• Get involved.
    We want your input!
    Apply for Membership and join the conversations about everything related to broadcasting.

    After we receive your registration, a moderator will review it. After your registration is approved, you will be permitted to post.
    If you use a disposable or false email address, your registration will be rejected.

    After your membership is approved, please take a minute to tell us a little bit about yourself.
    https://www.radiodiscussions.com/forums/introduce-yourself.1088/

    Thanks in advance and have fun!
    RadioDiscussions Administrators

Rochester Ratings are in. WARM gets Cold.

M

Mark Giardina

Following the rules and regulation of this board by not posting the ratings all I can say is that they are out for Rochester. One thing that immediately caught my attention is the HUGE-JA drop in the 12+ numbers for WRMM.

With that station up for sale and these new rating numbers out, one has to wonder if WRMM will pull in the asking price its current owners want for it now that it's dropped in the spring book?


Oh yeah WYSL showed up in this book :D. Congrats to Robert Craig and the rest of the gang at the station.
 
Well Mark, you must be doubly thrilled. Both WYSL AND WBTA showed in the 12+ numbers posted at Radio & Records.

At first review, there appears to be considerable middling radio in Rochester with three stations in the 4 share range, two stations in the 3 share range and three stations in the 2 share range.

WBEE, down nearly two from a year ago, same period? That's worth looking into.

Whethersfield's Lake is up and pulls a 1.2 as does WNTQ out of Syracuse... and 97 Rock and Star show up... and there's WYRK too, with a 1 share!

So whatayaknow? Buffalo represents in Roch!

It doesn't appear they'll be doing the happy dance at Warm, CMF or PXY. The big story may be WDKX. Even with a limited signal, it's kickin' assets! Entercom's WBZA should be a dose of reality for the guys at WCMF as Entercom prepares to close its deal. Do you REALLY have to pay (including fringe benefits) that much for a morning guy, his sidekicks and the midday guy?

Doyle may see the 'CMF balance sheet in an entirely different light than some of that station's past managers over the last five years.
 
Years ago I used to research tunes in Rochester and it has to just grate the CBS crew that WBZA stole CMF's tight playlist from the 80's and 90's. Entercom did a great job of hijacking those songs and it shows in the numbers. WCMF made two mistakes. It overreacted to the old Rocket 95 cementing its path twords being a Classic Rocker and it banked on a morning show that, when it's gone so is the station.

You kind of get the impression that Wease is hanging around as a favor. Then again I can think of many who left over the years because the morning show and mid-days ate up all of the programming budget. And with WARM showing up anemic this book, in light of an ever increasing aging population, things must look a little bleak in Wease-Land.
 
My friends, radio isn't what it used to be, trust me.

Yes I am glad to see that WYSL did finally show up in the books, not just because I work there one day a week, but because RCS and company have put a lot of sweat and hard work into that place and they deserve recognition.

I agree there are no happy dances over at WRMM and WCMF. A while back we discussed these six-figure salaries that some people make. Perhaps when contract renewal time comes along there will be some "reassessment of salaries."

Why Syracuse and Buffalo stations made the book can be considered either a fluke, or that Rochester radio listeners are searching elsewhere for something different on the AM and FM dial.

What I would love to see is a break down over the years of how many people listened to radio say ten years ago compared to today. That would give me an idea if radio listenership is actually eroding as many believe.

Now I will wait and see how my former employer WXXI does when the non-com ratings come out. I'm willing to bet they will continue to average a 2 share 12+.
 
"Why Syracuse and Buffalo stations made the book can be considered either a fluke, or that Rochester radio listeners are searching elsewhere for something different on the AM and FM dial."

Out-of-market station liistening adds up to more than a 7% share of the 12+ AQH audience. That's high for any market Rochester's size or larger, and even higher when you take into account that each of these listed out-of-market stations (originating anywhere from 50 to 80 miles away) has, at best, only enough signal to cover part of the Rochester market. Rochester's not a place like Bridgeport, CT or San Bernardino, CA, a nominally separate market but a place where the big-town AM and FM blowtorches from the next market over can be heard like locals. People are clearly going out of their way to hear these stations from Buffalo and Syracuse. Or a lot of diaries got placed in the outer reaches of the survey area rather than in the city/near suburban core, as they have for several books running now--Arbitron could be changing their old patterns of diary placement to try to chase where they think the market growth is happening. Or, I suspect, some of both.

"What I would love to see is a break down over the years of how many people listened to radio say ten years ago compared to today. That would give me an idea if radio listenership is actually eroding as many believe."

