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September Ratings?
- Thread starter redman58
- Start date
Surprise! As I often say: "It's not a hobby."
I disagree with the notion that the 105.7 signal is "very limited." The vast majority of the market's population lives within its predicted 65 dBu. The station earned respectable numbers as Wild 105.7. It also earned respectable numbers its first couple years with the Alternative format.
104.7, 97.1, and until recently - 95.5 - have had to deal with less than stellar metro signals. All receive good to outstanding ratings on a regular basis.
105.7 gets rotten ratings because the programming is milquetoast and because its intended audience has little use for terrestrial radio. End of story.
105.3 couldn't compete in the Urban arena?! Why not? I don't understand the logic behind that comment. I remember Hot 97.5 getting decent numbers prior to moving to 107.9, and 105.3's coverage is much better than that of 97.5! 105.3's metrowide coverage is also certainly far superior to that of OG 97.9, Streetz 94.5, and iHeart's own Real 96.7.
I say move Z105.3 to 105.7, move Real 96.7 to 105.3, and then flip 96.7 to either (a) a simulcast of 105.7, (b) a simulcast of AM 640, or (c) a Classic Country format. Heck, if iHeart is obsessed in clearing The Woody Show in Atlanta, plop the Alt format there.
So your solution to one low rated station is to blow up the cluster? Do you know how much money that would cost?
iHeart is not leveraging its assets to the best of its ability. My proposal fixes that problem.
To suggest iHeart only has one low rated station is a patently false statement, and my proposal doesn't disrupt 94.9 The Bull or Power 96 (the two bread winners) in any fashion whatsoever. My proposal helps their existing Spanish CHR, Urban Contemporary, and Conservative Talk brands in a very meaningful way by maximizing reach! Social media postings, press releases, on-air mentions, and maybe some billboards around town is all it would take. To suggest these moves would be cost prohibitive is ridiculous.
Disrupting one station can cause at least two to three months worth of lost revenue. You can't begin to sell the new location until things stabilize. So you want to blow up three stations, with three very different audiences. How much of the risk would you be willing to take? There's a reason why companies don't do this kind of thing.
The 70 dbu population for 105.7 is just under 2 million
95.5, 92.9, 94.9, 98.5, 103.3, 96.1, 101.5 and 99.7 all have between 4 million and 4.5 million in that contour. The total population of the metro is 5.7 million: 105.7 covers less than half with its 65 dbu.
The Fish is the kind of station people will make an effort to hear even in fringe areas. 97.1 has 50% more population coverage than 105.7, and although it misses part of the market, it has a strong format.
105.7 has a half-market signal and a format that has few consensus songs. Alternative is highly fragmented and polarized, so no matter what you play, 2/3 of alternative fans will not like it. It's also not an advertiser friendly format.
Streetz was located right in the center of the HDBA areas, while WRDA is far to the north. It would not hold up to the better HDBA signals of the main competitors. In any event, WRDA is billing more than any of those small or distant signals billed... combined!
Changing format means losing most of about a year's worth of revenue and with no guarantee that the change will do any better.
And WBZY bills well for a station that only puts a 70 dbu over 18% of the market. It's not moving in the way you suggest.
I guess you believe keeping formats & signals misaligned is a smarter strategy than placing existing brands on the signals where they are likely to see the most ratings success.
This isn't rocket science.
Step one: Blow up Fault 105.7 and simulcast Z105.3 on 105.7 for two weeks with frequent on-air announcements directing 105.3 listeners to reset their presets to 105.7. Change branding to Z105.7 immediately. After two weeks, Z's exclusive home becomes 105.7.
Step two: Once Z completes its move to 105.7, simulcast Real 96.7 on 105.3 for a couple weeks directing 96.7 listeners to reset their presets to 105.3. Change branding to Real 105.3 immediately. After two weeks, Real's exclusive home is 105.3.
Step three: Once Real completes its move to 96.7, debut 96.7's new format (whether that means a 640 simulcast, classic country, Alt, or something else).
There have been multiple stations in Atlanta that have changed FM dial position over the past 20 years. It's also happened in San Francisco, Denver, Salt Lake City, Cleveland, Detroit, San Diego, Las Vegas, Houston, Boston, Portland, Tampa, Greensboro, Albany, Pittsburgh, Austin, Dallas, Oklahoma City, Kansas City, and St. Louis. Are those enough examples, or do you need me to name more?
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There have been multiple stations in Atlanta that have changed FM dial position over the past 20 years. It's also happened in San Francisco, Denver, Salt Lake City, Cleveland, Detroit, San Diego, Las Vegas, Houston, Boston, Portland, Tampa, Greensboro, Albany, Pittsburgh, Austin, Dallas, Oklahoma City, Kansas City, and St. Louis. Are those enough examples, or do you need me to name more?
