Rochester Fall Ratings

[Mark_Giardina]

WHAM and WBEE continue to battle it out for first place in the latest ratings. Just a fraction of a percentage point seperates both stations.

WARM radio experienced a big ratings increase while WDKX went down in the book.

WCMF went up one full percentage point, but is still averaging in the 4 % range. Both

Hot Talk 1280 and WROC-AM were neck and neck near the bottom of the ratings pack, although WROC did manage to increase its audience slightly.

And yes ( and I know people will say that I am biased considering that I work there now part-time), WYSL didn't show up in the Rochester metro book once again, but stations in Waterloo, Batavia did.

When reading this take into consideration that these are 12+ figures.

 

[scooterodell]

Seems like a south and west skewed sample to me, though you would think that would help WYSL. I just don't understand why they never show...

 

[star13]

I wonder when Mark will realize that 12+ is not the "money demo" 25-54 is the where the $'s are. WHAM AND THE BEE are NOT battling it out for top spot. Check it out Mark...Battling for top spot are BEE and the BUZZ 25-49 is the same. Wease has had several bad books...an indication that he might be ready for retirment. WARM was up do to XMAS music which gave them a big boost

 

[Philip_Airtime]

You see, this is where I disagree with the "inside radio" people who post to these boards. Everyone dismisses the 12+ numbers. Believe me, I don't need a radio tutorial. I realize that 25-54 in the prime target for radio broadcasters. And in this day and age, radio stations are targeting to specific age groups, so the data regarding from these afe groups are valuable and are necessary for a station to determine if it's reaching its target audience. But there is nothing wrong with looking at a station's total audience. What? We shouldn't count people over 55 because they're too old? The 12+ numbers are what Arbitron publicly releases. So, that's what we talk about. Here in Buffalo, WBEN received a more than 13 share in the Fall book. WBEN tends to fall in the middle of the 25-54 pack. We'll see if that happens in this book because of the station's strong fall numbers. But it's unfair to diminish WBEN's dominance in the fall book by saying 12+ doesn't matter. Those numbers may not matter to GMs and sales people. But they do to me. So there!

 

[Bob1370]

The 12+ numbers aren't as meaningless to sales people as you might think.

While regional ad agencies tend to take them with a grain of salt and go more by the stations that do well with their respective clients' prime customer target demos, a lot of mass market retailers from food stores to car dealers to department stores to banks which do their own buys will pay at least some attention to the overall 12+ numbers as well, and hedge their bets with at least some buys on the 12+ leaders even if the top station in their target demo is a different one.

That's also true of national spot buys.

12+ leaders also get a lot of the attention from the more casual or occasional ad buyers too.

I don't mean to minimize the importance of strength in the 25-54 money demos. But they don't exclusively determine all major ad buys by any means.

 

[Bob1370]

Re: Rochester Fall Ratings/one more thing...

About the numbers themselves, WHAM got a little bit of a boost from the elections, but not as much as you might have expected--proportionately the '06 campaign probably did more for WROC, giving them a 40% boost in quarter-hour strength although they're certainly not setting the world on fire.

WHTK may have been hurt considerably by the extended problems Don & Mike had, which caused them to drop into "best of" mode for weeks on end in the later stages of the fall book. I don't think they did a single live show the last 8 weeks of 2006, six of which were included in the fall book. Now that there's a live afternoon show on Hot Talk 1280 again, it'll be interesting to see if it makes a difference in the spring.

It also looks like some of WBEE's 25-54 core is drifting over to Warm 101.3, giving them a sharp upward bump--that tells me that when Entercom has to dump one of the full market coverage signals it's buying as part of the CBS deal, it won't be Warm, but 98PXY, the weakest ratings-wise of the big signal FMs it's getting. I'd love to know who will get that one.

The full book also continues to reflect the sampling skew of a couple of the earlier trends which contributed to it...with disproportionate representation of out-of-market rimshots on the eastern and western peripheries.

DKX is down a little but still strong...they seem to go in cycles, down a bit in the fall numbers when a lot of their 12-24 audience goes back to school, then gradually building back up from January through the following summer. We'll probably see that pattern repeat again. It's not unusual with stations that have a big 12-24 audience within their overall 12-34 core. We used to see it at WAXC and the old BBF used to see that cycle too.

CMF is heading back up, showing that the summer book was indeed a fluke. They'll probably be back in the 5s (with 25-54s much higher still) in the coming months.

