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Spring 07 Part 2 Ratings are out

T

toddjammin

WDVE, KDKA and WDSY remain at top again. Star is going down the toilet with their ratings. I didn't think it was possible for the zone to do worse than K ROCK. 93.7 ratings have hit an all time low. I really thought they would have went up a little bit with Paulson and Macyapper.

3WS is doing very well with the 60's, 70's and 80's format as their numbers continue to climb. Bob FM went down slightly again. It looks like the format did peak. Wish FM remained about the same, where WAMO and Kiss FM saw a slight increase in numbers. WLTJ remained steady.
 
I say give 93.7 another quarter to rebound, even if it's a very slight gain or even unchanged. If it's down again, maybe it's time to change... yet again.

I knew Bob was going to eventually go down...it's a novelty format. The same is going to happen with every other Variety Hits station on the dial. Here's why...after a couple of books, then the playlist starts tightening again, depending on the trend. The so-called "Variety" is nowhere near the volume it used to be.

Any gain for WAMO has to be positive. They've never really been on the winning end of a book in Pittsburgh.

With WLTJ and WISH, it's going to continue neck-and-neck for pretty much the rest of their existence.
 
I would guess that 3WS has also improved demographically with the "modernizing" of the music. Hats off to them, because a lot of erstwhile oldies stations haven't been able to make the transition.

If Paulsen isn't getting any numbers at the new stop, I suspect this may play out like the Bogut scenario did when he left KDKA for WTAE. The big numbers had more to do with the station than they did with the individual. Paulsen is a talent, no question, but he's not any success away from DVE.

McIntire has never had ratings anywhere, so it's not a surprise if he's failing.
 
And the 12+ numbers probably aren't the story on th Zone. If the demos are getting a little more focused they'll take that right now.

Two months into baseball season the numbers at 104.7 are declining.

Another down month for Bob. It will not turn around.
 
Looks like there will be more flips in the future for CBS Radio. Zone and Star could both become extinct and will both probably be extinct this time next year. Another bad sign for The Zone is that 104.7's numbers have dropped. I know they talk about different stuff and it's comparing apples and oranges, but it's a bad sign for talk radio.

I still wonder what WAMO's numbers would be if an Urban AC station operated in Pittsburgh? WAMO has never had to worry about their station doing anything because with the exception of The Beat, they have had a monopoly on urban radio. An urban station that skews an older demo might work. I say might, no guarantee whatsoever.

Paulsen is a good radio talent who was helped tremendously by the fact he was on air with WDVE. I got to agree with Boss Radio on that point. And as for the rest of The Zone line-up, not much in the way of huge ratings winners. Maybe it flips to hip-hop or Sophie. Who knows?

The time for Star to go 100% CHR is now. Anything to stop the bleeding that is occuring inside of Foster Plaza.

As for Bob, Wish, WLTJ, and 3WS go, 3WS is a huge surprise and they will ride that prized pig all the way to the fair. WLTJ has been the same since I was a freshman in High School over 15 years ago. Wish has slightly changed over the years, but will stil hold ground amongst all of the soft rockers. Bob will steadily go down until the next novelty act comes through the terrestrial circus.

By the way, since when do "The Frogs" count in the ratings for Pittsburgh? Especially WOGH for that matter. I can't remember who posted it on what thread, but who would have ever thought that the former Rocky 103 in Steubenville would get better ratings than the former B94? Again, I apologize for not being able to give credit for the last statement, but I think it's a good one.
 
feeball said:
By the way, since when do "The Frogs" count in the ratings for Pittsburgh? Especially WOGH for that matter.
Click to expand...

At the risk of sounding like a Forever apologist, they count a lot more than you think. If a listener writes "Froggy" in a diary, it doesn't matter on which station they're hearing the format...Forever is still going to get the credit. There's no guesswork as to whom that credit belongs to. Same goes with Pickle. That, and the fact that Froggy has been one of the few stations in this market over the past 7 years that has been consistent. You remember the name of the station quite easily when you have cutesy names for jocks like "Pete Moss", "Ann Phibian", "Tad Pole", you get the idea. More people I know remember jock names like those than they would had they been using their real names or longtime sobriquets elsewhere.
 