Duncan Media and Bridge Ratings have each done studies on this on a national basis, although I don't know if there's a comparable local study. What we know on a national basis is that AQH use of commercial radio has been in a slow and steady decline since a peak in the 1989-91 period. AQH total use of radio for all commercial signals across America has gone from an average of 22% of Americans in a typical hourin 1989-91, down to roughly 19% now. That means that in any given hour on any day, 22% of Americans used to be listening to radio, but it's 19% today. Cume weekly ratings have NOT dropped significantly, which basically means that the AQH loss is a factor of lower time-spent-listening or TSL. People still will listen to some radio in a given week, but they just don't spend as much time with radio during the week as they used to--they now think they have better things to do with more of their time.

Another thing those same studies tell us, is that there is one demographic where radio use is REALLY down nationally--and that's the 12-24 cells. That's probably a big reason for weakness at PXY and Kiss...although WDKX is still pulling younger listeners in bigtime, they're the station of choice for younger listeners in the manner of WBBF or WAXC a generation ago.
 
Bob1370 said:
Another thing those same studies tell us, is that there is one demographic where radio use is REALLY down nationally--and that's the 12-24 cells. That's probably a big reason for weakness at PXY and Kiss...although WDKX is still pulling younger listeners in bigtime, they're the station of choice for younger listeners in the manner of WBBF or WAXC a generation ago.
Click to expand...

Good points are made in the post by Bob1370.

WDKX may be the shining light in the Rochester market for listeners 12-34's. But this may be small consolation, especially when the monoliths converge on advertisers. Far too frequently, 25-54 is coin of the realm. Not seeing the 25-54's it's difficult to project WDKX's success, though by virtue of the 12+ ratings, the station appears quite robust.

There is yet another issue that the post puts in play with mention of Rochester's WBBF and WAXC... and let us not overlook WHFM, which in it's time was quite the CHR FM, as peripheral player, WSAY.

At one time, not so long ago, Top 40, or CHR, was a haven for music of every music genre: From Tom Jones to the Rolling Stones, Top 40 played it.

Now, I am not so old as to say CHR doesn't do this sort of thing anymore, it's just that music styles are so dramatically polarized these days that CHR is no longer as broadly appealing as it once was, say as little as ten years ago. Today, for example, Country is a dominant 18-34 format and especially in the South, draws competitve shares in Teens.

Not so long ago Top 40 broadly and securely appealed not only to teens, but 25-54's as well. WKBW Buffalo and WBBF Rochester were ample proof in the 60's and 70's, and with KB, into the early 80's.

Today, the polarization and fragmentation of music and corresponding specialization of formats seem to preclude broad based appeal of CHR stations.

Anybody with kids in their household knows that kids don't go to radio for new music. In large measure, CHR, even CKEY and Kiss, is well behind the curve. High school and college students hold a certain disdain for radio in general and CHR in particular and I don't see the business doing much to turn this attitude around.

Maybe there are parallels in previous generations (i.e., the preference for progressive FM over top 40 AM in th late 60's and 70's) and it could be this attitude is cyclical, but radio has never been in a more precarious position when it come sto attracting 12-24 year old listeners.

Perhaps the PPM will shed new light on this issue and force radio pundits to reposition the conventional wisdom associated with the problem and solution.


-9-
 
Well, I like to think of WKSE as being indelible, but I'm in no hurry to speak the same way of wild Z101.

But what is really being said here?

Does this mean the new music format will be left only to the indigents of society to enjoy?

If this is true, perhaps eventually this will be applied to all radio as the teens and 20 somethings grow...?
 
Indigents?

What's being said is that broadcasters are ignoring teens, and even 12-24 because there are not enough radio advertising dollars there to bring a profit.

Today's teens are more tech savvy, have easier access to music from other sources, and are deeply into instant gratification. The low cost, small size, and easy portability of MP3 players are much more attractive than the cassette decks of the past. The fact that you can load music onto your MP3 player much faster than real time also makes it more attractive.

It remains to be seen how radio listening will be affected in the future. When today's teens start working and raising families, and time becomes more limited, downloading and trading music won't have the same priority that it does now. Many of them will be playing the same 30GB of music for years to come, or turning the radio back on because it's a convenient way to hear new music targeted toward them.

One of the things missing from many of today's radio stations is the perception that listening is a cultural experience that's shared by many people of a generation. There was a time that radio introduced music, catch-phrases, and other bits of pop culture to people. Now, radio is more of a follower than a leader in most dayparts.
 
