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Why No Urban AC - Cut to the Chase
- Thread starter radiobox
- Start date
radiobox said:
As you notice there is not an Urban AC outlet in San Antonio on analogue radio. They tried to resurrect it on KVRX HD-2 but it flipped to a Dance format.
Also, KAZI airs a lot of Urban AC friendly programming.
There is just not a sizable demo to do Urban AC in Austin.
Plus, in San Antonio you only have Univision (which focuses on programming to Hispanics, BMP (under Bain Capital), Clear Channel (which layed off thousands due to the ecomony), and Cox (Cheapskate radio where the suits in Atlanta are making the decisions) as the major players.
Radio One which owns Majic 102 Houston is facing financial woes and wouldn't suprise me if they sell KMJQ.
Urban AC and Jazz has long moved off the dial and onto XM radio.
Most of the demos that Urban AC attracts are 25-54 or should I say 40-54, and no advertiser will touch it. It is true that African Americans have shorter life expectency than Non African Americans.
I can also use Standards as an example, but if any SA radio station would flip to Urban AC it would be either 106.7 (not likely), or KAHL 1310/103.7 for Austin I would say if anybody would flip to Urban AC it would be 93.3 KGSR, or 98.1 KVET (I see Jammin before I see an Urban AC reason=younger demo).
A wise programmer once said, "There's no format hole in the market unless there are enough listeners to fill that hole." In other words, you don't do a format just because no one else is doing it.
With that said, I do applaud those who go in to serve otherwise unserved audiences. Those folks proudly go in saying we will not win with this, but we will provide a needed service.
With that said, I do applaud those who go in to serve otherwise unserved audiences. Those folks proudly go in saying we will not win with this, but we will provide a needed service.
radiobox said:
The simple answer is that there aren't enough people to support an Urban AC. Just look at the numbers. The African-American population of Austin is 7% according to Arbitron. Urban AC's audience composition is usually 80-90% African-American and about the same percentage female. So, you'd be programming a station targeting roughly 3.5% of the total audience. That's just not enough to support the format, especially considering you wouldn't get every African-American female to listen.
KAZI has it covered.
Kent said:
So true, because only 100% of Urban AC listeners are African-American. Nevermind the crossovers that have been on urban AC charts for decades, and forget about R&B crooner, Robin Thicke.
Enough with the "only 'African Americans' listen to R&B" crap. This white guy loves his funk, soul and R&B!
sdh483 said:
Austin's ratings are normally topped by Country, mainstream Top 40 and NPR. The Beat is classified as Urban but doesn't drift too far from the Top 40 chart. I don't think that bodes well for a station programming funk, soul & R&B to White people.
Besides, Urban AC has been tried before. Anyone remember KNOW 1490 in it's "The Rhythm of the City" period? They gave it a couple of years before pulling the plug.
fredcantu said:
Don't forget KJCE "The Juice 1370 AM" owned by CBS radio in the 90s. CBS dropped KJCE for Talk radio.
I thought KNOW was Top 40 not just R&B.
sdh483 said:
The same can be said with Country radio, African Americans listen to Country too, and rock.
But like Kent said, when you have a city with 7 percent of African Americans and according to last Census data and 3.5 percent will be in the target demo, the format is best covered on College Radio, or a Non Profit listener supported station. Also a Urban Contemporary station reaches a wider audience verses Urban Adult Contemporary station.
An Urban AC station would not have as many currents because Dance, Bubble gum pop, and hip hop are dominating today's music scene. So it would be better having a station kind of like an Urban Oldies station, or Old School. New Slow Jams are not being made as they had in the 80s and 90s.
So let me get this right -
1) Radio ( Clusters ) no longer look at market share = Basically own a Demo ( women ) and sell that Multiple Demo Group or Cluster to Advertisers
2) Radio ( Demo ) Austin AA is too small ( amazing when AL Green , John Legend , Stevie Wonder , Earth Wind and Fire etc Sell out in Austin - And only AA go see them perform
wrong its pretty Multi -Cultural
3) You can have two part -time stations that play R & B sometimes other times Talk - *80's POP and whatever someone can play or even Dance and City Meetings. Isn't that Teasing the Horse
Last You can have 4 Christian Station - Try 3 Talk Radio - Spanish Talk Sports - wonder what those Populations and Demo breaks down too - One thing is true their not making Money
1) Radio ( Clusters ) no longer look at market share = Basically own a Demo ( women ) and sell that Multiple Demo Group or Cluster to Advertisers
2) Radio ( Demo ) Austin AA is too small ( amazing when AL Green , John Legend , Stevie Wonder , Earth Wind and Fire etc Sell out in Austin - And only AA go see them perform
wrong its pretty Multi -Cultural
3) You can have two part -time stations that play R & B sometimes other times Talk - *80's POP and whatever someone can play or even Dance and City Meetings. Isn't that Teasing the Horse
Last You can have 4 Christian Station - Try 3 Talk Radio - Spanish Talk Sports - wonder what those Populations and Demo breaks down too - One thing is true their not making Money
sdh483 said:
Actually, if you read my message, you'd notice I said urban AC typically has an 80-90% African-American audience. Also, almost no urban AC specifically targets anyone not African-American. Straight ahead urban, on the other hand, can have an audience as high as 60% that's not African-American. Usually, urban gets 50-60% African-American listeners, but that percentage can be lower, especially in markets with a high Hispanic population.
