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WAAF - what a mess!!!
- Thread starter MarkW
- Start date
My view is it's not the station, it's the genre. Quick! Name all the current rock stations that are higher in the ratings.
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Radio stations just play the music, they don't make it. The problem is the music isn't attracting an audience.
https://ratings.****************/cgi-bin/rol.exe/arb013
Radio stations just play the music, they don't make it. The problem is the music isn't attracting an audience.
Entercom would only sell if they could get a better signal.
For the moment, WAAF contributes a nice 2.0 25-54 share to the combo, and has decent and likely quite profitable revenue to the cluster.
A 2.0 share in A25-54, while certainly better than a 0.9, is far from "nice." It means only 1 in 50 (!!!) listeners who are listening to the radio in that age bracket are listening to WAAF at a typical moment.
There are plenty of large & major market Rock stations that play currents across the country with much stronger ratings, to answer BigA's earlier question. WMMR, WRIF, WHQG, KXXR, KISW, KBER, KUPD, KISS, KQRC, WEBN, KPNT, KEGL, WXTB, WJRR, and WIYY all come to mind.
That said, the format doesn't play well in a lot of cities. Boston used to be a city where it played well. WBCN, WAAF and once upon a time even WFNX played a pretty heavy flavor of current-based rock (I'm talking 20 years ago). Those three stations used to be good for about 7.5 shares. I think WAAF's crummy signal, unfocused playlist, thin stable of air talent, and emergence of Rock 92.9 have all served to desecrate the station.
To be unable to exceed WGIR's share in the BOSTON market is a damning testimonial against WAAF!
I know the insiders always debate me, but I will live and die with the belief that these companies need to choose a sect of rock from this decade and run with it. WAAF plays too much of a mix that WZLX and now WBOS cover. Then this whole mess of not replacing Greg Hill with a new morning show is a mess. They should have kept Mike HSU and LB in the mornings, with a general interest talk show, and brought in Carrie to join. Greg could have been sports and politics while the fore mention hypothetical show could have been music centered, with both crossing into general entertainment and interests. They cared more about giving Hill a running start at WEEI against T&R at The Sports Hub, than they did about WAAF.
As for people like me, I took the insiders suggestions and listen to satellite radio, podcasts, and the music I add to my phone. I did it originally with a FM transmitter in my old car, but now that I have a new 2019 truck with bluetooth functionality, I do it through that setting. They made it loud and clear that I don't match what their algorithms state brings money, so I choose not to support their financial stability.
As for people like me, I took the insiders suggestions and listen to satellite radio, podcasts, and the music I add to my phone. I did it originally with a FM transmitter in my old car, but now that I have a new 2019 truck with bluetooth functionality, I do it through that setting. They made it loud and clear that I don't match what their algorithms state brings money, so I choose not to support their financial stability.
How so? By defacing a painting of Jesus? By breaking bottles of holy water? By removing the Torah from the Ark and slashing it?
Considering the signal, that is actually not bad performance. Even with the boosters, this is not a full market signal.
And when a company has a cluster, the sum of the parts is often as important as the individual shares; since there is no better facility available to purchase it's better to have WAAF than to have nothing.
WAAF has no boosters that I know of, unless you mean the HD subchannels of 104.1 and 93.7 that it’s on in and north of Boston, but boosters usually mean on-channel analog.
Sorry, I was thinking of WXLO and its set of boosters.
This make my point even stronger: it's an inferior signal and does fairly well considering. They are better off with it than without it.
My question was specifically about Boston, not other cities. You can't compare a heritage station in Philly with anything in Boston.
It is odd when you consider how far the Rock format has fallen in Boston. It wasn't too long ago when Rock outlets like WBCN (with and without Howard Stern) and WCOZ were among the top stations in the market. I seem to remember that WAAF was quite a bit stronger in those days as well, even though its tower was closer to Worcester.
