I just got a new car with 3 months of free Sirius/XM radio. One thing I noticed is that there are several "oldies" or classic hits formats. (Brent, you would love this!) So, this got me to thinking...if the Satcaster is willing to play what people want, how does Atlanta radio determine what would be a good, marketable format? Who encourages format decisions? Listeners? PD's who don't care? PD's or Market Managers or Corporate owners who tell people what they think will work in a particular market? I'm just curious. Where do these format decisions come from?
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Who is Atlanta Radio's target audience?
- Thread starter Surfer
- Start date
SiriusXM has a different business model from terrestrial radio. It's supported by subscriptions whereas terrestrial radio is supported by advertising. Terrestrial stations have to attract demos that can be easily sold to advertisers. And for the most part, advertisers and agencies are looking for 25-54, 18-49 and sometimes 18-34. Whether they are right or wrong has been discussed here ad nauseam. But the fact is it's hard to become a top-billing station unless you program to those demos. Oldies/Classic Hits simply appeals to an older demo than most advertisers are looking for.
Satellite radio attracts subscriptions by offering all kinds of formats. But SiriusXM doesn't have to worry about the ages of their listeners. Commercial stations do.
A station's format is determined by what management feels will get the most ratings in the desired demos and therefore make the most money. And the choice involves what's already on the dial in terms of format, heritage, signal, etc.
Satellite radio attracts subscriptions by offering all kinds of formats. But SiriusXM doesn't have to worry about the ages of their listeners. Commercial stations do.
A station's format is determined by what management feels will get the most ratings in the desired demos and therefore make the most money. And the choice involves what's already on the dial in terms of format, heritage, signal, etc.
There are some basic differences between satellite radio and OTA radio:
Satellite radio has 100 national music channels to work with. Atlanta has maybe 30-40 OTA radio stations. More channels mean more formats.
Satellite is owned by one company, so the music channels don't compete. OTA radio has five companies competing for the largest audience, so smaller more specialized formats get overlooked. That's why you have several stations doing the same thing. You won't get that on satellite.
Satellite is paid for by users, so the company has to offer programming listeners will pay for. OTA radio is paid for by advertisers who seek the largest audience by a particular demographic. So commercial OTA is listening to listeners, but only the ones the advertisers want.
If you feel ignored by OTA, then break out the wallet and pay for satellite. But it's easy to figure out who Atlanta's target audience is. Just look at the top rated radio stations.
Satellite radio has 100 national music channels to work with. Atlanta has maybe 30-40 OTA radio stations. More channels mean more formats.
Satellite is owned by one company, so the music channels don't compete. OTA radio has five companies competing for the largest audience, so smaller more specialized formats get overlooked. That's why you have several stations doing the same thing. You won't get that on satellite.
Satellite is paid for by users, so the company has to offer programming listeners will pay for. OTA radio is paid for by advertisers who seek the largest audience by a particular demographic. So commercial OTA is listening to listeners, but only the ones the advertisers want.
If you feel ignored by OTA, then break out the wallet and pay for satellite. But it's easy to figure out who Atlanta's target audience is. Just look at the top rated radio stations.
Idiots! That's who. The Atlanta Radio Market is "stupid " driven. Why do I have two q100 branded stations with 2 other top 40ish sounds in the mix, a new Christian station that sounds like The Fish without any energy (it could put a creak head to sleep) and a reporter for radio who likes to explain it all away as that's what I "really want". Atlanta Radio is GOD AWFUL thanks you XM & Podcast!
I've said this before, but most of the radio formats in ATL either are geared to people who can't afford/won't pay for satellite or a smartphone with a big data plan (various ethnic formats like urban, Latino, and country; teenybopper formats like CHR and active rock), or are formats that can't really be replicated elsewhere (local talk, local sports, local news).
I'm trying to say this without sounding offensive because that is not the point of this post.
What type of person is usually going to go after the more high tech means to get music (i.e. streaming on phone/xmsirius). The answer will be people with some money (not the metro PCS folks), educated, etc. I'm an alternative rock junkie and even when we had 99x and dave, I still listened to internet radio alternative stations like Alt Nation on XM because I liked the more deeper side of music vs the strickly hit based format most fm stations play.
With oldies, most of those folks are in fact older and usually have a little money. **NOTE: WE ARE THE EXCEPTION ON THIS BOARD BECAUSE WE HAVE AN OBSESSION WITH FM RADIO** The average person could give a damn about local radio so they get the music at the best possible place.
So with hip hop, most (not all) of the listeners are black. Blacks tend NOT to go all techy when it comes to recieving music. Some of my closest black friends still do the CD thing and would not have the slightest clue how to illegally download. Again, this is most but not all. The black community depends on FM radio because they are least likely to go out and stream pandora on their phone in their car or pay 12 bucks a month for satellite radio. Further more, I understand the hip hop stations on XM suck. That's what I have been told anyway.
What about top 40? Well, you can't go wrong with top 40 but XM does. Ever listened to their HITS Radio? My top 40 friends will listen to Z100 on XM or flip over to Power and Wild. XM's HITS station gets awful reviews from my fellow top 40 fans.
So I believe that in this market, urban and top 40 are the target formats.
What type of person is usually going to go after the more high tech means to get music (i.e. streaming on phone/xmsirius). The answer will be people with some money (not the metro PCS folks), educated, etc. I'm an alternative rock junkie and even when we had 99x and dave, I still listened to internet radio alternative stations like Alt Nation on XM because I liked the more deeper side of music vs the strickly hit based format most fm stations play.
With oldies, most of those folks are in fact older and usually have a little money. **NOTE: WE ARE THE EXCEPTION ON THIS BOARD BECAUSE WE HAVE AN OBSESSION WITH FM RADIO** The average person could give a damn about local radio so they get the music at the best possible place.
So with hip hop, most (not all) of the listeners are black. Blacks tend NOT to go all techy when it comes to recieving music. Some of my closest black friends still do the CD thing and would not have the slightest clue how to illegally download. Again, this is most but not all. The black community depends on FM radio because they are least likely to go out and stream pandora on their phone in their car or pay 12 bucks a month for satellite radio. Further more, I understand the hip hop stations on XM suck. That's what I have been told anyway.
What about top 40? Well, you can't go wrong with top 40 but XM does. Ever listened to their HITS Radio? My top 40 friends will listen to Z100 on XM or flip over to Power and Wild. XM's HITS station gets awful reviews from my fellow top 40 fans.
So I believe that in this market, urban and top 40 are the target formats.
acheron82 said:
I'm black and all of my black friends don't listen to radio here in Atlanta. All of my black friends have Pandora (hmmm, not I-Heart though) on there Android and I-Phones whether it be Metro PCS, Sprint or T-Mobile! XM sucks big time when it comes to Hip-Hop and R&B by the way so I don't blame us African Americans for not subscribing. Lots of my black friends get music from various sites because trust me, ATL Urban radio misses out on a lot of Hip-Hop and R&B music. Urban wins big here because of the huge African American population including the part time college students here and the huge Hip-Hop nightlife.
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