why does wpen stay alfloat

[hangman]

If an Alternative, Active Rock, Standards, Oldies or Talk format had those constant dismal ratings they would of been toast by now. Why the hell does this station still survive, because its the great format called Sports, that everyone embraces and thinks is the bread winner, this is the most expensive format to run. We know in Philly everyone loves sports before the decay of the City, State, Country, and Taxes, Pollution, Crime and so on, just give me my Eagles and Phillies, who cares about my house being burned. Ben and Radio 1045, run on a shoestring, with no cost or overhead and they do twice as good ratings wise, So why??

 

[TheBigA]

Money. It makes money.

You can make money with sports even with a 1 share. Especially in Philly.

 

[davideduardo]

If an Alternative, Active Rock, Standards, Oldies or Talk format had those constant dismal ratings they would of been toast by now. Why the hell does this station still survive, because its the great format called Sports, that everyone embraces and thinks is the bread winner, this is the most expensive format to run. We know in Philly everyone loves sports before the decay of the City, State, Country, and Taxes, Pollution, Crime and so on, just give me my Eagles and Phillies, who cares about my house being burned. Ben and Radio 1045, run on a shoestring, with no cost or overhead and they do twice as good ratings wise, So why??

Simple question, complex answer.

But briefly... sports delivers adult males very efficiently. For advertisers targeting men, there is little spillage / waste reaching women. The ages are ideal for marketers. Stations doing all sports have much higher men 25-54 numbers than the overall 6+ beauty contest would reveal.

Here is is an example of the overperformance: WPEN may be around 18th to 20th in 6+, but in 25-54 or the subsets of 25-54 (25-34, 35-44 and 45-54) the station averages between 5th and 7th in the market.

Besides the normal ad budgets targeting men, there is additional "sports only" money that goes to media that have a sports environment. This is sometimes referred to as "sports marketing dollars" and in some cases may not even be "radio dollars" but part of budgets that go to sports content environments.

The classic example of this is seen with WFAN in New York where the station for many years was typically around 15th in 12+ was either #1 or top two or three in revenue.

 

[HGN2001]

Don't forget the prestige angle. Management of these stations, mostly men are mostly sports fans themselves. They like nothing better than to have their sports idols parading through the station for one reason or another. And carrying play-by-play comes with the bonus of tickets to the games - every game. Those make great giveaways and incentives - on-air, to clients, to agency buyers, etc.

 

[TheBigA]

But really, at the end of the day, it's all about the money.

 

[Bob Eubanks]

If an Alternative, Active Rock, Standards, Oldies or Talk format had those constant dismal ratings they would of been toast by now. Why the hell does this station still survive, because its the great format called Sports, that everyone embraces and thinks is the bread winner, this is the most expensive format to run. We know in Philly everyone loves sports before the decay of the City, State, Country, and Taxes, Pollution, Crime and so on, just give me my Eagles and Phillies, who cares about my house being burned. Ben and Radio 1045, run on a shoestring, with no cost or overhead and they do twice as good ratings wise, So why??

More like if WPEN had the dismal financials of, say, standards or "oldies" (as distinguished from "classic hits," for simplicity) in some cases, then, yeah, it would be gone. But it's not. And that should indicate that the public 6+ numbers are about as useful as the amount you pay for them, give or take a few pennies.