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What ails 102.1 WLUM?

M

MarkW

This station for a number of years was one of the best performing alternative stations - in terms of AQH share - in a PPM market anywhere in the country.

For the past 6 or more months, the numbers have been in free fall for WLUM.

What are they doing wrong?

The Hog was struggling for a brief time (bottoming out around a 3.4 share) but has since surged to a 5.6.

97.3 The Game is at or near a record high AQH share level since launching.

Looks like male listeners are using 102.1 much less these days and opting for 102.9 and 97.3 instead?
 
JeremyAndrews said:
The processing. This started after they turned it way down.
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Yes, this is very true! When I listen on my Bose I always have to turn up the volume for 102/1 compared to other stations. The processing is also inconsistent between current, recurrent and gold music. Looking over the ratings, it appears that current music is really falling out of favor with Milwaukee listeners. Even WRXS is beating WLUM, and the only current music station that appears to be doing well is WLDB. WMIL is bucking the nationwide trend of rising County music station ratings with a downward trend over the last several ratings periods. Conservative Talk & Sports Talk are showing their best ratings ever.
 
The processing is a problem because PPM meters supposedly rely on it. There's a lot of technical problems in Milwaukee and not enough engineers.

WMYX's ratings are low because the station is currently running around 3kw. Been this way for months. Transmitter problems, not enough engineers or parts to fix them. It eventually causes problems with the ratings when people outside of Milwaukee County can't pick it up. You might notice WTMX showing up in the ratings at the bottom. That's people in Racine County having reception problems.

Milwaukee is generally an older audience market when it comes to radio. Generally over 50. This is good for stations like WKLH, WISN, WRIT. Packers and Badgers season is good for WRNW.
 
While it's not quite the same format, WYMS is climbing slowly in the ratings. Some may find it beneficial not having to listen to commercial stop sets.
 
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theman8410 said:
Yes, this is very true! When I listen on my Bose I always have to turn up the volume for 102/1 compared to other stations. The processing is also inconsistent between current, recurrent and gold music. Looking over the ratings, it appears that current music is really falling out of favor with Milwaukee listeners. Even WRXS is beating WLUM, and the only current music station that appears to be doing well is WLDB. WMIL is bucking the nationwide trend of rising County music station ratings with a downward trend over the last several ratings periods. Conservative Talk & Sports Talk are showing their best ratings ever.
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Doesn't help that some of the younger-skewing stations rely heavily on out-of-market voice trackers. WXSS and WMYX, for example. And V100 has no local personalities.

WLUM, to their credit, is all local, has a near-full air staff, and doesn't even air syndicated shows.

And there is The Hog, which has a good local presence and gets great ratings. But I get the feeling most of their listeners are well over 30. The younger hard rock fans probably prefer WIIL in the south or WJJO in the west. Both only cover parts of the market, though.
 
Yes. Especially in PPM markets. Loud processing, and whatever Voltair does (It sounds terrible) helps the meters hear the encoder better. Milwaukee is a big exception.
 
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JeremyAndrews said:
Yes. Especially in PPM markets. Loud processing, and whatever Voltair does (It sounds terrible) helps the meters hear the encoder better. Milwaukee is a big exception.
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What a shame. This is the biggest reason why I do not listen to FM radio nearly as often as I used to. I absolutely HATE the way most radio stations are processed now. WJJO in Madison seems to be one of the last holdouts in Wisconsin. As far as I can tell, their processor settings have not been touched in years. Still sounds fantastic. Nice and quiet, like most radio stations were until all of this nonsense started a few years back.
 
The current (12/18/2024) WLUM OTA processing is 100% wrong for the format. Where are the guitar based mid frequencies?! It sounds like they're using a soft AC preset for a rock/alternative format. Wrong. The WLUM stream processing sounds more correct (period) for the format. Even WYMS and WMSE sound better. OTA, WLUM sounds like I'm listening to the lowest bit rate MP3 file imaginable.
 
That's too bad. WLUM was so good back in the day. I lived on the WI/IL border, and I preferred WLUM over WKQX in Chicago. I remember their RDS was FM_102/1 which was fun.
 
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