Tampa Ratings March 2025 - What Happened To The Vibe?

[DToTheJ]

After finishing second in the ratings mere months ago, WTBV now sits in 10th place.
How bad is it? FLZ is beating them.

And how about 98Rock, trending up from 3.5 to 6.3 in third place. And it isn't even Buccaneers season yet!

The Dove is tops of course, but watch out, because Joy is breathing down your neck!

The Beat still has a weak pulse, still at an 0.9, good for 22nd place.

Tampa/St. Petersburg

Nielsen Audio PPM Monthly Ratings Tampa/St. Petersburg/Clearwater (Market #16) Population: 3,006,600 Black: 370,500 – Hispanic: 627,100 Average Quarter Hour Share for Persons 6+, Mon-Sun 6AM-Mid All ratings are Copyright © 2005-2024 The Nielsen Company. All rights reserved. Nielsen radio...

radioinsight.com

 

[billalm]

The Beat is a Bradenton / Sarasota signal. It will never get more than a 1.0 or so in the Tampa Bay ratings. Rumba on 95.7 is finally making some headway, and that's the story here when referring to The Beat which is now on 106.5. Maxima has been trending down and El Zol isn't doing much. I'm guessing 98 and 93 are spinning more gold tracks to target older demos. As for the Vibe, the novelty must have worn off with those listeners who aren't necessarily the target demographic. I'd be willing to bet they're still doing OK in certain demographics.

 

[Gregg.]

Cox has an Urban AC at #1 in Miami (WHQT) and an Urban AC at #1 in Orlando (WCFB). So we have to wonder why Cox, or anyone else, waited this long to introduce Urban AC on a top-notch, full-power signal in Tampa.

It's odd how WTBV dropped from #2 in January to #10 in March. Maybe it's novelty has worn off, as billalm suggests. Or maybe the people meters didn't get placed in homes that like Urban AC? Let's see how it does next month.

WDUV is quite amazing. Its cume is more than 700,000 listeners each week. Nobody comes close. WMTX is next with a cume just over half a million. I remember being in the market some years ago. I heard the Dove coming from a car in a supermarket parking lot. The driver turned out to be a middle aged African American man.

 

[Kent]

Cox has an Urban AC at #1 in Miami (WHQT) and an Urban AC at #1 in Orlando (WCFB). So we have to wonder why Cox, or anyone else, waited this long to introduce Urban AC on a top-notch, full-power signal in Tampa.

Tampa Bay has a smaller African American population than the US population as a whole; Orlando and Miami do not. Urban AC has almost no appeal outside of African American females. That's why it hadn't happened until recently. Straight ahead urban appeals to a younger and overwhelmingly male demographic, but it's also usually more diverse.

It's odd how WTBV dropped from #2 in January to #10 in March. Maybe it's novelty has worn off, as billalm suggests. Or maybe the people meters didn't get placed in homes that like Urban AC? Let's see how it does next month.

I would guess those early numbers were TSL driven. Now that the newness has worn off, it's probably leveling down to about where one would expect it to be. Also, when stations change formats and new stations launch, people tend to surf the dial more frequently. That means stations, like the Vibe, tend to get listeners that they're not targeting and who don't stick around.

 

[RMarino]

Tampa Bay has a smaller African American population than the US population as a whole; Orlando and Miami do not. Urban AC has almost no appeal outside of African American females. That's why it hadn't happened until recently. Straight ahead urban appeals to a younger and overwhelmingly male demographic, but it's also usually more diverse.



I would guess those early numbers were TSL driven. Now that the newness has worn off, it's probably leveling down to about where one would expect it to be. Also, when stations change formats and new stations launch, people tend to surf the dial more frequently. That means stations, like the Vibe, tend to get listeners that they're not targeting and who don't stick around.

This is a great analysis. I would also add that when WTBV debuted, it leaned a little older and a little more mass appeal. Now the music has gotten slightly more contemporary and less familiar to the non-urban audience.

 

[davideduardo]

Tampa Bay has a smaller African American population than the US population as a whole; Orlando and Miami do not. Urban AC has almost no appeal outside of African American females. That's why it hadn't happened until recently. Straight ahead urban appeals to a younger and overwhelmingly male demographic, but it's also usually more diverse.

As RMarino said, a great analysis.

There are only a couple of markets where pseudo-Urban AC stations do well outside of the female Black audience: San Francisco and LA. But in both cases, the stations are unique musically and draw a huge Hispanic core and even a large non-Hispanic white group.