Still...............No Urban Outlet???

[ShawtyBlack_ATL]

I can't believe Pittsburgh is still without an Urban station. Most cities have 2 Urbans and 2 Urban AC stations. Whats the deal?

 

[california]

I would think Q 92 would be perfect for urban.

 

[Boss Radio]

The deal is there was one urban station and it wasn't making money.

 

[kenhawk1160]

Honestly, I'm surprised Sheridan didn't try an adult urban format before they put WAMO out to pasture. The hip-hop need is being met adequately by 96.1, though not on an exclusive basis.

 

[corporateradiosucks]

They had an adult urban format on 860.

An urban format will only be good here if it stays urban and doesn't veer into "well, you can dance to it, so that's urban, isn't it? This person had a black person playing a sax solo on their album, so that's urban, isn't it?"

 

[secondchoice]

They had an adult urban format on 860.

An urban format will only be good here if it stays urban and doesn't veer into "well, you can dance to it, so that's urban, isn't it? This person had a black person playing a sax solo on their album, so that's urban, isn't it?"

I hope you were just kidding. Having lived thru integration (60's and 70's) in the South, there is not place for “race” being a factor in American. Derricks Bentley (sorry, I think I misspelled his name) and Charlie Pride in Country, and the great “John R” WLAC 1510 nights prove this. CHR, Urban, and even Hot AC or Urban AC sometimes have songs "that don't belong there," but are popular.

 

[secondchoice]

Honestly, I'm surprised Sheridan didn't try an adult urban format before they put WAMO out to pasture. The hip-hop need is being met adequately by 96.1, though not on an exclusive basis.

I know Radio One was having stock price issues and could not buy WAMO, but why a LMA was never worked out we will never know. WAMO did not have the deep pockets of Plough Drug Company or was the FM part of the cash machine WPLO (when 101.5 was still WBIE) to have the several years it took to develop a sales team like V103 Atlanta. V103 has “paid” for it’s self many times for it’s several owner since. Real sales professionals (not the number pushing order taking type) either have extensive local contracts or are experts at getting results with local merchants who are not satisfied with the local newspaper. It has been my personal experience that some of the station’s best sales people do not listen or even like the station’s music they are selling. I have not seen any numbers lately on the racial make up of the typical Urban station. It would surprise some of the non radio people how many “white” folks’ quarter hours are part of the typical Urban Station’s ratings. There is a difference in makeup of Pittsburgh and Atlanta’s market demo’s so you would never be #1 but you could “make a good living.”
IMHO 1250 AM could go Urban and do OK until FM completion. There is enough out of work air talent you could keep it local (easy), developing a sales team (hard and expensive). I wish I was young enough to LMA 1250 and try!

 

[corporateradiosucks]

I hope you were just kidding. Having lived thru integration (60's and 70's) in the South, there is not place for “race” being a factor in American. Derricks Bentley (sorry, I think I misspelled his name) and Charlie Pride in Country, and the great “John R” WLAC 1510 nights prove this. CHR, Urban, and even Hot AC or Urban AC sometimes have songs "that don't belong there," but are popular.

Apparently you didn't live here to hear Pgh FM's last attempt at an Urban AC. It started great but ended up playing things like "Believe" by Cher and some of George Michael's dorkier fare. My "black person" comment referred to GM. (And no, this wasn't the PD's fault, but the higher-ups' fault.) In other words, the soul went out of it, regardless of the color of the people singing. Maybe the songs were "popular" with the soccer moms of Pittsburgh but they were about as urban as the PA Farm Show, and had no place on a station designated an Urban AC. JMO.

 

[mc_billy_bob]

WAMO had to have been a bad business or something. Most ppl I knew who lived in Wash., PA or the Mon Valley listened to WAMO. I know that's not New York and Tokyo, but that's something.

 

[MsMusicRadio]

Pittsburgh has Doo Wop shows on 810, 770, and TL. Many of these acts were African-American. There must be an audience for some form of Urban music. Maybe Sheridan just screwed up and somebody else could do better?

 

[Parttimer]

WAMO had to have been a bad business or something. Most ppl I knew who lived in Wash., PA or the Mon Valley listened to WAMO. I know that's not New York and Tokyo, but that's something.

