PPM comes to Boston

[mistermicrophone]

Who in his right mind would listen to a station that plays the same songs 100-200 times a week?

Obviously a LOT of people. KISS plays 4 powers between 111 & 114 x per week...Z100/NYC & KIIS/LA each play play powers over 100 x week, too...all of which doing very well under PPM.

 

[ciao99]

the objective PPM vs. the subjective diaries.

We need to be careful about throwing around the word "objective" here. Fact is, NEITHER of these measurement methods are "objective," because neither of them measure actual listening impact. PPM measures exposure and diaries measure recall. If a non-Spanish-speaking person has a PPM and sits in a taxi being driven by a Hispanic person, who is listening to a Spanish-language station, the PPM will record the time spent exposed to the Spanish-language station...but no impression has been made upon the listener, who doesn't understand the language. Similarly, if a diary keeper sits in a doctor's waiting room that has a radio station on at very low volume, it's likely that listening won't be recorded in the diary.

Until Arbitron comes up with the ultimate method to record impressions (a brain implant), they still have no way of measuring a station's (or, more to the point, an advertiser's) impact on the listener. The only advantage PPM has over diaries is that it skirts the issue of relying on imperfect human memory.

Wrong.

First off, you don't have to be Hispanic to enjoy Latin music. Lots of Anglos listen to salsa, merengue, bachata and reggaeton.
Secondly, you wrongly assume that all advertising on Spanish radio is only in Spanish. Wrong again. You will hear advertisers with ads in English.
Thank you for demonstrating how little you know about Spanish radio.

 

[ciao99]

The owners/programmers wonder why these Urban and Rhythmic stations don't do well under PPM.

Who in his right mind would listen to a station that plays the same songs 100-200 times a week?

Hopefully, some Urban and Rhythmics are gonna be taken off the air because of PPM.

No. Hopefully the focus of urban programmers will move beyond Hip Hop. There's more to urban radio than rap dude. You live in Jersey, try listening to Kiss, BLS, or WDAS if you're closer to Philly. "The Touch" if you're close to Atlantic City. These stations playlists don't include songs at 100-200 rotations.

 

[JerseyDude]

I live in Jersey City (near New York City). WRKS/Kiss is OK. They can be a little heavy on the Beyonce/Keyshia Cole crap. When they start with that junk, I have to switch stations.

I listen to WDAS-FM/Philadelphia online and when I visit my friends in Philly. WDAS-FM is one of the best R&B Adult stations in America (next to WHUR/Washington,DC). Not a lot of repetition and some good R&B from today and back in the day. 'DAS avoids much of the ghetto R&B that WRKS plays.

HOT 97 is sounding crazy these days. They are all over the place. Hot plays too much Country Rap (Atlanta). There are a lot of NYC area Rappers trying to get a buzz, but HOT would rather show love to the ATL. I understand Atlanta is considered to be the Black and Hip-Hop capital of the United States, but this is still New York City.

Now, they are reacting to 92.3 NOW-FM. They are playing "Boom Boom Pow"
and a lot of the watered down Rap and crossover R&B that you hear on watered down Rhythmics (Hot 97 is an Urban-leaning Rhythmic) like Jamn 94.5/Boston and Hot 106/Providence.

Has PPM been kind to HOT 97?

 

[MarkW]

WBOS is definitely a surprise. I guess Alternative is not dead, it just depends on how you do it.

The big surprise for me was their margin of victory over WBCN. Radio 92-9 crushed 'BCN.

There is only one other PPM currency market with a modern rock station with a very similar sound to WBOS, and that would be Philly, where Clear Channel's WRFF continues to grab outstanding ratings.

An equally large surprise, IMO, is the degree to which Kiss 108's numbers climbed. An 8.4 share overall!!! They are ahead of Mix 98-5 by 5 full shares!

In most cases, though, Modern / Alt stations have seen little improvement, if any, in PPM versus diaries as far as overall share is concerned. KROQ, KITS, WKQX, XETRA-FM, KBZT, WWDC, etc. are doing about the same in PPM as they did with diaries. 89X in Detroit is doing slightly better (some months are better than others). KTBZ in Houston is the only other station with consistently higher shares in PPM versus diaries.

Keep in mind, too, that Radio 104-5 in Philly was already grabbing decent shares with the diary method, and that was when the station was still very, very new.

 

[Zeb Norris]

A factor peculiar to Boston is the 4 way alt/active battle. While you're right about WRFF and Alternative in general, there are a couple of points that could also be in play re WBOS specifically.

First of all, with that many related competitors it seems like they might win be being the 2nd choice station for all of their competitors while having very few P1s of their own. Can't tell just by looking at 6+.

Another thing is that WBOS is jock-less. And that could be a huge plus. The demo they serve is pretty i-pod saturated. They already know how to program music flow and they don't need some lame old-fashioned "host" to hold their hands. And if they want to know what's playing there's always the website.

I say that as a DJ...