 

[The Voice of Reason]

I wonder when Mark will realize that 12+ is not the "money demo" 25-54 is the where the $'s are. WHAM AND THE BEE are NOT battling it out for top spot. Check it out Mark...Battling for top spot are BEE and the BUZZ 25-49 is the same. Wease has had several bad books...an indication that he might be ready for retirment. WARM was up do to XMAS music which gave them a big boost

While I respect your comments, I don't believe that Wease is ready for Social Security just yet. Who would replace him at CMF should he decide to leave? And right now that station needs Wease more than he needs them. As for WHAM and WBEE, they always seem to be neck-and-neck in the ratings, which is nothing new. It was interesting to see WROC's ratings climb to over one percent. Perhaps Bob Smith was correct that the same people who were listening were the ones who went to the polls last November and voted the straight Democratic line. And in conclusion I too wonder why WYSL radio doesn't appear in book? They certainly have enough sponsors on that station, and why would anyone advertise on a station that nobody listens too, if one believes Arbitron?

 

[Bob1370]

Re: Rochester Fall Ratings/thoughts on WYSL

Seems to me that WYSL is not showing up on Arbitron's radar for a trio of reasons...

1)The sampling skew of recent surveys may have underweighted Livingston and perhaps Ontario counties in the metro, and given excessive weight to Genesee and Orleans counties on the west, and Wayne County to the east. That's the only way to interpret the unusually large presence of out-of-market stations from Buffalo, Syracuse and nearby towns in the book, even stations that don't put a significant signal footprint into most of the market, while rimshots from other more southerly directions either fell sharply (like 107.3 even before the format change) or disappeared completely.

2)The book missed, for the most part, the daytime signal upgrade, which happened just a few weeks back and may well make a difference in the winter and spring books

3)WYSL's own need for a little more aggressive marketing in the southern Monroe County and Ontario County burbs it's now reaching with a better daytime signal--and maybe even a little marketing, a billboard here and there placed strategically along a main highway, in Rochester itself.

All of these factors will either change on their own, or can be affected by something WYSL does in marketing.

And there is one other thing long term that they can do without a huge amount of extra investment now that they have the big transmitter up and running. If they look into adding a couple additional towers, tightening their post-sunset pattern and bumping their power to 5,000 watts nights and pre-sunrise to fire a hot signal toward the city of Rochester and inner-ring suburbs, they may well be able to make an even bigger dent in Monroe County proper and thus the entire metro market. The current 500 watt night signal is a tough catch in a lot of the market. A stronger signal into northern Livingston and Monroe Counties would help them tremendously even if they can't put much additional wattage any other direction but northward.

 

[ericNY]

I wonder how long WSNP will last, the station lost over 1/2 of the dismal number WNVE was putting up and got outrated by WUUF (country station out of Newark). I wish Clear Channel would use the 107.3 for a FM talk/Sports station, but I know that will probably will never happen.

Glad to see WDVI keep the majority of their rating they got in the last book. I think we will see WBEE bounce back in the next book, taking back some of the audience they lost to WRMM in the christmas season.

 

[Savage]

Okay, I've got to "weigh in" here, Bob1370-style. If you check my most recent photos on WYSL's site you will see there is no "excessive weight" whatsoever, so I resent that comment. And, Bobster: okay, I surrender. I'm having two more towers FedEx'ed in and I'll get 'em up this weekend. The Nautel will reduce to 5kw for nighttime. Is Tuesday night okay for you?

 

[watchdogg]

But there is nothing wrong with looking at a station's total audience.

Agree wholeheartedly with Philip and Bob regarding 12+ — what's wrong with looking at what MOST listeners listen to MOST of the time?? (Let advertisers worry about 25-54.) Plus, star13 shows obvious bias from inside Entercom walls. Star, your michaeldoyle is showing.

 

[star13]

Yes, watchdog, you have have a point, however; it's not only the advertisers who care about 25-54 or 25-49. Most airstaff bonus in that category. I can tell you from my arena NO ONE cares about 12+. My Doyle is looking rather fabulous wouldn't you say :

 

[Call Me Sherlock]

Bob1370, as a frequent reader of this board I enjoy your posts and insights into radio in Western New York.

From time to time you referred to your days at WAXC. Recently, while referring to the new ratings you wrote "We used to see it at WAXC and the old BBF used to see that cycle too".