Don't start predicting the Zone's demise yet. The numbers are a 3-month rolling average and the last month of K-Rock is still in there this time. If that last month was even a 1-share I'd be surprised. The scrutiny will come after the end of the fall book.
 
What is the time period of the winter book and the spring one? I'm wondering if 104.7's hit might be that it isn't political season?

Same happens every year to the sports stations. WEAE was almost twice what they were in football season as they are now.

I think a tip of the hat is also in order to WKHB for making the book!

As far as The Zone, I noticed when they put together that lineup they had a new station with old hosts.

I hate to criticize Scott Paulsen because I LIKE Scott Paulsen- and for that matter John Steigerwald, too- even though he does tend to run topics into the ground.

But if Paulsen and Steigy couldn't put a station with all the play-by-play contracts in the world on the map- and Mac has never been able to do anything- and O & A haven't gotten the audience in this market- for whatever reason- they have in other markets-

Then what makes a PD think they'll work on The Zone?
 
Then what makes a PD think they'll work on The Zone?

Maybe they were thinking all the advertising and promotion they did would help attract new listeners. ::)
 
Yeah, I thought that The Zone would AT LEAST be better than K Rock, however, it is still early for them but I think the format will be deemed a failure within a year or so partly because of the talent. As for Star 1007, why should they even waste the electricity of broadcasting if they aren't going to do anything to improve their station....

With BOB FM everyone is acting like BOBFM is doing terrible but actually in my opinion it is not doing too bad, however, I think their station ought to tweek their format and play a more variety of music and get rid of that creepy Bob in the first person thing (Bob was arrested at Station Square...etc...lol) Someone nailed it on the head by saying the station is getting old and you are hearing the same stuff over and over.

And I too am surprised with 1047's ratings. I thought the Pirates would boost their ratings but maybe it is hurting their ratings since a lot of the staple programs (Beck, Hannity, Savage) are being replaced with baseball.

One more thing, I am curious to see how successful Kiss FM's "Kiss Party Pot' is. They have been playing everything from Eminem to JJ Jackson to Michael Jackson to some Toby Keith songs. For those of you who don't listen that station, they run jockless and play 'party music' on and around holidays. I know there is no way to judge the ratings for that but I wonder if that would work as a format if someone were to try it..............just an idea.
 
Sahisko said:
Yeah, I thought that The Zone would AT LEAST be better than K Rock, however, it is still early for them but I think the format will be deemed a failure within a year or so partly because of the talent. As for Star 1007, why should they even waste the electricity of broadcasting if they aren't going to do anything to improve their station....

With BOB FM everyone is acting like BOBFM is doing terrible but actually in my opinion it is not doing too bad, however, I think their station ought to tweek their format and play a more variety of music and get rid of that creepy Bob in the first person thing (Bob was arrested at Station Square...etc...lol) Someone nailed it on the head by saying the station is getting old and you are hearing the same stuff over and over.

And I too am surprised with 1047's ratings. I thought the Pirates would boost their ratings but maybe it is hurting their ratings since a lot of the staple programs (Beck, Hannity, Savage) are being replaced with baseball.

One more thing, I am curious to see how successful Kiss FM's "Kiss Party Pot' is. They have been playing everything from Eminem to JJ Jackson to Michael Jackson to some Toby Keith songs. For those of you who don't listen that station, they run jockless and play 'party music' on and around holidays. I know there is no way to judge the ratings for that but I wonder if that would work as a format if someone were to try it..............just an idea.

I had suggested that to one of my buddies about an all party pod format. I like the idea, but I wonder if it would be too similiar to the jack and bob fm formats?
Click to expand...
 
Let me ask a question here.

In all honesty, if BOB tomorrow did a slight tweak of the playlist- and then advertised themselves as JACK (or TOM or HARRY or whatever)- do you think that would provide a boost?