A large number of the frequency swaps you mention have been motivated by actual station sales which required the owner(s) to realign signals in accordance with today's ownership caps and the loss of a number of grandfathered situations.
For example, Entercom had to sell a station in San Diego. It spun off the North County Class A that simulcast KSON, which had little signal in that growing area. So, since KSON was and is a billing leader, they moved KSON to one of the best signals and put the format from that frequency on the old KSON channel because they felt that North County was less important to it.
And still KSON lost numbers and took about 6 months to get back. In the meantime, they had to adjust rates downward to meet agency CPP goals. In the long run, good planning. But in the short run, very expensive.
There is no indication that any of the moves you suggest will result in greater sales. So there will be 6 to 12 months of lost revenue, with no prospect of greater billing in the future. Result: net loss. A very bad risk.
To David Eduardo - published market revenue data is usually one to two years in arrears, is it not? 105.7's ratings have been in free fall since then.
Existing advertisers of Z105.3 are not going to suddenly cancel their buys if the station moves to a signal that is better suited for its target audience. Similarly, existing advertisers of Real 96.7 are not going to suddenly cancel their buys if the station moves to a signal with wider population reach (as well as a somewhat better core Atlanta signal).
True, the Alt 105.7 revenue stream would be lost, but I suspect the real revenue number generated by that station is much less than whatever the last published figures suggest. The "Real" brand would have potential to make a significant impact in the market if upgraded to a better signal. Over the long haul, I believe iHeart would be much better with "Real" on 105.3 than with "Alt" on 105.7. African Americans are much more loyal to FM radio than the type of listener Alt attempts to reach.
Existing advertisers of Z105.3 are not going to suddenly cancel their buys if the station moves to a signal that is better suited for its target audience. Similarly, existing advertisers of Real 96.7 are not going to suddenly cancel their buys if the station moves to a signal with wider population reach (as well as a somewhat better core Atlanta signal).
True, the Alt 105.7 revenue stream would be lost, but I suspect the real revenue number generated by that station is much less than whatever the last published figures suggest. The "Real" brand would have potential to make a significant impact in the market if upgraded to a better signal. Over the long haul, I believe iHeart would be much better with "Real" on 105.3 than with "Alt" on 105.7. African Americans are much more loyal to FM radio than the type of listener Alt attempts to reach.
Here's what the regional VP would say to the market GM: Show me P&L on each station, and your 6 month financial plan with how you'll make up for the losses during the transition. I don't care about programming. I care about money.
Market data is at most from last year. And stations in the market have monthly MK data, too.
Agencies often will. Some direct accounts will, or will ask for a big discount. They know a frequency shift will cause big audience losses for a while... or even forever. It always happens.
Same answer as above. Some will, some won't, and most will want to wait and see. It's not as if the market did not have alternatives to buy.
The format has billed around $2 to $2.5 million a year for the last decade. It has actually been up in the last two years. It has a local account base that has customers in the lifestyle, and they have been consistent.
With all the options, African Americans are no more loyal than any other listener group. "They" used to say that Hispanics were loyal... until many markets got 4, 5, 6 or more stations in Spanish and proved that the supposed loyalty is fictional.
And Alt has a niche of its own. Urban is a highly fractionalized format, and no agency buys 5 deep in the format. They might get less listening and revenue than with Alt, and the signal is not as good in the HDBAs where most of the AQH listening comes from.
And as BigA says, it's about "Show me the money" and I don't think the numbers will make sense.
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Are you talking about The Beat? The Beat is 96.7.
And it bills about $25 k a month to Alt's $200 k.
It didn't occur when Hot 97.5 moved to 107.9, and it didn't occur when Q100 moved from 100.5 to 99.7. To say "it always happen" contradicts empirical evidence.
Yes. Sorry about that. The station uses the same logo as iHeart's Real 92.3 in Los Angeles, Real 98.3 in Indianapolis, etc, hence my confusion.
Naturally, The Beat bills poorly. It's on a marginal signal.
$2 million to $2.5 million a year in billing is respectable for a station whose ratings are as poor as 105.7's, but in the context of the overall Atlanta market, those numbers are weak. Surely a better option exists, even if that option isn't necessarily Urban.
Personally, I think it is unwise for a company as prominent as iHeart to not offer an Urban format on a decent signal in a market that is so consequential to hip-hop and R&B music in general. African Americans are more loyal to FM radio in general than white listeners. All one has to do is study ratings data for a couple minutes to reach that conclusion. TSL is usually very strong on Urban Contemporary and Urban AC stations.
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Let's see. WWWQ moved one week into the Winter book, and moved from a signal with a city grade reaching 2 million people to one reaching 4.4 million. It went from a 2.5 in the last pre-holiday book to a 2.8, despite increasing coverage by 60%. I'd say that was a decline; I'd even go so far as to say it was a colossal fail initially.
