KJUL's transmitter site is also on 24/7 generator power which is ungodly expensive.. probably $10 grand a month or more
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What if a station targeted a *really* old audience?
- Thread starter tall_guy1
- Start date
KJUL's transmitter site is also on 24/7 generator power which is ungodly expensive.. probably $10 grand a month or more
As for nursing home music. The last time I was in a nursing home, they were playing 60's music. Light Beatles songs and such, nothing heavy.
It seems that a cockatoo will have an average lifespan of 50-70 years and may reach 80!
Depending on the price of utility electricity and the cost of getting it there, maybe not. I once worked for a Seattle/Tacoma market station that had a mountaintop transmitter site that ran on diesel generator power 24/7. When you figured the per kilowatt hour power charged in that area, combined with the very high construction costs of burying utility power all the way up the mountain, blasting into solid rock for miles, the cost of generating your own power was actually less expensive. At least, at the time. That scale may tip now that diesel is selling for five dollars a gallon.
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Harvey_Dogg
Guest
There is a radio station like this in Cincinnati operated by a nursing home. It makes about a .5 in the ratings. WMKV listen
My Mom was bedridden for the last 5 months of her life.
There is only so much CNN and Boston Catholic TV one can watch on a day, in addition to the 4:00 PM news on Channel 5
WBZ-A was on her radio overnight ... more for noise than content.
My solution was to put an Amazon Alexa 8 on the table next to her bed with one of my SXM subscriptions tied to it, and an Amazon music subscription.
If she wanted the Andrews Sisters .... Alexa play songs by the Andrews Sisters.... same for the Clancy Brothers, John McDermott, etc etc etc.... Alexa play Sirius XM 40's junction.
Plus if she wanted to call one of us, I had our phone numbers programmed in.... Alexa call Chris .....
My Mom was 92 when she passed in January and she had mastered the art of finding music on the internet including the online tribute station/stream of WJIB which is really good as is Bob Bittner's OTA WJIB.
Even though there are 6 radio stations here in SW Florida I can listen to for more than 15 minutes..... and I am in the 55 to Dead demographic I still use Amazon Music and SXM in my car.
When I am back in NH, there are maybe two music stations I can stand..... so it is online or SXM for me most of the time
As people who are adept at technology age, they are going to find what they want to listen to online long before they find it OTA
There is only so much CNN and Boston Catholic TV one can watch on a day, in addition to the 4:00 PM news on Channel 5
WBZ-A was on her radio overnight ... more for noise than content.
My solution was to put an Amazon Alexa 8 on the table next to her bed with one of my SXM subscriptions tied to it, and an Amazon music subscription.
If she wanted the Andrews Sisters .... Alexa play songs by the Andrews Sisters.... same for the Clancy Brothers, John McDermott, etc etc etc.... Alexa play Sirius XM 40's junction.
Plus if she wanted to call one of us, I had our phone numbers programmed in.... Alexa call Chris .....
My Mom was 92 when she passed in January and she had mastered the art of finding music on the internet including the online tribute station/stream of WJIB which is really good as is Bob Bittner's OTA WJIB.
Even though there are 6 radio stations here in SW Florida I can listen to for more than 15 minutes..... and I am in the 55 to Dead demographic I still use Amazon Music and SXM in my car.
When I am back in NH, there are maybe two music stations I can stand..... so it is online or SXM for me most of the time
As people who are adept at technology age, they are going to find what they want to listen to online long before they find it OTA
Great. Nobody forces people to listen to the radio. Radio is mass media. They want the Andrew Sisters? Buy an Alexa.
There's also WVLG, owned and operated by the massive The Villages retirement community in Florida, with "Timeless Favorites" (MOR-ish Oldies) and right-wing talk programs.
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Harvey_Dogg
Guest
They'll be playing Classic Rock in nursing homes very soon!
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Harvey_Dogg
Guest
It's a lot easier to ask Alexa instead of tuning and fumbling with a radio.
Somebody has to set up Alexa too. It doesn't set itself up. You need a user name and password too. It needs to be programmed, and you have to either subscribe to Amazon music or some other music service.
"Hospital radio" is very much a "thing" in the UK. An English friend volunteers at one near Hull, in Yorkshire, and there are others all over, many of which even webcast to the world. Not sure how they pay for the music, but they're finding a way, despite the ever-increasing demands of the music industry.
At my grandmother's nursing home it was the local soft AC, even after The Carpenters and Neil Diamond were dropped. I never went back there after the late 90s so I sincerely hope they didn't keep the same station after it continued to evolve. Before it started playing "anything" that station had added "Straight Up" and "Separate Ways" and during lunch, "Wanted Dead or Alive".
But a few years after I last went there an AM in the same town had Unforgettable (soft AC/oldies) and later America's Best Music. Now it has oldies and some of those would not work in a nursing home. There is a translator now if the station being an AM would have been a problem.
