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Why do most radio stations up north in Michigan refuse to play hip hop music?

H

Human Numan

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Why do most stations up north in Michigan refuse to play hip hop music?

Here in southern Michigan you can hear hip hop on CHR - Contemporary Hits Radio radio stations and Urban Contemporary radio stations in the metro Detroit area, but up north in Michigan the majority of CHR - Contemporary Hits Radio stations play no hip hop or rap music like here in Detroit.

Detroit CHR stations have their playlist loaded with hip hop or rap music, and in other parts of southern Michigan CHR stations play some hip hop or rap music in their playlist but not as much as Detroit CHR stations do, like the CHR stations in areas like Lansing, Jackson, Grand Rapids, Kalamazoo and Flint.

102.5 FM WIOG is the only Contemporary Hits Radio station in northern Michigan that play some hip hop music on their frequency.
102.5 WIOG is located in Saginaw, Michigan. 102.5 WIOG can also be heard in the Flint, Michigan radio market.

I called Magic 97 at 97.1 FM a CHr radio station in the Marquette/Escanaba area in northern Michigan in the Upper Peninsula and I asked them if they played rap music and the lady told me no.

Here is Magic 97 FM website: http://www.wglqradio.com/
 
Hip hop music seems to thrive in highly populated areas... areas where there are a lot of young people and where there are lots of young people who regularly interface with other young people of the Black Community. The radio stations in those markets pamper their audience.

It has been a few years since I wandered through upper Michigan but I remember an area that had some interesting population trends. Among other things, there is a higher percentage of the people who are older, who are Caucasian and a high percentage of people who make a living with a chain saw. A higher percentage of the people may show up on Friday night at a place where the sounds of Polka ring out.

Maybe the radio stations of North Michigan have a different audience to try and pamper.
 
GRC's description pretty much sums it up. The market up there isn't conducive to urban sounds in a fairly rural environment populated by older folks or vacationers to their Summer cabins.

I just wish that my market would do the same thing and tailor things more to the actual demographic, rather than the imagined one.
 
nocomradio said:
I just wish that my market would do the same thing and tailor things more to the actual demographic, rather than the imagined one.
Click to expand...

Highly populated metro markets are where the stations can have access (for a price, of course) to really sophisticated audience studies. And all the other stations (if they are looking at audience studies) are seeing the same material. So we end up with one kind of "herd mentality" in city broadcasting.

Low population density markets may be operating with NO audience studies. (They may not be paying for them, and what is available may not be terribly sophisticated.) So in the more rural markets, we see a much more subjective methodology is programming choices. If the station owner is age 60 or above and has a social life that centers around the First Presbyterian Church, that owner is going to have one feel for what the market wants and needs. If the next station down the road (out of town ownership) is run by a manager who has a social life that centers around his Friday night poker club and Monday nights at the local VFW may have a totally different view of what the market needs and wants.
 
that is why they call it "Urban"...when I working in the Soo 35 years ago, the 0nly black people in town were the black women who worked in the mafia run whore house servicing the canadians who came over to the U.S. side one the weekends. not much of an urban audience. (True story)
 
Human Numan said:
Why do most stations up north in Michigan refuse to play hip hop music?
Click to expand...

Here's your answer...

Rich...white...people...with high incomes and vacation homes in that part of the state. Those who live there year-round in most cases listen to country. It's not a population that caters to the inner city crowd.
 
Hmm, I was just up north(Caseville area) a week ago :) I got my first glimpse of radio up there. Seems like a lot of stations are country or oldies music. I could tune in WIOG and loved that station. Reminded me of 95.5 WKQI down here.
 
Exactly. Little to no market for it in those areas.

Stations in areas fitting that profile that do play hip-hop usually have a substantial college nearby.
 
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