big talent and gets big money! (Almost double Miller's salary) and Numbers for 977 are pretty much flat. Worth it? You be the judge. Add to that lots of bad PR and backlash with the loss of Miller and Garcia. If there were to be a spike because of the novelty of the new format it came and went this past Spring.

The Wolf's numbers are just slightly higher than their out of market country sister station, WDBY. Does anyone call that success?

Fox Oldies and the entire group over there is just a mess. Is anyone surprised that they are not showing up? They spent lots of dollars on marketing their new brands, but what they need to do is listen to the stations. They sound awful! Step one would be to add Bob Miller to their Oldies line up fulltime. Dial Global on 95.7 is just a waste of a a good local signal underserving the community. Thoughts?

 

[aka. the steve]

agree on alot - but disagree on a couple of points. marino is terrible in the morning. he can't finish a thought, he laughs at his own jokes and tells long stories about nothing. ratings are down in each of the books he's had the shift and the guy almost killed k104. IMO - star has got some issues and you'll start to see the in office listening errode as Marino chases away the audience. Bolger had the potential to be a really good move, but he's wasted without a real #2. Without some marketing support (which Cumulus won't ever committ to) the show is doomed to a 3 share forever.

 

[Fidel Ipac]

You make many good points alwayson, but I think you're misinformed on this one.

On to Bolger. He's a big talent and gets big money! (Almost double Miller's salary) and Numbers for 977 are pretty much flat. Worth it? You be the judge.

If you really think Cume-U-Less is paying him "almost double Miller's salary" I've got a railroad bridge to sell you. Bolger had only one option left to continue his on-air career. He knew it, and the dolts in Atlanta and on Pendell Road knew it, too. There was no bidding war for his services. He took what he got to get back on the air. I'm not knocking Bolger. He would be a decent fit on what 97.7 has become, but he needs a partner and promotion to succeed. Instead he gets to be a lead-in to Rick Dees.

agree on alot - but disagree on a couple of points. marino is terrible in the morning. he can't finish a thought, he laughs at his own jokes and tells long stories about nothing. ratings are down in each of the books he's had the shift and the guy almost killed k104. IMO - star has got some issues and you'll start to see the in office listening errode as Marino chases away the audience. Bolger had the potential to be a really good move, but he's wasted without a real #2. Without some marketing support (which Cumulus won't ever committ to) the show is doomed to a 3 share forever.

Well put, sir.

So, how many more days do WPDH listeners have left of suffering through the Mark Cooper morning fiasco? It's not getting any better. When do you think they pull the trigger and put this show out of it's misery? Labor Day seems logical. The competition hopes Cume-U-Less gives Cooper at least one more book so the erosion can spread through the day.