Free Beer and Wings on 92.9 has a tough row to hoe in Buffalo (Channel 7 alliteration/rhyme intended) going up against three legacy male-based morning drive shows: Shredd & Ragan on 103.3; Bull & Lederman on 96.9 and Howard and Jeremy on AM 550. Even if FB&W gets "let's check these guys out" cume, what are the chances the cume builds to early stage fission (street buzz), let alone critical mass (must hear radio)? And should FB&W builds a small but loyal cume, how will the AQH Persons, particularly Men, compared to the legacy shows. Note that WYRK and WBLK, and WBEN although not specifically mentioned in the comparisons here, have equally formidable morning shows.
-
Get involved.
We want your input!
Apply for Membership and join the conversations about everything related to broadcasting.
After we receive your registration, a moderator will review it. After your registration is approved, you will be permitted to post.
If you use a disposable or false email address, your registration will be rejected.
After your membership is approved, please take a minute to tell us a little bit about yourself.
https://www.radiodiscussions.com/forums/introduce-yourself.1088/
Thanks in advance and have fun!
RadioDiscussions Administrators
WBUF seems to have its airstaff in place
- Thread starter ckg279
- Start date
That's OK. The population is dropping too. Binghamton isn't the destination city it once was.
Once again, let me remind you about the business model at Townsquare:
They've been paying down a lot of their debt. They may be one of the healthiest radio operators in the country.
That's OK because for over ten years this station had NO morning show. This is a business decision.
And note that the formidable morning show on WBLK is not local.
That's not in dispute. One of the interesting twists here is that for so many years, Jack positioned itself as the morning show music alternative, "Less yack, more Jack" and developed differentiation and some momentum. Some. For at least the first three to five years. The bloom has long been off the rose in that regard. But now TSQ jumps headlong into a morning brawl. Not saying it won't score, just saying the odds of being competitive, let alone winning, are long.
No doubt. Note also that the formidable morning show on WBLK also has a national radio and television footprint, both of which are absent with FB&W. The fact that WBLK is a heritage African-American format, in place since the mid 60s, plus a legacy morning show presents another point of differentiation. Vast, at that.
And now they're the complete opposite. Certainly not my personal preference. But apparently TS has a financial interest in this FBHW show (in that it originates at one of their stations), so they make money in some way even if it doesn't win the morning ratings battle. They couldn't run it in Buffalo with the Jack format. In the meantime, they'll focus their local sales attention on WYRK. We might call it "diversifying your portfolio."
The delivery system matters less than the content. TSQ is removing local content and replacing it with canned yak. Why should a local listener tune in? More importantly, why should a local advertiser buy airtime?
Well over 80% of radio advertising money comes from local advertisers whether it's OTA or digital. TSQ makes most of its money from markets like Binghamton. If you bleed listeners or send them to other media because they are unimpressed by your content, you bleed money. It's all about the money, right? Corporate stopped caring about the public interest, convenience, and necessity a long time ago.
Maybe some Reddit site will start an activist revolt...
Are you talking about WBUF? The only local content on WBUF was the spots. FBHW has a track record and they know about how many people will listen based on other markets.
Where are you coming up with that 80% figure?
Obviously, since I quoted your response to Binghamton, I wasn't talking about WBUF. But, that's you being obtuse (as usual). The actual figure is higher - more like 80%. Here are a couple of links for you:
Radio advertising sales - total: Producer Price Index by Industry: Radio Broadcasting: Radio Station Advertising Sales
Radio advertising sales - local: Producer Price Index by Industry: Radio Broadcasting: Radio Station Advertising Sales, Local
Do a little math and local accounts for well over 80%. In overall revenue, digital is still less than 10% of revenue. NTR is much less than 10%, which is how I came up with the over 80% estimate for the vast majority of stations.
BTW, most digital and NTR is local money. Local revenue is the bread and butter of radio.
Last edited:
The figures you quoted are national numbers. We're talking specifically about Townsquare. I posted an article from the Townsquare CEO where he says digital will exceed 50% of revenue. So your 10% figure doesn't apply. If you look at the TS digital sites, most of the advertising is national, or Google ads that are synced to the users location. Just because a station carries a syndicated morning show doesn't mean local advertisers won't buy it. They buy the morning show on WBLK. The CEO of Townsquare knows where his money comes from.
Local revenue is the bread and butter in some markets of radio. In Buffalo, national and agency is the bread and butter. Local revenue is important, and can really help, but the larger companies do more in national and agency, than they do in local direct
How much agency is from local advertisers? Seems to me that there are a lot of local car dealers and lawyers buying a lot of airtime. Not all digital is national. A lot of digital is paid for by local sponsors.
Seems there's a need in this discussion to discern local direct revenue and local revenue which may be derived through (local or regional) agencies. Although I have heard and read that "local" remains the driving force, I defer to the expertise of those who are on the street each day. What's the breakdown with regard to local direct and local via agency vs. national?
That 10% figure is now outdated, according to the Radio Advertising Bureau:
But as I said, that number is a national average. The CEO of TS says digital at his company currently accounts for over 44% of revenues and he expects it to exceed 50% this year.
Forgive me if this is the wrong place for this, but I've noticed that WBUF plays the same songs as 97 Rock. No, I don't mean the same genre, I mean the EXACT same songs. I drive 8 hours a day, and I flip back and forth between the two stations, and I've lost count of how many times I've heard the same song on both stations within minutes of each other.
What's the point of this? I don't get it.
What's the point of this? I don't get it.
Not unusual. The difference is presentation. A radio station is more than the music they play. In a competitive situation, a station may monitor their competitor and when they hear a song, they play it too. It forces the listener to pick a station based on other things. Obviously 97 Rock is the heritage station, so WBUF is attempting to steal listeners. This may be temporary until they see if it has any effect.
It's because Radio programming is still using a playbook from 1990. They are targeting an audience that's never heard of the internet. Insanity(or incompetence)is doing the same thing over and over and expecting a different result.
It's also part of the corporate plan. They had to pay to use the JACK name and got nothing in return. WBUF has under performed for decades, so it's now a throwaway signal. It's far too late in the game to change that now...
Last edited:
If that's true, there are a lot of very stupid people in Buffalo.
I learned 58 years ago that cross station duplication in a large cluster is not cannibalistic. It is what each one plays that the other does not that defines you.
The Jack fees in markets under number fifty are minimal.
Quite a few I suspect. I don't have any data that says more than the national average, however.
It does seem stupid to program WBUF with the hope of stealing 1 share from another identical format. Why not try something unique and maybe find new listeners? Of course, that takes expertise and effort...
- Status