What the hell is going on with WTSS a 3.9 share? Sue o Neil needs to start getting concerned
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Star 102.5
- Thread starter CassChopper96
- Start date
In terms of on air staff yes they did. The stations ratings are sinking
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There are 4 " A" player stations : WYRK, WBEN, WBLK, WGRF- Exclusive formats all in common , 50,000 watt Full-Time FM's, Heritage
There are many "B" players that are with 1-3 shares of each other: WHTT, WECK, WMSX, WKSE, WBFO, WEDG, WGR, WBUF (this is where anything can move up or down at any time)
Then there are the Nether regions: WUFO, WXRL, WEBR, WNED, WLKK, WWKB, WWWS (these will not show much movement ever)
The horse race is with the "B" players.
I have never seen a time in radio that there are so many stations in the B group with 2-4 shares 12plus.
Cume is steady or down for B stations, Cume is steady to up for "A" stations
Weighting is huge. I was told that the "Older demo" is more heavily sampled, so weighing favors under 50 plus. I asked by younger people are not sampled as much as older.....no reply. My guess it that younger just won't take the time to fill out a diary.
For instance, WECK had a 2.7 raw quarter hours, but weighting dropped it. Edge had a 2.7 also, but weighting brought it up. all 12 plus
50 plus, the whole game changes...WECK, WHTT, WBEN, WGRF, WYRK and WBLK rule.
So frustrating. Just focus on revenue and everyone will be fine.
There are many "B" players that are with 1-3 shares of each other: WHTT, WECK, WMSX, WKSE, WBFO, WEDG, WGR, WBUF (this is where anything can move up or down at any time)
Then there are the Nether regions: WUFO, WXRL, WEBR, WNED, WLKK, WWKB, WWWS (these will not show much movement ever)
The horse race is with the "B" players.
I have never seen a time in radio that there are so many stations in the B group with 2-4 shares 12plus.
Cume is steady or down for B stations, Cume is steady to up for "A" stations
Weighting is huge. I was told that the "Older demo" is more heavily sampled, so weighing favors under 50 plus. I asked by younger people are not sampled as much as older.....no reply. My guess it that younger just won't take the time to fill out a diary.
For instance, WECK had a 2.7 raw quarter hours, but weighting dropped it. Edge had a 2.7 also, but weighting brought it up. all 12 plus
50 plus, the whole game changes...WECK, WHTT, WBEN, WGRF, WYRK and WBLK rule.
So frustrating. Just focus on revenue and everyone will be fine.
Entercom has been trimming staff everywhere. I doubt that is a factor in the ratings for STAR. Xmas Muzak kicks in any day now, not that it matters.
Latest report has WGR getting no uptick from Football season. WECK slides backward to a 2.4 in a virtual tie with JACK. 92.9 has the great signal, but very feeble ratings.
ALT Buffalo got a "Corporate Restructuring", but the product and ratings are still bad...
Remember, these are 12 year old plus ratings. Weck is top 7 35 plus. Christmas time is the only time star does well. Otherwise, it’s a nothing burger
You do realize this is Persons 12+
https://ratings.****************/content/arb037
A pretty damn good observation, especially as it applies to the "B" stations.
Dave Eduardo and a few others (cough) have been through the explanation of weighting more than a few times on this board. You take the population, the diary in-tab diary returns of the demo cells, throw in a little mathematics and presto! Diaries get weighted up and down all the time. It's all there in the Nielsen Programmers Package, with pretty colors and graphs, too.
https://ratings.****************/content/arb037
A pretty damn good observation, especially as it applies to the "B" stations.
Dave Eduardo and a few others (cough) have been through the explanation of weighting more than a few times on this board. You take the population, the diary in-tab diary returns of the demo cells, throw in a little mathematics and presto! Diaries get weighted up and down all the time. It's all there in the Nielsen Programmers Package, with pretty colors and graphs, too.
Weighting does not "favor" anything.
Example: If the market is 50% male and 50% female, but Nielsen gets 40% male and 60% female diary returns, all male diaries will be weighted up by 25% and all female diaries will be weighted down by 16.6% so that each gender group represents its true presence in the market.
The older group will generally return diaries at a higher percentage of placements. That is a known fact. So, since the 60's they have know to get fewer placement acceptances from 55+ than for, let's say, men 18-34 which is a notorious under-performing demo.
Nielsen knows, by experience, what the "normal" rate of returns is. So they do recruiting to try to get the returns on every stratification variable to match that group's presence in the market. But from week to week, with the diary, returns can be highly erratic so weighting is applied so that a group that got "over-sampled" does not sway the total results out of proportion to its real world presence within the group.
Nielsen does not under-sample younger demos. They have higher incentives to get diary returns, and they have additional procedures to get the harder groups to respond. And, overall, they over-recruit in the difficult demos to insure that the returns are as close to proportional as possible in a random probability sample.