In the latest ratings, Classic Rock WZLX is #5. But you have to go down to #14 to find the next rock stations, a tie between Hard Classic Rock WBOS and Adult Alternative WXRV.
And as noted above, a Class B Mainstream Rock station in Manchester, WGIR-FM, is #23 and WAAF is #24. All these rock stations are Class Bs, but only WZLX and WBOS are on the Prudential Building. The others are also Class Bs but with suburban signals. WAAF is no farther from Downtown Boston than WXRV, although WXRV has six low power booster stations, while WAAF has none.
I wonder why Boston isn't that interested in Rock anymore. It has numerous large colleges and universities. I guess students don't get surveyed. But it also has a tech industry with young workers who are full time residents. Seattle, Denver and other Western cities have plenty of Rock stations among their ratings leaders.
In the latest ratings, Classic Rock WZLX is #5. But you have to go down to #14 to find the next rock stations, a tie between Hard Classic Rock WBOS and Adult Alternative WXRV.
And as noted above, a Class B Mainstream Rock station in Manchester, WGIR-FM, is #23 and WAAF is #24. All these rock stations are Class Bs, but only WZLX and WBOS are on the Prudential Building. The others are also Class Bs but with suburban signals. WAAF is no farther from Downtown Boston than WXRV, although WXRV has six low power booster stations, while WAAF has none.
I wonder why Boston isn't that interested in Rock anymore. It has numerous large colleges and universities. I guess students don't get surveyed. But it also has a tech industry with young workers who are full time residents. Seattle, Denver and other Western cities have plenty of Rock stations among their ratings leaders.
Compared to WAAF's long history, it's a rotten performance. I definitely agree the signal has a lot to do with it. Station was low to mid 2's (generally) when 97.7/107.3 were paired. Fell into the upper 1's following the separation of those two signals. Add in the strength of the two all-sports stations and the advent of Rock 92.9, and now WAAF is seeing its worst ratings in the history of the brand.
WXLO now draws more than double the AQH share of WAAF. WCTK is up against two stations in the heart of the metro with the same format yet outdraws WAAF in the market-wide ratings. Pretty remarkable, IMO, that WAAF is unable to outperform Rock 101 WGIR's AQH share in the Boston market.
The white male 18-34 demo that was rock's happy hunting ground in WBCN and WCOZ's heyday has been picked off by purely rhythmic genres like hip-hop and EDM. There's not much on radio for those listeners in-market, but they're not interested in what current rock has to offer, either, so they settle for WJMN or stream something from somewhere else. And, of course, there's larger population growth in Hispanic and African-American populations, who've never had much use for rock even in its dominant days. (Seattle and Denver have fewer of those folks than Boston, not so coincidentally.) While classic rock retains appeal across generations, most post-grunge rock just hasn't clicked with enough millennials to remain a top priority for Boston radio listeners.
At some point, one has to admit that rock was just one more phase of American popular music that had its ascendancy and prime years and is now slipping into history. It's had an amazing, long run, but it's largely run out of ideas and the young listeners it needs to grow have found more danger, urgency and excitement in simpler, rawer beats and straight-from-the-streets vocals, bereft of the subtle lyrics and instrumental virtuosity that much latter-era rock has offered.
The rock genre needs another kick in the teeth like what Grunge did in the 90's. You could argue that Rock died in 2000 when Kid Rock and Limp Bizkit became hits. Aside from Foo Fighters who is keeping rock alive today?
This is what I was saying earlier in this thread. The problem with WAAF is not a radio problem. It's a music problem. Sure Entercom could improve the ratings with WAAF a little bit, but it would come by a format change that would be costly and would result in bad PR with the small rock fanbase. The improvement in the ratings wouldn't offset the bad PR, and likely wouldn't result in an improvement in revenues. So why bother?
In the PPM, which requires an initial commitment to a two year participation, non-resident students don't qualify as they likely will not be in the market much of the time, and may leave prematurely.
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