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Relavance of WCOJ

C

Captain Happy

Guest
Will someone please tell me why WCOJ is able to stay afloat ? They still don't have ratings, therefore outside of counting the callers who phone during 3 live portions of their weekly schedule, they can't EVER know how many listeners they have. I used to hear some pretty wild numbers thrown around as to how many listeners the station believes it has, but I am looking for facts. Is there anyway of devining just how many people listen to WCOJ.
 
Come on. You used to do sales for WCOJ. You should know the answers. What did you tell the people you called on?
 
I used methods given to me by 'COj's previous owner and CEO. I often wondered if WCOJ could pool in more ad cash if they subscribed to Arbitron as opposed to inventing a figure. This way perhaps they could get more Agency buys with actual numbers.I mean the statement was always that they own their market, so why not have stable proof.
 
Re: Relevance of WCOJ

I don't know what happened with you and the new management. You deserve points for surviving the old managment.The questions you ask about WCOJ apply to any small market, suburban or community radio station which competes with signals from larger markets. Ad agency media buyers look for proof. In the suburbs and small markets, local merchants buy because they like the salesman and/or because they (or their friends) like the station. If business is good, and every once in a while somebody says "I heard your ad," the merchant keeps buying. It's not much different than how you buy a car or pick a stock broker or a real estate agent. Contacts. Contacts. Contacts. And then you like somebody and trust them with your money. I you can sell spots on a small market AM station, you can sell cars, stocks or houses and really make a living.
 
No matter what radio station it is, they stay relevant when there are listeners for the clients to reach. Ratings don't equal success, otherwise WCBS-FM in NYC would still be spinning oldies. WCOJ has finally got a strong staff of sales people who listen and beleive in the station and the business is up. If you can stay ahead of the technology like say a WDEL, then you can build revenue that way as well. But the Captain never really listened to me, anyway.
 
"...No matter what radio station it is, they stay relevant when there are listeners for the clients to reach..."Brother, you just said a mouthful! Aside from their dwindling core of listeners...holdovers from when they had a long-running morning announcer...WCOJ seems and sounds dated, irrelevant and anachronistic to today's average Chester Countian. It's an AM in an FM, XM and Sirius world. It's a low-power outpost in a flamethrower milieu. And, in the broadcast world of "who's your competitor", it gets creamed by the Philly stations and the Wilmington stations that share it's minute demos: KYW, WJBR and WOGL, just to name a few. "Local radio" used to be more important to isolated communities who cared more about who won the milking contest at the 4-H club than whether the Chairman of the Fed just raised interest rates. Chester County...as the fastest growing county in the Commonwealth and with the biggest influx of people who've moved in from the big cities...isn't a backwater anymore. And, the radio listeners in Chester County aren't all bumpkins."Relevance": absolutely what radio should have. WCOJ used to have it...about fifty years ago. Welcome to the 21st century.
 
WCOJ had it 50 years ago - even 10 years ago, up to when Art Douglas retired and the Lensefest family (Suburban Cable) sold out. Changes were made. People left. Listeners tuned away. A station like WCOJ can keep an audience (barring the limitations of human mortality) but once an audience is gone, such stations can not get an audience back.The fact that they have spots at all is a tribute the sales people who have gone through the station's revolving door. Sales people in any business work best when they are rewarded for bringing in and keeping business. Not nickeled and dimed. Not hassled. Not harrangued or yelled at by owners, managers or consultants. Not fired when they land an account so the boss can keep the commissions they've earned. Not forced to work with their hands tied because somebody's kid thinks negotiating off the rate card means somebody is taking away the family's money.WCOJ today sounds better than it has in years but the WOR-esque lifestyle and advice format has to skew old. Local sales people can sell local merchants who have never heard of "targeting" and "demographics." But sooner or later, God will take away the station's current audience (Picture a grave yard filled with hundreds of tombstones marking the graves of WCOJ listeners ... ). Then what? A question not just for WCOJ, but for any "community station," any AM station and maybe even in another generation or so, any terrestrial station. :'(
 
Relationships were not tended. Not between the program hosts and the listeners, not between sales reps and clients. It can happen at any level and does. I think that WCOJ has emerged from that period with a god mix of national and local flavor and we are working on reaching out to the 200,000 new residents that have moved to Chester County over the past 10 years. It's just something that takes patience and hard work. Joe Thomas
 
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