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What Happened to Joe Centanni - Rochester Rock Remembers?

Cume alone means nothing??? While I'm sure Legends is proud of their TSL, CUME MEANS EVERYTHING in a PPM world. Whether this is a PPM market yet or not, mediabuyers & programmers have already gotten the memo- Cume is real & it's what's important... Growing the tribe is the name of the game. Please remove the "living in the 1980's" tag from your forehead and join us here in the new millenium, Cee. The new technology has taught us more about how people really listen to the radio. TSL does exist, but not through extended listening... Rather it perpetuates itself through repeated listening occasions. PPM has taught us that cume is significantly larger than the diary method indicates.

And again, being just over a year old and debuting (their first FULL book) near a 3 share? Pretty admirable with zero marketing dollars. I tip my hat to them again.
 
TSL does exist, but not through extended listening... Rather it perpetuates itself through repeated listening occasions. PPM has taught us that cume is significantly larger than the diary method indicates.
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Cudos. This is not new, just finally being seen. You cited my biggest problem with diary methodology. Cume is HUGE, and really the basis for listenership (station popularity if you will). TSL - worst way ever to estimate any listening. Unfortunately, it will take forever to get the "book" readers (read as "Sales") to understand the statistical relevance of any of this.
The bigger issue, as I see it, isn't the results. It's the established position of the "ratings people" (fill in the brand name)to say "our numbers determine how well you're doing". Never bought it, never will. Listenership is a personal experience, muddied by the gimmicks to alter diary response. (Waiting on Savage to deny the tactics - he won't cause he loved sweeps promos!) Bottom line...if a station doesn't have a 0.0 cume or TSL...somebody's listening. It's all a revenue driver..not a format driver.
Please remove the soapbox now, I have stepped off it.
 
Cume vs. TSL

This has gotten WAY off topic, but if I'm an advertiser, I want a decent relationship between cume AND TSL. If people are tuning the station, but not staying, the only way my ads are going to be heard is if I buy a LOT of ads. If the prices are low enough, that may be an option, but I'd rather spend my money on a station with a well-defined audience of people that LISTEN (not just hear) the station for longer periods of time.

After years of trying to convince us that people will listen through 6-minute stopsets, PPM advocates are now changing their tack to tell us that TSL doesn't matter, but CUME is king. That's the same arguement that website salesmen use. They call cume "impressions", and claim that ads that are repeated often enough are effective, even if people ignore them. Sounds like snake oil to me. If you're not getting click-throughs from your ads on a website, you can pretty much determine that IT AIN'T WORKIN'.

Radio formatting has a myriad of problems as audience tendencies shift with generational changes and challenges from other media. PPM is a tool that gives us more real-time information about SOME people's listening habits. Whoever sorts through that data, finds the really usable information, and creates an effective format based on that information will be the next "Programming Wonder".
 
Getting this back on topic again, how about Legends leases the Saturday night slot to Joe for $1.00 a week(he could probably swing that) and he does a Wolfman Jack/Mexico thing and sells live chickens, miracle cure pills and anything else that makes a buck. Just a thought.
 
Sorry to veer off topic again, but since the thread has led us in that direction... Cume IS King, although healthy TSL is important. Take a glance at Seth Godin's "tribes" concept. I agree with it- It's better as an advertiser to utilize a station with a slightly smaller cume of extremely loyal partisans (like Legends 102), than a station with a more sizable listener base and less passionate allegiance (ie lower TSL). But as PPM has shown us, cume is bigger than the diary methodology suggests & tsl needs to be viewed with a more realistic perspective, Roxalot. We haven't figured out how to dissect it all yet, but the writing is on the wall.

So steering back to comments from Desert Petey regarding WLGZ.... Their strategic music position which retains a 10 year heritage AM's cume but slowly & steadily grows audience is a great way to stabilize the TSL and keep the station away from the "threshold of pain" that comes when new stations grow the cume with occasional listeners at the detriment to TSL. The adult standards & lighter musical fare titles, tactically played, are a luxury for them and I'm glad they kept them on the playing field in a lesser yet noticeable roll. It will help them in the long run.

And getting back to the subject of Joe Centani, I had the occasion to hear him on the weekend after the closing of your hallowed Midtown Plaza. He played actual airchecks of ancient WBBF news reports from the opening of the mall back in the day. FABULOUS! It was simply wonderful radio that could not be picked up and dropped in another market. It oozed Rochester. If budget cuts were the issue, I'm sure the station misses him as much as the fans of his show do.
 
The writing on the PPM wall says that people change the channel a lot more than they reported in diaries, and they hear a lot more stations than they either wrote down or were aware of. The de-emphasis of TSL and emphasis on cume is nothing more than some people trying to make lemonade out of lemons, and sell it to advertisers.

Legends obviously cut Joe Centanni because they wanted - or needed - more income from the time slot. His salary was likely minimal. I suspect that they'll be running something that costs them nothing to run, and brings in more than the advertising that was on Joe's show.

Whether someone with sales talent and a mission could have improved income on Joe's show is moot at this moment. It's too bad that Rochester is losing a unique voice, but that's one of the problems with broadcasting. It only works if you can attract a broad audience. Maybe a podcast, or a Public Radio slot is an answer for distribution of Joe's show.
 
The de-emphasis of TSL and emphasis on cume is the truth... Implications on advertisers is just starting to be considered. There is no spin- Look at Houston & Philadelphia data (I've seen the Philly stuff first hand). Cume is larger than the former method suggested. And yes, the first memo we ever received from PPM results showed that people hear more stations than they ever reported in the diaries. But the operative word is "hear". If the device detects a station in the workplace or at a restaurant that the device holder didn't make a cognitive decision to "listen" to, and may very well be ignoring consciously, they would have never entered it in a diary.