As someone who was intimately involved in WAXC's beginning, and stayed longer than I should have, I'm curious. When and how long were you there? And, was it really long enough to observe any cycles such as the one you mention?

 

[Savage]

Hey, guys, a footnote to WYSL's being a perennial no-show in Arbitron: it's interesting to note that according to our internet streaming vendor, warpradio, WYSL had in December - 4883 web listeners, racking up almost 9000 hours of cumulative listening, with an average TSL exceeding 90 minutes. This isn't a "calculation" or, as Arbitron would call it, an "estimate." It's a simple electronic tabulation of stream useage with no interpretation or diary editing necessary. Yet Arbitron insists we have no listeners. Not with 20,000 watts. Not with Laura Ingraham and O'Reilly, with proven ratings track records in hundreds of other markets. Not with over a hundred different advertising clients on WYSL who get results from their schedules on the station. So, we are to believe that live on-air listeners avoid the station in droves, never listen but somehow respond to the ads we run, call the station about programming on a daily basis - yet internet listeners inexplicably find us?? Is this flunking the "smell test" for you as well as us?

 

[Bob1370]

"Is this flunking the "smell test" for you as well as us?"

Yes. It's showing up a significant flaw in Arbitron's methodology, seriously undercounting the areas where WYSL has traditionally been most competitive. I've talked about some things the station could feasibly do to overcome that flaw, but one thing I didn't say is anything about the programming--the station does a good job of tailoring its programming for its intended audience, and seems to be able to satisfy its advertisers that this translates into good results for them. In the end, that's what matters most....

 

[rochestermediamonitor]

anyone remember what kind of numbers O'Reily and Ingram pulled on WROC when that station failed miserably with them?

 

[Mark_Giardina]

anyone remember what kind of numbers O'Reily and Ingram pulled on WROC when that station failed miserably with them?

Are you referring to Laura Ingraham and Bill O'Reilly? If so perhaps you should first learn how to spell their names, don't ya think? [EDIT]
First off I am speaking for myself and not the owner or management of WYSL, when I respond to your question that I have no idea how both those talk shows did on WROC-AM and neither do a lot of other people when one takes into consideration how many format changes 950 AM has undergone over recent years. The only changes I can remember is Alan Harris leaving WHAM to do a morning show on WROC-AM, only to have Harris replaced with Air America a few years later. And now even Air America shows have been cut back on that station. So who knows what will be airing on 950 next week, next month or next year?

On the other hand this month WYSL celebrates its 20th anniversary on the air. And for those two decades WYSL has remained a news and information station. You may not remember this but WYSL was the first Rochester station to introduce Rush Limbaugh to local listeners.

Both O'Reilly and Ingraham have a huge nationwide following and given time I believe that they will build an audience here in Rochester. At least they have a better chance with a station that has maintained its format for two decades versus one that is still struggling to find its identity.

Again I am not speaking for the owner or management of WYSL but myself. I state this because I work part-time for the station plus I've been around the Rochester market long enough to see more format changes than my granddaughter goes through diapers.



[vulgar]

 

[Element9]

Hey Noah Webster, lighten up on the spelling issues for Cripe's sake. You're beginning to look like Radknowski, who thinks he writes for the NY Times. We've all authored a few posts with some spelling errors, errors in syntax and grammar. Give it a break, unless you want to be known as Mark Kvetchmann.

Oh, and in case you didn't notice, the word schadenfreude was hyperlinked to Wikipedia in my initial post, so it didn't have to be defined. BTW, it's also linked in this post, just in case you missed it... offset with a pretty shade of green.

WYSL is a good radio station. WXXI as well.

If any of us thinks we're indispensable, I suggest sticking a hand in a bucket of water, pulling it out and taking a look at the impression that remains... right, there isn't any. Life goes on within you and without you. We're all in this game together.

-9-

 

[Mark_Giardina]

Just so everyone doesn't think I dropped the F bomb or something similar, the edited word was [EDIT], which I noticed was not removed from other posts including the one from the person who originated it on here. So much for selective censorship.





[vulgar]

 

[Radknowski]

Hey Noah Webster, lighten up on the spelling issues for Cripe's sake. You're beginning to look like Radknowski, who thinks he writes for the NY Times.

Actually, it's the NY Daily News, Building Design + Construction or maybe Mad magazine.