Of course, we can't evaluate the period after Spring of 2008 as the market switched to the PPM.
As to WHTA, it moved in November of 2001. The Spring and Summer '01 books were a4.4 and a 4.3. In Fall, when they swapped, they went to a 3.3, recovering in Winter 2002 by a bit to a 3.8 and then finally getting back to the Spring 2001 level in Spring of 2002. So they lost numbers, rank and billing for a 6 month period, proving how moving around on the dial takes four to six months to recover when signals are more comparable.
TSL is a function of alternative choices. When there are many Urban voices, like Memphis for example, the TSL for Urbans looks no different than in general market situations. And radio is not sold on TSL, it is sold on rating. And Atlanta already has 4 strong Urban / Urban AC's, and, as I said, nobody buys urban 5 deep. Add in the fact that the 105.7 signal is nowhere as strong in the HDBA areas and it's obvious that that signal would not do as well as the other four. On the other hand, with alternative, they have a unique format that listeners have no better signal choice for... it's an optimum use of a poor signal that does not even city grade 50% of the market and misses the HDHAs ever more.
All I know is 105.7's current 1.1 share is the worst AQH share that signal has seen in many, many years.
We'll have to agree to disagree on what you describe as Q100's "fail." Clearly, long-term, it was much better for Q100's health & viability to be on 99.7 MHz than on 100.5 MHz. Those NE metro and far northern metro listeners who couldn't hear Q100 well when it was housed at 100.5 MHz likely weren't listening to 100.5 MHz as "Q100" in the first place. The vast majority of Q100's audience who enjoyed the station at 100.5 MHz likely made the switch to 99.7 MHz immediately.
To suggest a long-term strategic programming choice should automatically be rejected because of short-term turbulence is unwise, IMO. Should careful evaluation be made in advance? Yes, absolutely. It's a decision that shouldn't be made hastily.
I do need to clarify a point in my earlier post:
In the above context, I'm of course referring to my earlier proposal to place Urban on 105.3 and relocate the Spanish CHR format from 105.3 to 105.7.
Another option I'd support, which involves fewer changes overall, would be to simply dump Alt from 105.7 in favor of Classic Hits or Variety Hits (keeping all other iHeart signals as-is).
We'll have to agree to disagree on what you describe as Q100's "fail." Clearly, long-term, it was much better for Q100's health & viability to be on 99.7 MHz than on 100.5 MHz. Those NE metro and far northern metro listeners who couldn't hear Q100 well when it was housed at 100.5 MHz likely weren't listening to 100.5 MHz as "Q100" in the first place. The vast majority of Q100's audience who enjoyed the station at 100.5 MHz likely made the switch to 99.7 MHz immediately.
To suggest a long-term strategic programming choice should automatically be rejected because of short-term turbulence is unwise, IMO. Should careful evaluation be made in advance? Yes, absolutely. It's a decision that shouldn't be made hastily.
I do need to clarify a point in my earlier post:
In the above context, I'm of course referring to my earlier proposal to place Urban on 105.3 and relocate the Spanish CHR format from 105.3 to 105.7.
Another option I'd support, which involves fewer changes overall, would be to simply dump Alt from 105.7 in favor of Classic Hits or Variety Hits (keeping all other iHeart signals as-is).
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We don't know that. Within 6 months of the change, the PPM became currency and we know that high cume stations did much better in the PPM than in the diary, which favored TSL based stations. So the CHR format on that station naturally did better, but the launch on the bigger frequency was not a success.
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Someone would've come in and squashed Q100 like a bug had it remained on 100.5 MHz. Being on a 100 kW blowtorch helped make Q100's long-term growth possible.
99X's ratings were atrocious; they were losing to 105.3 The Buzz in Men 18-34.
I would argue The Buzz's conversion to Project 9-6-1 was less of a success than Q100's shift from 100.5 to 99.7. In key demos, Project only did a little bit better than 105.3. Clear Channel probably figured a chunk of the legacy 96Rock audience would stick around. They were wrong.
The irony is if Q100 had never upgraded to 99.7 MHz, the company known at the time as Clear Channel probably would've left The Buzz on 105.3 and probably would've flipped 96.1 to CHR/Pop.
99X's ratings were atrocious; they were losing to 105.3 The Buzz in Men 18-34.
I would argue The Buzz's conversion to Project 9-6-1 was less of a success than Q100's shift from 100.5 to 99.7. In key demos, Project only did a little bit better than 105.3. Clear Channel probably figured a chunk of the legacy 96Rock audience would stick around. They were wrong.
The irony is if Q100 had never upgraded to 99.7 MHz, the company known at the time as Clear Channel probably would've left The Buzz on 105.3 and probably would've flipped 96.1 to CHR/Pop.
It's been discussed here many times, and such a move would drive up the median age of the cluster. Once again, the goal is money, not ratings.
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