As for Centani, listening on the stream today I heard a weekday daypart personality in what I remember to be a part time shift in the past, so I'm assuming any cuts were across the board on weekends & not just related to Saturday night. Their AM runs local programming sometimes... Me thinks that when someone is in the building board-op'in that, they would run tracked.... Otherwise a live body on the FM could be the operator on duty for the AM when that station is not running live programming. Regardless, Centani's show was unique and special. I'm sure he'll find a delivery method for it in the future.
 
Apologies for taking another step off topic, but the Cume-TSL debate, especially as it apllies to PPM, intrigues me. Before writing another sentence, I'm not an expert or all-knowing in this matter, only somebody who has spent a little time through the years pouring over trends, books, verbatims and diary reviews.

One thing that's missing in the very informative TSL-Cume posts thus far is the discussion of the station formats and the important relationship between Cume and TSL as applied to the specific format being discussed. Ideally, any PD and SM would like to see healthy numbers in both columns because they feed off each other.

I submit that there are formats that derive greater benefit from Cume and those that derive benefit from TSL / Share.

Personally, I found that Average Quarter Hour Persons (in hundreds) tells a very important story, especially as it relates to a station's performance and is especially telling for programming and sales.

I'll hang up and listen to your answer on the radio. ;)
 
For what it's worth, I was listening to the station last night (Saturday) about 7:30. It was obviously V. T.ed and coincidenidently, I drove right by the station on my way home. The curtains were drawn. Obviously no one home. What a shame.
 
There's no shame in it at all. Voicetracking, when done well, can sound just as good as a live performance. The only thing missing is the interraction between the host and his/her audience. Important, to be sure, but not necessary.
 
qman said:
There's no shame in it at all. Voicetracking, when done well, can sound just as good as a live performance. The only thing missing is the interraction between the host and his/her audience. Important, to be sure, but not necessary.
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I would agree with qman here IF it is done well. I would submit that the "average" listener (someone who doesn't know anything about TSL, Cume or this board) could not tell if I what they were listening to was vt'd or live. It wasn't until I read it on this board that I found out the late, great Jackson Armstong vt'd his recent KB show. However, I think it's fair to say J.A. was in a class by himself when it came to that.
 
That's true - you can't tell VT'ing and live when you're doing the basics. Point is, canning a live Saturday night request show for a VT show is just said and indicative of the horrid direction the industry is turning toward(admittedly, the bad economy isn't helping matters any). Content wise, I think a live show beats a VT show almost every time. Jack Armstrong was a rare exception...but we're talking about a industry legend here.
 
qman said:
There's no shame in it at all. Voicetracking, when done well,
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You're right Joe, when done well. It didn't help matters when Gina, who's no longer there, coming on the air or coming on the hard drive and saying, Coming up another 14 song music marathon kicking it off with Elton John - only to be followed up with Joe's Rochester Rock Remembers show. No foresight.
Also with VT'ing, why such a tight board? Almost to the point of clipping. I understand not a loose board - but this isn't PXY Top Hot 40 where the VU meters don't even have a chance to hit the bottom before the next audio comes across.
Also, when the weather is given and the VT'ed jock or jockette doesn't give a time or temperature - that's a clue that the:

Previous program has been recorded and we're busying out all of our phone lines so you can't call the station but if you're the ole granny that thinks we really must be busy - hey we fooled you. (snicker, snicker) by the way, no phone calls please.
 
Some of what you hear is out of our control. When the macro balancing is set, the puter will either add songs to a short hour or cut songs from a long hour which is why sometimes you'll hear it going right from spot break to song without jingle or buffer. That usually only happens @ end of the hour. Also, not giving time n temp doesn't necessarily mean the show is voicetracked. How many jocks do you hear, other than morning drive where it's almost required, do a time-check anymore?
 
Just wondering.... How much does Legends actually save by eliminating the live person and replacing with a VT'd show??
It doesn't sound like Joe was overpaid.
 
This is a very difficult time for this industry as a whole. People are getting let go everywhere. Crawford isn't any more immune to these challenges than Clear Channel, Regent, Citadel, Entercom, Stephens or any other corporate owner.
 
Just wondering.... How much does Legends actually save by eliminating the live person and replacing with a VT'd show??
It doesn't sound like Joe was overpaid.
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Well, doesn't have to be much because it's part of a bigger picture. The VT'd show (with a "salaried talent") adds nothing to expense, for one thing. And at the same time it reduces expense for the "show". Kind of a double dip to the Income Statement (that's a good thing for the company). If you get that..you'll get the rest... otherwise you'll still be scratching you head, and this thread will go on, and on.....
 
In an interview and on his show, the legendary Jack Armstrong gave credit to Kevin Carr for putting his nightly show together. Jack did the voicetracks "cold over intro" in Carolina and Carr produced it in Buffalo. Apparently the Delet VT system isn't as efficient for VTs as AudioVault, Mediatouch or Prophet. Last November 97 Rock replaced Tom Tiberi with VTs. The station also VTs several shifts on weekends. More will be known about that experiment when the Buffalo Winter book will be released April 28th.
 
Voice Tracking

Speaking of voice tracking, Fickle could use some help in that category.

I can't count how many times there’s been overlapping of commercials, or that the announcer is cut off in mid sentence, plus over modulation to the point of distortion.

What really sounds "bush league" is when the station runs promos for Marti in the Morning and the same promo runs back-to-back.

Is anyone at the station listening? ::)
 
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