Are there many instances of stations like these thriving in key demos? For example, 95.7 The Vibe in Kansas City for the longest time has not had above a 2 share in the 6+ numbers and back in 2010-2011, it got close to a 6 share. From what I know, their competitors Mix 93.3 and 99.7 The Point have a lock on the key women demographics, and both have higher 6+ numbers. The same goes for KROQ against their competitor in LA, they are struggling in the 6+ demo and are losing against a competitor who has a higher number. Your thoughts?
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Stations that sit at the bottom of the 6+ numbers.
- Thread starter tall_guy1
- Start date
Again, the classic case is WFAN which for well over a decade was never above 15th in New York City but it was always the #1 biller.
KROQ is a dumpster fire. It has no strong demo.
KCHZ is a rimshot FM. It has nearly as good a signal in Topeka as in Kansas City. Some of its issue are due to a less than perfect signal in all the metro... and 60% of the Kansas City metro survey area counties are in Missouri, at the edge of the signal.
I think there are public radio stations running formats like AAA and classical music that don't rank high in the ratings but attract generous donors, along with underwriter advertisers that wish to target a specific type of audience that is perceived as affluent.
To be fair, it is hard to comprehend a company like Nielsen knowingly releasing meaningless numbers, and even harder to believe that there are entire websites that get much of their click-through from publishing meaningless rankings based on those meaningless numbers. I've come to understand, but it took a while. Now if I can just figure out the meaning of life, I'd be all set.
"6+" is easy to understand. Americans have a fascination with top this-or-that lists. From sports to Consumer Reports rankings of blenders, we like to see things scored and ranked.
Arbitron and Nielsen both saw that releasing data to the press enhanced the recognition and value of their services. Back when newspapers had radio columns, we got local ratings data. And the ratings companies realized that name recognition was a good thing.
Some of us believe that part of Arbitron's eventual victory over Pulse and Hooper was due to the release of 12+ data. The more we heard about Arbitron , the better it seemed. Along with Arbitron's sales focus on buyers, not stations, they eventually drove all competitors out of the market.
And "life"? Still working on that one...
But lists of the NFL's top 10 all-time quarterbacks or this year's top 10 SUVs are subjective, and everyone accepts that. Radio ratings are published as data. People who read them and don't know about the "inside baseball" that industry folks know about believe that a station ranked second at 7.2 is more popular and more successful than a station ranked seventh at 3.3. But the reality is that the 3.3 station could be raking in healthy ad revenue because all of its listeners are 25-44 Hispanic females while the 7.2 station is destined for a format flip because nothing but 55+ white males are listening. And now, problems with sample size and weighting are making the very numbers themselves untrustworthy. That No. 7 station might actually have the third or fourth most listeners but no one can know for sure because the system is broken.
As I said, it's all hard to wrap one's head around if you haven't had the realities beyond the raw numbers explained to you -- repeatedly -- by someone in the business. And even then, much of your take on the Nielsens comes across as "2+2=5" or "Up is down."
Yes, that is an important point. However, the deeper you go into lower income groups and among both Hispanics and Blacks, the name recognition declines.
What seems to be difficult to comprehend, is that 6+ ratings are not an indication of revenue, let alone 'success' of a station. For any rated station, revenue is ultimately the King, and how stations stay in business. Other than the success of WTOP in Washington D.C., there aren't published rankings of all markets for individual station revenue nor cash flow.
The answer to @tall_guy's question is yes, absolutely there are stations that you see in the bottom of the ratings which do well. One such example is a talk station I worked for in the 2000s. We usually had a 2 share in the total day numbers, but did very well in PM drive, especially among men.
PM drive was the only local talk show of any station in the market and it was vastly more popular than our second and third tier satellite shows the rest of the day.
PM drive was the only local talk show of any station in the market and it was vastly more popular than our second and third tier satellite shows the rest of the day.
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