I heard someone in a hospital listening to music I liked. It turned out to be Pandora.
Some of them are "MOR-ish". "Straight Up" by Paula Abdul, "Hold Your Head Up" by Argent, and let's see what was just played ... oh, my gosh. "We are the Champions" by Queen right after "Working for the Weekend" by Loverboy. Forget "MOR-ish". That's just oldies.
I listened to this station for quite awhile yesterday and everything was by people like Woody Herman and Dinah Shore. I left for about a minute and coming from the room I heard "Do It Again" by The Beach Boys followed by "Sounds of Silence"! I returned, listened for quite sometime and everything was back to the 40s again! At one time, both of those songs would've turned off the intended audience!
What is a really old audience today?
What is the desirable audience today?
I ask these questions because it forms your plan to format for the desired audience. It has always been 18-49, but has this changed? Have the younger demos deserted radio, and have the upper demos continue to use the medium? You must answer these questions before you develop a format.
What is the desirable audience today?
I ask these questions because it forms your plan to format for the desired audience. It has always been 18-49, but has this changed? Have the younger demos deserted radio, and have the upper demos continue to use the medium? You must answer these questions before you develop a format.
Good questions. From what I can see, the ONLY reason upper demos continue to use the medium is because there's so much there for them. That may sound strange, but if you see the ages of people listening to the news/talk format, the median age is 60. That's not the oldest of the formats. Adult standards median age is 70. Granted, there aren't many stations in that format. But so many formats have median ages over 50, including AAA, classic hits, gospel, oldies, public, religious, soft AC, and sports. All of those formats have median ages over 50.
If those formats disappeared, would those over-50s continue to listen? I doubt it. But as long as those formats continue to be available, radio will continue to attract older audiences.
If you assume that younger people are bypassing radio and using Pandora and other services for music the 18 to 34 P1 pie gets small
Now where I spend the winter ( Fort Myers Florida) there is a substantial population of 55 to Dead, and most of them have money
You'd have to be stupid not to try to grab some of it by having a station that has that as a P1
As I said above, there are at least 5 stations here I can listen to and a whole bunch I can't.
I am in that 55 to dead P1.... granted at night I can't stomach Delilah, and John Tesh is too something for me to listen thru his filler , but the music is something I can listen to and I will stop on that station when I hear a "good" song.
If you are in an area where people raise ducks, you sell duck feed not hay.
Your programing is dictated by your sales target....
Now this is where someone is going to chime in and say " oh but the under played artists that have such great music deserve to be heard... we must program that because it is for the love of the music we must program it... " Well that is fine and dandy, when you can come in with market research that shows that the a segment of the available listeners in the market WILL listen to what you want to play AND they have the household income to be desirable to advertisers, and you can deliver enough listeners to get a spot rate that will pay everyone let me know.
As I have said on this forum a million times before, the music, talk, news, etc is the filler that is put in between commercials to keep the listeners tuned in until the next set of spots run. If the sounds of whales humping would attract and retain listeners who have money to spend that would be the new format.
Now where I spend the winter ( Fort Myers Florida) there is a substantial population of 55 to Dead, and most of them have money
You'd have to be stupid not to try to grab some of it by having a station that has that as a P1
As I said above, there are at least 5 stations here I can listen to and a whole bunch I can't.
I am in that 55 to dead P1.... granted at night I can't stomach Delilah, and John Tesh is too something for me to listen thru his filler , but the music is something I can listen to and I will stop on that station when I hear a "good" song.
If you are in an area where people raise ducks, you sell duck feed not hay.
Your programing is dictated by your sales target....
Now this is where someone is going to chime in and say " oh but the under played artists that have such great music deserve to be heard... we must program that because it is for the love of the music we must program it... " Well that is fine and dandy, when you can come in with market research that shows that the a segment of the available listeners in the market WILL listen to what you want to play AND they have the household income to be desirable to advertisers, and you can deliver enough listeners to get a spot rate that will pay everyone let me know.
As I have said on this forum a million times before, the music, talk, news, etc is the filler that is put in between commercials to keep the listeners tuned in until the next set of spots run. If the sounds of whales humping would attract and retain listeners who have money to spend that would be the new format.
It depends on the format. The formats you assume attract young people (CHR, Rhythmic, and rock) all have 20% of their audience 18-24, and almost 50% of their audience 18-34. That's a lot of people, considering the assumption that they're all streaming on Pandora. They're not. But then add the country format, where 35% of the audience is 18-34. Add the Spanish formats, where 35% of the audience is 18-34, and consider Urban or Urban Contemporary formats, where a whopping 40-50% of the audience is 18-34. That's a lot of young people who are STILL listening to traditional AM/FM radio. So my point is when someone says "No one I know listens to radio," that statement depends on the demographics of the people they know.
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