Stations that research music do the same thing. If our target with an AC station is 60% female and 40% male, and we get 50% males in the music test, we simply weight down the male participants so that each one counts for less so that the total panel is balanced. The mathematical formula simply makes up for the respondent imbalance, creating perfect balance in the result.
It's way too soon to see in a diary market the results for any changes. Diary markets are 12-week periods, so the one just released is mostly in June, July and August with just a touch of September.
One of the things that has happened since consolidation is that clusters have determined that they can do very well with second tier performance. If a company has 5 FMs in a market, they may fight to own two of the formats that are "A" level, and accept "B" on the other three. That way they have some "must buy" stations that they can use to sell in combo with the second tier ones.
A good example is a company that owns a CHR and an AC in the same market where they can sell women 18 to 54 by packaging. Or a sports station and a classic rock station for men.
There are several combos of formats that result in must buy packages. And that is a less expensive way to do it than trying to make every station compete for #1 or going up against another company's leader in a format.
Good point. An example of a B station that does not get the revenue it should is WBLK. I have seen BIA KELSEY, and the power ratio is terrible.
WHTT which is the straggler between the A and B stations also has a horrible power ratio. The get very decent ratings but their revenue is laughable for the kind of ratings they get.
I understand the premise of using B stations to “ bring in buys “ and to make the cluster more attractive. To me, it’s a shame that the bottom feeder stations cannot put any effort into programming, to get these stations to even a 1 share. It’s really pathetic, and their companies just won’t sell them. They refuse to peel any off.
I looking at the past 10 months of ratings, a station that is a horse nobody bet on was WBFO. They are doing quite well. It must be nice to have a building that looks like the Taj Mahal, receive a combination of state and federal funds, able to ask for donations, and pay no taxes. That’s a pretty good deal if you ask me.
By the same token, they live under a lot of additional regulations (of what they can do and how they can do it) that commercial broadcasters would hate.
To your points:
1. In regards to WBLK: Back in the day, they did well enough to have a sales office in Toronto. The GTA didn't have a true urban station until 2001, when CFXJ-FM signed on as Flow 93.5. (Granted, CFXJ has been all over the place with formats since then; they've been Rhythmic Top 40 and classic hip hip before moving back to urban).
2. As for WBFO: The federal and state funds help, but they also get corporate underwriting as well as pledges from the listeners. Having a news department that can match WBEN's, as well as the fees to carry 'BFO's programming as well as general upkeep doesn't come cheap. I'd argue, too, that there's an audience out there that wants a more sane approach to news/talk than the yellers and screamers at 'BEN. 'BFO fills that niche. If you look at markets around the country, you'd be surprised as to how many NPR affils are doing well in their markets.
That is a good point. When I had a cluster of my own, I twice used the lowest rated and lowest billing signal to counter a station that was making headway in the market. By fragmenting them, my other stations retained their rank positions and the "portable" format station could bill based on combo selling with the other leading stations. It was a very win-win situation, and it kept the competition at bay.
Maybe Christmas music might help. I’m wondering if entercom sells both wtss and wkse as a combo. Star 102.5 is going to need a revamp after December. How does it do in 18-49
Regarding Christmas music, Star will most likely do what it normally does each year. The question is, how soon? And will one or two other stations follow suit? Just an educated hunch, but it may be that All Christmas is exactly what listeners are looking for in these trying, turbulent times.
KEZ in Phoenix has announced they will flip to Christmas on November 6, the Friday after the election.
The only good ratings star ever has is with Christmas music. That’s it. Other than that, people still call them rock 102. It’s a station with zero pulse, zero listener enthusiasm, and horrible results for many clients.
The star Christmas music , sweepers, jingles, and clock has been the same for 20 years. Zero effort. Just a mush mash of the same thing without any thought.
I worked overnight at WYRK for 10 years. 1986 to 1996. At the time , YRK invented their “continuous country Christmas “. This began about 4 weeks before Christmas adding a few more country Christmas songs each week, until the 36 hours of continuous Christmas.
I bring this up because while I was doing overnights, the PD and inventor basically of WYRK was Ken Johnson. I remember coming in at midnight to do my show , and Ken would still be there after a full day, then, he would stay sometimes til 5 in the morning, making sure every single element and song was handpicked and perfect. He did this year after year, not only at Christmas, but all year long.
Ken should be in the radio hall of fame ! That’s the kind of passion that built YRK to the number 1 spot for the past 30 years.
Trust me, no one is staying til 5 in the morning programming Christmas music at star. At least the breeze has a theme for more traditional Christmas music...star is literally a few hundred songs just scattered wherever in the selector system.
I have no sympathy for lazy PDs.
My PD glen Topolski works 24 7 on weck. He is on call constantly. Doing logs at 3am. Plus he has another full time job.
There are some really great pds in Buffalo. There are some very lazy ones. I am guessing you can figure out who is who.
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