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Ratings reprise at Walrus?

B

Big 121

Ratings reprise at Walrus?

After Walrus reached the #2 spot with a 5.7 last year, someone decided to tinker with obviously carfully crafted format. As I mentioned with
much disdain, my local favorite changed, it lost listeners by the 1000's and dropped to what-? 11TH or 12th ? It WAS a good alternative to XM6,
and generally had a wide age of listeners.
Slowly the 50's tunes were pretty much scrapped. Way less MoTown. 60's took a back seat to 70's "hits". Nothing wrong with 70's , if you're
careful. But too many "sucky" 70's were played and ratings and listeners evaporated. 70's stations in San Diego never enjoyed much success.
XHCOL's bright spot was Saturday mornings when they would open the "Vault" and play something outside of their short playlist. KFSD's total 70's
format was a loser too. Astor killed that disaster. KBG without DSC can't float with heavy 70's "Classic Rock".
Some recent changes to Walrus has indeed helped, along with probably picking up numbers from ex-KGB folks. What to do to keep the Mexican
Mountaintop Mammal going up? Glad you asked.
Gradually return to a similar playlist as before. More promotion; not just posters on Cloud 9 shuttles.
Since Viejas has a stake in BCA, promote 50's thru 70's rock groups' events at their outdoor arena ; give away tickets
Liven up the weekend with a syndicated offering, such as Goddards' Gold. Corvette Diner remotes like Shotguns' in the eighties.
Get in on the Cruising scene by doing 1 hour Jock appearances at Cruise nights. Classic Malt Shop, East County Cruisers, and the Ramona Cruise.
Friday and Saturday request and dedication nights ....
Oh, and keep the audio just the way it is- best in SoCal..
Big 121
 
Re: Ratings reprise at Walrus?

Big 121 said:
After Walrus reached the #2 spot with a 5.7 last year, someone decided to tinker with obviously carfully crafted format. As I mentioned with
much disdain, my local favorite changed, it lost listeners by the 1000's and dropped to what-? 11TH or 12th ? It WAS a good alternative to XM6,
and generally had a wide age of listeners.
Slowly the 50's tunes were pretty much scrapped. Way less MoTown. 60's took a back seat to 70's "hits". Nothing wrong with 70's , if you're
careful. But too many "sucky" 70's were played and ratings and listeners evaporated. 70's stations in San Diego never enjoyed much success.
XHCOL's bright spot was Saturday mornings when they would open the "Vault" and play something outside of their short playlist. KFSD's total 70's
format was a loser too. Astor killed that disaster. KBG without DSC can't float with heavy 70's "Classic Rock".
Some recent changes to Walrus has indeed helped, along with probably picking up numbers from ex-KGB folks. What to do to keep the Mexican
Mountaintop Mammal going up? Glad you asked.
Gradually return to a similar playlist as before. More promotion; not just posters on Cloud 9 shuttles.
Since Viejas has a stake in BCA, promote 50's thru 70's rock groups' events at their outdoor arena ; give away tickets
Liven up the weekend with a syndicated offering, such as Goddards' Gold. Corvette Diner remotes like Shotguns' in the eighties.
Get in on the Cruising scene by doing 1 hour Jock appearances at Cruise nights. Classic Malt Shop, East County Cruisers, and the Ramona Cruise.
Friday and Saturday request and dedication nights ....
Oh, and keep the audio just the way it is- best in SoCal..
Big 121
Click to expand...










Walrus was top 5 25-54 this month - why make changes?
 
Re: Ratings reprise at Walrus?

Big 121 said:
After Walrus reached the #2 spot with a 5.7 last year, someone decided to tinker with obviously carfully crafted format. As I mentioned with
much disdain, my local favorite changed, it lost listeners by the 1000's and dropped to what-? 11TH or 12th ? It WAS a good alternative to XM6,
and generally had a wide age of listeners.
Click to expand...

The Walrus is looking quite good now in 25-54, thanks to the booting of a lot of the geezer oldies.

The 12+ ranker, as I have said more than once, is given away for free by Arbitron because it has no value.

25-54 and the various subsets of this are where the revenue is. I'd rather be 5th in 25-54 and way down in 12+ than high in 12+ and low in 25-54.
 
Re: Ratings reprise at Walrus?

The Walrus had great 25-54 numbers from the very start of PPM (April of 2009) , by June it was #3 25-54. The programming changes really
took effect around the middle of June. The first version of The Walrus (April 2008-June 2009) was centered in The 70's (40 of the 50 most played songs were from the '70's).They played more Mid-late '60's per hour then they do now. A few pre '64. A few '80's.
 
Re: Ratings reprise at Walrus?

Pretty good for a Mexican licensed station that "relatively", came from nowhere....fast!

This music/format has seen a huge resurgence all over the country and is doing quite well in most major and many smaller metro's!

Inexplicably, the Bay Area (the nation's 4th largest radio market and packed with signals), does not have this format on the dial??
 
Re: Ratings reprise at Walrus?

airpab said:
This music/format has seen a huge resurgence all over the country and is doing quite well in most major and many smaller metro's!
Click to expand...

Two things happened:

First, oldies stations moved to being "classic hits" and centered more on the 70's. That put the format much more in the realm of 25-54 demos.

Second, the PPM picks up secondary listening much better than the diary. This is because the diary was memory based, and less prominent choices were not well registered in diaries. So a classic hits station can be "everyone's second favorite" and be at the top of the ratings in PPM, something not true in the diary.
 
Re: Ratings reprise at Walrus?

It's important to note that ratings go through wobbles due to panel changes, et al in PPM. Many times a station can change nothing and see an increase or decline due to panel movement. It's even more notable in the western markets with a lot of terrain.

Walrus, like many other adult stations, took a hit in Holiday and December when KYXY was in Christmas music.

The morning changes now in SD are now sure to cause issues.

For what it's worth, Walrus was top 5 25-54 in January while KRTH was 7th. Which one has the heritage in their marketplace?
 
Re: Ratings reprise at Walrus?

One other sidebar was the that I had heard that 105.7's PPM encoder had some issues during the months where the drops occurred..in addition to some FM signal problems..that was why The Walrus was appearing on 1700.. BIG problem if all that is used for a sample is an electronic device that could not be fixed quickly..and several signal outages don't help at all..and you are right XHPRS's audio is superb
 
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