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The Spring 1 ratings

P

Pratte4Life

I can't believe I'm so excited about what amounts to a baseball score after the 3rd inning, BUT-

WDVE has replaced KDKA in the top spot.

WAMO did their best book ever. Naturally the format is changing.

WEAE went down from the Steelers spike but still is producing overall numbers comparable if not higher than when they were "The Mark Madden Station."

The new Mark Madden station is doing quite well and also reporting higher ratings than they have in years.

In fact, it seems there are higher ratings across the board, with a few exceptions (such as KDKA and WJAS).

Observations-

I never got the "BOB" or "JACK" format. It seems as if it's kind of fizzed out- it's enjoyed its peak and is now getting respectible but not outstanding ratings.

Similarly, for as long as we heard that the city's top problem was not taxes, people moving away, or pensions perhaps not getting paid but instead the fact B-94 had been turned into K-Rock, B-94 really isn't doing much. Of course- WBZW is probably a textbook case on how not to change formats- but regardless. Is that station now doomed to failure and No. 2 status behind WKST because CBS simply spent too much money with failed format switches so it will forever be a shadow of its former self?

Does this town love its talk or what? Stations 2 and 3 are talk. Is that unique to Pittsburgh or could we find talk stations in two of the top three spots in other markets as well?

Is country music becoming popular again? I blame the demise of the genre on the fact Nashville never embraced The Povertyneck Hillbillies myself. ;)
 
The total share for country isn't up, it's more like flat. It's a little tough to track, but the total of the 4 Frogs is down by about the amount Y108 is up. (I will say again, 98.3 would be the signal that should go Urban.... Keymarket would NEVER do this, but they could probably survive with the 3 rimshot Frogs and merge them with Johnstown, Altoona, and Meadville/Franklin).

B94 will never move the needle without a real morning show.

As far as KD goes, it's mostly a matter of the national conservative shows gaining some momentum again.

Plus, I was saying all along that the last book had an oversampling of older listeners. I think they just got a better sample this time.
 
Parttimer said:
Plus, I was saying all along that the last book had an oversampling of older listeners. I think they just got a better sample this time.
Click to expand...

That would seem to be supported by the otherwise inexplicable gain WJAS had in the last book.
 
Pratte4Life said:
Does this town love its talk or what? Stations 2 and 3 are talk. Is that unique to Pittsburgh or could we find talk stations in two of the top three spots in other markets as well?
Click to expand...

Sahnds like yinz in da Burgh likes ta git all nebby 'n B.S. n'at! :D
 
Fred- I'm a little surprised that's your conclusion.

Why wouldn't it be that Pittsburghers enjoy the open discussion of ideas and enjoy hearing information?

That's always been my attraction to the format since I was a kid.

It beats hearing "Southern Man" by Neil Young for the 20th time this week on WDVE.
 
Keeping with the why-is-talk-so-popular-here question, here's an essay I read this morning from All Access-

------------------------------------------------------------------------

This week, I'm at that convention I mentioned in the last column, and it comes in the wake of what seems like an industry-wide emotional downturn. Everyone's bummed about radio. You could see it in the reaction to every bit of bad news lately, from all the layoffs to the closing of R&R. People are truly depressed about radio, and some keep proclaiming that it's all over.

News, talk, and sports radio, in particular, is (are?) alive and there's a future. Maybe the future doesn't entirely involve towers and antennas and transmitters and FCC licenses, but spoken-word audio entertainment is something that still has relevance. It has a loyal following, it's a foreground medium, it can be terrifically interactive, and, when it's done right, it isn't easily duplicated.

I'll expand on that a little with an example. On Thursday morning here in New York, I went for a run in Central Park and took the radio. I ended up listening to sports radio and heard a discussion of the fans' treatment of Alex Rodriguez the night before. The host (okay, it was WFAN's Craig Carton) and callers did what sports fans do under the circumstances: argue. Now, you can get that kind of contentious sports coverage in the Daily News and the Post, but it's one-way and it's not as immediate, plus you can't take it out running or driving or bike riding. You can read it online; same restrictions. But you turn on the radio, the one you already own, the one that's free, and there it is. Moreover, it sounded like New York, from the callers' accents to their Yankee-centric view of the world. I'm not a Yankee fan -- I believe the correct terminology for my position would be "Yankee Hater" -- but I listened to the whole thing. It was something you can't easily get from other media.