Or would people see right through it?
 
Too late now. That sort of thing is has to come out of the box from somewhere completely different to have any effect.

And the "Party Pod" is clearly an attempt to dilute the uniqueness of Bob's format. If you can get that on two or three stations eventually there's zero "oh wow" factor.
 
In all honesty, if BOB tomorrow did a slight tweak of the playlist- and then advertised themselves as JACK (or TOM or HARRY or whatever)- do you think that would provide a boost?

For what it's worth, I think that if they did a slight tweak of the playlist - and then advertised themselves, period, that would provide a boost.

Those of you who actually work in radio need to get more contact with regular, ordinary people. You know, the kind of people who actually listen to radio. Your basic listeners doesn't give a damn what trademarked, brand-name format a station uses. They don't give a damn a station calls itself, Bill or George or even Sue. What they care about is the music. That's why they tune in.

If WRRK would tweak the playlist, then used advertising media to reach potential listeners with the message, "We fired Bob. Now we only play what YOU like.", they'd get a significant ratings boost. If they followed through with playing what the listeners like, including treating the entire middle of the day from 10:00 to 3:00 as one giant "electric lunch", with mostly all requested songs, I think they could turn into a major ratings powerhouse.

But that will never happen.
 
I actually like the "we fired Bob" bit. I've always felt that the Bob stuff was the biggest negative about that particular presentation.

Not sure how you could manage all-requests-all-the-time, because there has to be SOME consistency for people to want to tune in. If McDonalds menu was pot luck everyday and you never knew what you were going to get (even though all of the items on the menu were foods that SOMEONE likes), how do you think they'd fare?

The problem with "playing what the listeners like" as a blanket statement is no two are alike. So how do you figure out what the listeners like? Maybe do some research? A music test? Nah, too corporate. Let's just take random phone calls. The people who have time to call in all the time for songs are the ones our advertisers want to reach anyway, right?
 
All requests all the time has no chance in the corporate run radio world that exists these days. Between buying a pre-packaged format of music and the MD's and PD's removing songs they do not like or think their listeners will want to hear, the listeners are left with a jigsaw puzzle of mis-matched pieces.

And when stations have requests during the weekend, they are mostly b.s. I know that when K Rock had their On Demand Weekend it was nothing more than opening up the playlists to play different music to fill the hours of programming that became available from not having enough syndicated and specialty shows on the weekends. Even though stations make the claims that they play what you want, really they are still playing what management wants which is more important for job security.
 
Not sure how you could manage all-requests-all-the-time, because there has to be SOME consistency for people to want to tune in.

It's easy. All you do is pretend to be all request. Make sure that the request phones are busy most of the time, so if anyone calls they have a hard time getting through. Don't put a recording of the request in front of most songs, just have the DJ attribute the request to someone from somewhere. If someone does get through with a request that doesn't fit the rotation, promise you'll "fit it in if you can", then ignore it.

From what I hear Michelle play on 'DVE's "Electric Lunch", most of the requests are for songs that she actually puts on the are are off of their normal playlist anyway. Ask anyone who has ever called her and requested an off-the-wall song -- she rejects those requests anyway.

There's no reason why an "all request day time" would have to be any more real than the actual existence of someone named Bob.
 
Parttimer said:
Don't start predicting the Zone's demise yet. The numbers are a 3-month rolling average and the last month of K-Rock is still in there this time. If that last month was even a 1-share I'd be surprised. The scrutiny will come after the end of the fall book.
Click to expand...

I was predicting the demise before the format got started. It's a lot of talk from individuals who have worked for powerhouse stations (Paulsen with WDVE and McIntire with KDKA) or have failed (Dameshek and Steigerwald). I mention Shekkey because he was originally a part of the Adam Carolla show and was replaced by Danny Bonaduce. Also include the fact that O&A have next to no listeners and it's a recipe for no numbers. By the way, there is a good front page article on this site hinting that O&A might not even last the duration of their contract.
 
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