Treaure Coast Radio Ratings

[John FL]

The Treasure Coast’s latest radio ratings were FINALLY recently released. I say finally because the last report came out last January. A two-book a year survey has obvious drawbacks in that changes that take place at a radio station take considerable time to determine effectiveness or even the issues.

But, as was reported in the “Measuring Audience” string on this board, David Eduardo stated “Starting this year, Nielsen is going to do sampling all year long, and will issue monthly rolling averages of multiple months. This way, advertisers will have the freshest data rolled into older data at a much more frequent interval.” I’ll repeat that it will be beneficial to radio management in programing, and effectiveness of talent/automation that impact local direct billing.

The Treasure Coast radio market is quite interesting on a number of fronts. For the readers who are not familiar with the area, The Treasure Coast consists of the counties of Martin, St. Lucie, and Indian River and these are to the north of Palm Beach County in S.E. Florida.

Florida, as a whole, makes for interesting radio analysis. There are a number of areas of the state where growth is occurring at incredible rates. The Treasure Coast is one such place.

St. Lucie County, in particular, is seeing a big housing boom. We’ve toured “The Tradition” area of Port St. Lucie to visit with a number of friends and even former neighbors who have relocated there. In speaking to a number of realtors, it’s no surprise that retirees from the Northeast, especially New York, are selling their $700,000 and greater homes and buying Florida real estate for half the price. These are mainly baby boomers in their 60s and are called “Active Seniors” by the new community developers. What does that mean for local radio? Do these consumers exhibit behavior differ from conventional thinking of the advertising community?

If there is one station that I believe has the most to gain is iHeart Media’s Classic Hits 103.7 WQOL. Theirs will be an interesting strategy. While I acknowledge that Baby Boomers don’t all prefer older music, enough of them do. If these new transplants are looking for a WCBS-FM type station, WQOL is about as close as you can get.

As I recently reported, WQOL has slowly been adding 90s titles to their playlist but there’s still a good amount of older music as well. From a 25-54 perspective, it’s clear there is an attempt to attract younger listeners, but 55+ are out there in large numbers. But, I believe these “Active Seniors” don’t represent stereotype. They have disposable income and lots of it. For the right product, or service, sales resistance may indeed differ than what is experienced in other parts of the country. By the way, it's not just an area of St. Lucie County I'm speaking to. Vero Beach and Indian River County ranks #7 in wealth for Florida. Martin County is the third most affluent county in Florida. Both statics cite data from 2017.

With a market that does not rely on national advertising but rather local direct, I would think you'd agree music programing would require a more customized approach. By the way, WQOL is the #1 station in the market, at least for total audience. They’ve been in that position many times in the past.

WQOL also has a fantastic signal. At 50,000 watts, they can be heard in practically all of the Treasure Coast from around Hobe Sound in Martin County all the way to the southern half of Brevard County in Central Florida.

Clearly, there are stations that are at a disadvantage from a signal perspective. There’s also a number of things about the Treasure Coast’s ratings I don’t quite frankly understand. It’s worth discussing upcoming.

 

[John FL]

We continue with The Treasure Coast ratings highlighting a few stations.

WAVW-FM is another iHeart Media, 50,000 watt station, branded as “The Treasure Coast’s Country Station.” Overall, the country format does well in large areas of Florida. Typical of what we see nowadays, especially in smaller markets, are jocks who work at multiple stations. Some of the talent from sister classic hits WQOL-FM also have shifts on “Wave 92.7.”

It’s not something I like seeing but it’s reality. WAVW experienced a significant swing of share from the Fall ’17 book to the Spring ’18 book. I don’t know why that happened but I’ve noticed big swings appear to happen in diary markets more frequently.

WQCS-FM is tied in second place with the aforementioned WAVW-FM. WQCS is branded as “NPR for the Treasure Coast.” The station, I’m assuming, did not subscribe to Nielsen until the Fall 2018 book because there was no info before that. I have yet to listen to the station but I happen to like their news/talk programing. I enjoyed listening to “NPR” when I lived in Jacksonville. The Treasure Coast is mainly a conservative area yet the station seems to be doing well. Interesting. In the Miami/Ft. Lauderdale market, conservative talk tanks.

Adult Hits WJKD-FM (Jack FM) is another station that has had ups and downs in the various books. While I don’t personally care for the format and especially the presentation, I’ve read commentary and seen enough data to show that overall the format is performing well. This is a 50,000 watt signal owned by Vero Beach Broadcasters, LLC. For an area the size of the Treasure Coast, it’s no wonder Jack appears to be doing well here given the signal. I wouldn’t be surprised if this is the company’s most profitable in the cluster. There’s more than seniors who live in the area as well.

Jack’s sister station, WOSN-FM, is a Soft AC that is branded as “Lite and Refreshing 97.1 Ocean FM." When I first moved to the Treasure Coast over a year and a half ago, “The Ocean” was probably my favorite local radio station. As a subscriber to SiriusXM, my radio listening is spotty at best. But I still like checking out what radio is doing sometimes. I haven’t listened to WOSN in many months. Apparently, I’m not alone.

In the Fall of ’18 and the Spring of ’19, the station’s overall share was in the high 4’s. That placed the station very close to the top of the ratings pile. In the Fall of ’18, the station dropped almost 2 shares. In the latest book, Spring ’19, the station declined further and is currently in the low 2’s. Ouch!

Interestingly, I looked for cume information and could not find it. I’ve been so used to the PPM markets that I just assumed diary markets provided cume info as well. I would think it important to know how many listeners a station attracts in various demos etc. That would have to be the case but why no cume info? Maybe this will change in monthly reporting?

WOSN-FM is at 23,000 watts. In my first post, I talked about the growing area of the western part of Port St. Lucie. Here one of the major highways, I-95, veers extremely far west. Many of the growth areas are even west of that. Ocean FM would probably appeal to many of the “Active Seniors” calling the area their new home. From my own experiences, the station sounds a bit distorted the further west and south you go. Full-market signals have advantages.

I would think programing tweaks are in the making. Still, I wonder what happened.

In addition to my cume question, can someone explain why collectively all the audience shares tally up to around 30? While I understand not everyone subscribes to Nielsen, but still, something seems off.

 

[kc1ih]

WQCS airs mostly classical music on it's analog/HD-1 channel. The typical NPR fare is on it's HD-2. I don't know it the ratings number includes both?