You can find many more examples across the county, local and syndicated. And with more FM stations coming online with news, talk, and sports, a wider audience is being exposed to the formats; it's a safe bet that FM will extend the life of the formats at the same time that the formats extend the relevance of FM. (I alluded to it last week, but I'll be explicit about it now: My dream is that every market has a wide range of talk options, AM and FM, mainstream, lifestyle, sports, news, and permutations nobody's come up with yet. "Talk" is an umbrella description, but there's so much opportunity in spoken-word radio... and no music licensing fees)

Maybe someday soon, people will get most of their audio entertainment and information from ubiquitous streaming Internet audio, but, at heart, that's radio, too. And spoken-word radio's more ready for the jump: the interactivity of call-ins, and/or the loyalty of listeners to a host or station, create(s) the community that other forms of media are spending a lot of money trying to build from scratch. This kind of radio has it already. Add a decent website and social networking, and talk radio IS "new media." Music stations can't really say that, no matter how much they Twitter. And podcasts, although I'd argue that talk podcasts are pretty much talk radio too, aren't there hashing out last night's ballgame or breaking news with callers live the very next morning.

Look, I know that there are problems. A lot of it comes from the advertising downturn, and that's something affecting even new media. Nobody's immune from that. All I'm saying is that with all that's going on in the business, I just don't think it's time to pronounce the patient dead. As long as people are out there looking for a conversation, a voice to keep them company, some entertainment that doesn't involve a tune, some information, an argument... that's the format right there. I'm confident that there'll still be a market for it.


------------------------------------------------------------------------


FOR THOSE OF YOU WHO DON'T WANT TO READ ALL THAT- I'll surmise with this statement-

Some cynics try to say that Pittsburgh is behind the times culturally. I have always had some issue with that as have lived places where the culture is far, far more behind the times and, besides, if a place like San Francisco is cutting-edge culture I think I'm just happy with the way things in Pittsburgh are.

And Pittsburgh was late in getting things like an all-sports radio station and broadcasting Rush Limbaugh live. In fact, since Pittsburgh was late in getting popular syndicated hosts it probably helped the boom of 104.7 since so much national talent debuted at one time here locally.

But could Pittsburgh now be AHEAD OF THE TIMES with talk programming and its popularity here?
 
On the contrary...I think that talk radio does well here for the same reason that I could never make a move as a kid without ten people in the neighborhood who knew my family seeing it and calling my dad. It is a cultural feature of Pittsburgh that I think lends itself to talk radio more than some other cities, particularly on the local level.
 
I think you're all totally off-base about talk being more popular here.

I haven't done the research, but I'd estimate that the share for talk is within a couple points range in most of the top 30 markets. It's just that the pie might be sliced a few more ways.
 
News-talk stations are No. 1 in Los Angeles, Nos. 2 and 3 in Chicago, Nos. 1 and 3 in San Francisco.

It's far from a Pittsburgh thing.
 
that's not to say that the talk format in general is more popular here than elsewhere, but may explain why KDKA pulled ahead (Marty Griffin and Mike Pintek talking about local issues vs. national syndicated shows)
 
KD pulled ahead because very likely Arbitron had a bad demographic sample that had too many 55+ listeners. Sometimes the ratings are just flat-out wrong!!!
 
Bob in Pittsburgh does pretty well in the 25-54 demo very consistently. Often #3 or #4 ranking. Jack is in real trouble and being dumped in so many markets of all sizes. Even CJAQ in Toronto blew it up to go CHR. It doesn't appear that's the case with Bob around the country.

I also wonder if maybe talk does so well in Pittsburgh because KDKA does a good job. Just saying. KGO, KFI and other talk stations were doing well in diary methodology. They continue to do well in PPM...in demo. Soon there will be preliminary numbers with PPM in preparation for the switchover to currency in fall. We'll see how talk does then.
 
Remember that KD is a non-factor 25-54. The last numbers I heard for middays (last year) were that they had a 1-share in that demo.

In the long run, they will have to do something with KD or the age of its audience will just drag it right off the map.

A radical solution would be to take some key elements of the current AM programming to a new KD-FM on 93.7 (with some new elements to draw a younger audience), merge the B and Star on 100.7, and either do a second, mostly syndicated talk format on AM, sports, or even MOYL. The argument, of course is that KD bills too much to mess with it, but they might be able to cut overhead more than they would lose in revenue. Plus a lot of KDs current audience just listens to whatever is on KD, so you might not lose all that much in 12+ numbers.

AM is obsolete, far more so than analog TV, which just went away forever. Broadcast groups need to look forward.
 
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