The whole issue is moot since posters who've actually been to Athol and listened to the station are telling us that it's not relaying WXRV anymore, right? Or are there still skeptics here who take what they see in online format listings as gospel and disregard what people who can hear the station on-air report?
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Ratings: July
- Thread starter Wimmmex
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The whole issue is moot since posters who've actually been to Athol and listened to the station are telling us that it's not relaying WXRV anymore, right? Or are there still skeptics here who take what they see in online format listings as gospel and disregard what people who can hear the station on-air report?
I just did a quick search of Athol, MA on Radio-Locator--no actual Boston stations show up, but there are a mix of stations representing the Worcester, Springfield, and southern New Hampshire (Keene and Manchester) markets, as well as a few more local to Athol. While I'm not privy to Arbitron market data, it seems silly to me that Athol would be considered in the Boston radio market. It's really in a no-man's-land.
I guess that since Massachusetts is a small state geographically, the feeling is that every town has to be in some market. After all, enough people live in that part of the state to be meaningful to advertisers. It's not like some stretches of Wyoming, Nebrasks, the Dakotas, etc., where there are barely 2,000 people in the entire county. It does seem strange that a place where WFCR and WAMC show up with listenable signals while WGBH and WBUR don't would count as "Boston," still.
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Saw on twitter first week ratings for Greg Hill on WEEI vs Toucher and Rich on 98.5...the latter was almost 4 times as big as the former.
This is via @ironhead334 who notes the 98.5 hosts were on vacation.
https://twitter.com/Ironhead334?s=17
This is via @ironhead334 who notes the 98.5 hosts were on vacation.
https://twitter.com/Ironhead334?s=17
In my opinion, all of Worcester County should be in the Worcester market with the possible exception of places like Southboro at the eastern fringe of the county.
11.7 (with vacation fill-ins) vs a (show launch that was heavily promoted) 2.9
Ooooof
Ooooof
The dirty little secret of sausage making and how metros are put together and how counties are added and removed. Something the public doesn't see...like sausage making!
Nielsen has a very specific policy on how counties and pieces of counties are added or dropped from the Metro Survey Area (MSA).
The simplified version is that the county or area has to have a certain specified percentage of listening to stations that are home to the market the area is assigned to. Second is that a specified percentage of commuting in the area has to be into that market.
So if in Worcester North the dominant percentage of listening is to Boston MSA stations and the dominant out-of-area commuting is to destinations in the Boston MSA, the county split belongs to Boston.
If that were to change, then Nielsen would review the data. When an area is already part of an existing MSA, then subscribers in both MSAs vote on the change.
An example is the current Miami MSA, made up of Miami-Dade and Broward counties. They were, till 1981, separate MSAs. In '81 we voted to consolidate, with most of us voting to combine for a larger combined metro.
Fairfield County CT is small, yet it has pieces in three different MSAs, based on listening and commuting.
Not sure if we could post actual numbers but yes. 4 times as high.
There is no secret. The criteria are available in a published policy statement on how metros are determined, changed and modified.
Look at the bottom of this page for the policies on market definition, cancellation and redefinition.
https://www.americanradiohistory.com/Arbitron-Market_Maps.htm
I drove through the 99.9 WFNX coverage area in June, two months ago, and also in early 2018, and heard it relaying WXRV both times.
It dropped relaying WXRV for the first time in 2014 and ran its own automated classic hits/adult variety hits format until 2016, when it dropped that and began relaying The River again for the second time to the present.
So other posters are fibbing or this station is flipping between its own programming and carrying someone else's in a completely illogical manner? I'm headed up I-91 to the Upper Valley later this morning and will see what I hear on 99.9, if that isn't beyond 99.9's signal range.
The "logic" is that, though its own format was jockless, the station allegedly claimed there were some sort of expenses involved with running it, above the expense of simply plugging in a simulcast of co-owned WXRV, that it did not have the advertising revenue to cover, so it returned to the WXRV simulcast in 2016, as it had before the failed format was tried beginning in 2014.
The story is on their Wikipedia page, and though Wikipedia is not always correct, it does reflect what I heard driving through their area on Route 2 at various times over the years.
I can confirm that 99.9 is indeed relaying WXRV. Picked it up around Greenfield (at Deerfield, WEZN was still the dominant station on the frequency) with the liner "99.9 The River, independent radio for Quabbin and beyond!" Beyond is a good thing; not many listeners or advertisers in Dana, Enfield, Greenwich and Prescott these days. But shouldn't it be branding itself The Reservoir?
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