They had ratings, they couldn't sell it. Urban in general generates the least income per rating point of any format out there nationally.

 

[apostate]

Urban is a tough sell in this market to start with, but WAMO's sales staff was certainly lacking, especially in later years. They had some sales talent 20-25 years ago, but that changed.

There were certain "automatic" buys, a lot, but not all, of them national. As the market ranking continued to drop, fewer of those national buys came to Pittsburgh.

Kauffmann's did a ton of radio. Macy's doesn't roll that way. Others, like Giant Eagle, spent less on radio. Some of those were "automatic" buys.

The sales people didn't do enough direct business to make it work. PPM coming to the market wasn't going to help.

All that said, though, do we really think an 18-34 Urban audience is going to flock to an AM/LPFM playing censored, sanitized versions of the music? If that's where Martz goes with WPYT, good luck and I hope it works, for all concerned. I just can't see it being sustainable, though.

 

[Parttimer]

I'd bet his comments about Urban were a smokescreeen and he's going to do something completely different. As I've noted several times before, there are a number of national talk shows out there with numbers in other markets that are not carried here.

660 as a talk station could do very well, and the LPFM would primarily help them in winter drive times.

 

[danikayser84]

I'm sure one of the country stations (either on AM or FM) would rather be the only urban outlet in Pittsburgh than #3 or #4 in country (a similar situation exists in NYC with no country station in the market). Failing that, I suppose 96.1 Kiss FM could go urban (but that'd leave Pittsburgh without a CHR... think Star 100.7 would be willing to flip in that case?)

Here in Albany, our Urban outlet went Rhythmic because of 102.3 Kiss FM's change in direction, and the time Urban AC was tried in Albany (104.9 Love FM), it failed miserably.

 

[Parttimer]

I'm sure one of the country stations (either on AM or FM) would rather be the only urban outlet in Pittsburgh than #3 or #4 in country (a similar situation exists in NYC with no country station in the market).

There are only 2 country stations here. Froggy simulcasts on several signals.

Failing that, I suppose 96.1 Kiss FM could go urban (but that'd leave Pittsburgh without a CHR... think Star 100.7 would be willing to flip in that case?)

Kiss has been as high as #2 in the market this year. WAMO went out of business. Explain to me how that makes any sense at all.

Here in Albany,....it failed miserably.

So the reason it should happen here is?????

 

[OhioMediaWatch]

I can't help but think that a clone of Cleveland's WZAK (Radio One's urban AC powerhouse) would do well in Pittsburgh. But I don't know enough about the format to go beyond that initial thought, and I could be wrong.

Radio One can't get out of its own way sometimes, but WZAK is a perennial top station in Cleveland.

 

[Parttimer]

I can't help but think that a clone of Cleveland's WZAK (Radio One's urban AC powerhouse) would do well in Pittsburgh. But I don't know enough about the format to go beyond that initial thought, and I could be wrong.

Radio One can't get out of its own way sometimes, but WZAK is a perennial top station in Cleveland.

The Cleveland market is 19% African-American, the Pittsburgh market (according to the data posted on the ratings section of this site) is 8%.

I think that limits the amount of national money that would come to this market for the Urban format, although a national operator like Radio One or Clear Channel could leverage that better than a standalone like Sheridan could. And any format that has to survive just on local dollars in this economy is swimming upstream.

 

[OhioMediaWatch]

I think that limits the amount of national money that would come to this market for the Urban format, although a national operator like Radio One or Clear Channel could leverage that better than a standalone like Sheridan could. And any format that has to survive just on local dollars in this economy is swimming upstream.

Ah, that's what I didn't know, the African-American composition of the market.

Still, even at 8%, I agree...I think a large operator with other stations in the cluster could make a go of it.

 

[corporateradiosucks]

The Cleveland market is 19% African-American, the Pittsburgh market (according to the data posted on the ratings section of this site) is 8%.

Is that comparing like with like as far as the suburbs etc are concerned?

 

[Parttimer]

The Cleveland market is 19% African-American, the Pittsburgh market (according to the data posted on the ratings section of this site) is 8%.

Is that comparing like with like as far as the suburbs etc are concerned?

It's metro area vs metro area, as defined by Arbitron. So yes, it should be as "apples-to-apples" as you can get. And it's what the national ad buys are based on.