This is radio-related, but did anyone happen to see a recent report on ABC News on how advertisers are now targeting my generation ( baby boomers)? The report said that baby boomers spend over 2 trillion dollars, far surpassing generation X Y or what ever they are called.

Maybe radio consultants will wake up and smell the roses that a majority of listeners are older people. Nothing against the younger generation, but they grew up without the benefits of hearing the type of radio programming that my generation did.
 
This is radio-related... did anyone happen to see a recent report on ABC News on how advertisers are now targeting my generation ( baby boomers)? The report said baby boomers spend over 2 trillion dollars, far surpassing generation X Y or what ever they are called.
Click to expand...

Two trillion dollars. Let's see, that's 2 followed by 12 zeroes. Amazing.

Sure, that's national pie in the sky money, but you'd think SOME, albeit a small portion of that comes from Buffalo, where the baby boom population is aging yet still very much alive.

Yet another BIG reason 1230 WECK should go Oldies yesterday.

Beatles, Elvis, Supremes, Stones, Four Tops, DC 5, Temptations, Beach Boys, Aretha, Rascals, Otis, Kinks, Shirelles, Roy... and the hits just keep on comin'!
 
There's a reason this format failed on 50kW KB. Maybe many reasons. Will baby boomers who've heard these songs on FM stereo endure hearing them in grainy AM on a 1kW signal that barely covers the market? Maybe those 60+ Elvis fans would listen, but it's hard to imaging somebody who's 50 listening to those hits on AM. That's a market for Sirius, XM or their own MP3 players. I think the "Oldies on AM" ship has sailed. But, if WJYE tanks... maybe, just maybe... nah. Won't happen. WJYE is too good an AC station.

-9-
 
Mark_Giardina said:
Maybe radio consultants will wake up and smell the roses that a majority of listeners are older people. Nothing against the younger generation, but they grew up without the benefits of hearing the type of radio programming that my generation did.
Click to expand...

Since my days in radio I'm now working for a very successful retail business, and the 60+ crowd are our best customers. As soon as the radio or paper ads are out they are the FIRST to respond. That means something to me.
 
Element9 said:
There's a reason this format failed on 50kW KB. Maybe many reasons. Will baby boomers who've heard these songs on FM stereo endure hearing them in grainy AM on a 1kW signal that barely covers the market? Maybe those 60+ Elvis fans would listen, but it's hard to imaging somebody who's 50 listening to those hits on AM.
Click to expand...

I never say never, but I think you are correct. Since "oldies" migrated to the FM dial many years ago it's hard to convince listeners to go back. The only music format that I think will still draw on AM is standards.

Since WJYE had a bad book I wonder if Regent would tinker with WECK now? Oldies or standards might further erode the adult numbers on WJYE.

Regarding WWKB failing with oldies, I think it has to do with our thoughts above coupled with the lack of visibility. In fact, I'm surprised WLKK does well because I don't really see it promoted all that much.
 
"Regarding WWKB failing with oldies, I think it has to do with our thoughts above coupled with the lack of visibility. In fact, I'm surprised WLKK does well because I don't really see it promoted all that much."

A couple things for what they're worth...KB actually started off rather well when it was relaunched, and if it later faltered, it was more a matter of promotional & marketing neglect, plus some initial miscasting in dayparts beyond mornings (Hank Nevins was best suited to doing middays live but started in afternoons, Armstrong was moved into drivetime and Sandy into late mornings a little late in the game, and they needed a late evening show to bridge from Armstrong to Reynolds). The promotional effort was really half-hearted as well. I remember one time, in the spring of 2003, when they set up a promotional booth at Fort Erie Racetrack just outside the slot parlor, but all it was was a couple of people with some flyers--when it should have been a full dress remote broadcast that would give people a chance to see some real live radio come together, along with some appropriate prize giveaways. Entercom knows how do do those remotes well--WGR does them effectively all the time, so do the stations in their Rochester FM cluster. The fact that they DIDN'T do that for KB but just went through the motions of a presence in the market with a bare bones display told me a lot about that station's likely prospects, and it wasn't good.

As far as WLKK, it may be picking up some classic hits and classic rock listeners by default as WHTT morphs itself back into the personality AC station it was 25 years ago when Ron Rice took it over from Stan Jasinski and family. (It was a pretty good station then, too...interesting to watch that frequency come full circle.) They may also be picking up listening in the outer counties of the market, since their signal is going to be stronger in the eastern and southern portions of the TSA than stations with transmitters in or near the downtown core or on the north side like WJYE, Jack, or WHTT.
 
Status
This thread has been closed due to inactivity. You can create a new thread to discuss this topic.


Back
Top Bottom