So, no, I never said only African-Americans listen to R&B!
radiobox said:
Not sure what you mean here. The whole point most of us have been making us that there isn't enough market share to support urban AC.
The urban AC tunes that cross over are a small percentage of the total artists that make up the format. People won't sit through a ton of songs they don't like just to hear the few they do like. If those few artists were all it took to be an urban AC, Majic 95.5 would qualify!
That's a non-commercial station. It has its own mission independent of just making money. There's always the possibility a community-minded individual or group will want to do an urban AC format. I wouldn't hold my breath for it, but it could happen and would probably be more likely to happen than a commercial station doing the format (barring a substantial demographics change).
Roughly 80% of Americans practice some form of Christianity. That doesn't mean they believe exactly the same way nor does it mean that they attend church regularly, however. As for the Spanish-language audience, Austin is 20% Hispanic, most of whom are Spanish-dominant. So, the Spanish sports station, which would go after the Spanish speaking males, is going after almost three times the audience an urban AC would be going after. Granted, it doesn't appear to be reaching a substantial portion of that audience, but it has a much larger base.
Kent said:
A little correction here, but one that actually reinforces your point.
The Austin MSA is 32% Hispanic, about 50% of which is Spanish dominant and another significant part is "bilingual." This means that upwards of 75% of Hispanics can listen to and understand Spanish language media. That's nearly a half-million people who listen or might listen to Spanish language radio.
At 7% African American, that's only about 120,000 total persons. Of those, a large percentage, determined by age and musical taste, will not like an Urban A/C station. Thus, using cume share from other markets, the Black cume for an Urban A/C is likely well under 50,000 persons... and since that format tends to appeal almost entirely to African Americans, that's it. An FM can not survive on a cume of under 50,000.
Reply and Question
The AA Population ( what is the correct percentage to do a Urban AC )
Cluster Market Share should'nt have to be explained
Hispanic Share - so explain if the Hispanic Population is so High than why are the Major Players in the Market are not making strong revenue . There should be Spanish Radio just like Urban AC but maybe there should only be ( 3 ) spanish station ? not ( 6 ) or 7 on a good day
There still is room in the Market for a Cluster to Have an Urban AC - I sse that most responses is to the fact that Austin Metro ( aa population is 7.1 ? )
also Majic 102 is Houston is not making revenue properly because you cant have a Major Market station ran with a Syndicated Morning Show - major Market should be Local -
The AA Population ( what is the correct percentage to do a Urban AC )
Cluster Market Share should'nt have to be explained
Hispanic Share - so explain if the Hispanic Population is so High than why are the Major Players in the Market are not making strong revenue . There should be Spanish Radio just like Urban AC but maybe there should only be ( 3 ) spanish station ? not ( 6 ) or 7 on a good day
There still is room in the Market for a Cluster to Have an Urban AC - I sse that most responses is to the fact that Austin Metro ( aa population is 7.1 ? )
also Majic 102 is Houston is not making revenue properly because you cant have a Major Market station ran with a Syndicated Morning Show - major Market should be Local -
Do you live here? The AA population is really fragmented. Keep in mind that Jammin 105.9 tried the approach and failed. You would have to have a company who was willing to put tons of money into it to get people to know that the station existed.
radiobox said:
The correct percentage is whatever will generate enough advertising revenue for you to make money. It's not the same everywhere. However, most markets with a 7% African American population either don't have an urban AC or have it on a dumpwater station that either doesn't cover the whole market or is a poor AM signal. Wichita, KS has a slightly higher percentage of African Americans than Austin does. It briefly had an urban AC, and it failed within two years. Omaha is 9% African American and has not been able to support an urban AC. Buffalo is 12% has no urban AC. Dallas and Houston, both of which have urban AC's, are 15% and 17%.
If what you're trying to say is that clusters just want to own a single demo, I'm not sure I agree with that. Clear Channel and Emmis are, or at least used to be, the highest billing clusters in the market, and they're very well-balanced. However, if you're Entercom and you want to add a station that gets a high female audience to compliment KKMJ and KAMX, you'd be better off providing another country station or another CHR than you would by doing urban AC. If that's not what you're saying, please communicate your point better.
Spanish-language radio has a history of underbilling its ratings shares. Spanish-language stations also have about a 15 share when added together. That equates to about the same percentage of the audience that's Spanish-dominant. In other words, it's getting the audience it's supposed to get.
Austin is roughly 7% African American. I do think Austin could support an urban station, but I don't see enough numbers for an urban AC.
radiobox said:
There are three Spanish language stations that matter... the others are AMs with marginal formats. The three major ones are all limited coverage facilities, ones that don't cover the entire market. They bill nicely for borderline marginal facilities, and would likely have lower ratings and lower billings if they were not in Spanish as the signals could not compete with the big full C's. In other words, all three are making the best use of their signals and potential.
All three get pretty decent shares... the two larger ones cume about 170,000 each while the rimshot does about 100,000. As I posted before, with a total African American population of about 120,000 and only about 50,000 in the main sales demo, those Spanish language FMs outcume a theoretical Urban AC by nearly 4 to one at one end and more than 2 to one at the other. A cume of 40,000 to 50,000 would get around a 0.5 share, not enough to get on transactional buys.
Bzzzzt. Wrong. Thanks for playing.
Mornings on KMJQ don't underperform and in sales demos, the station is in the top 3 or 4 in mornings in the total market.
KMJQ is in what amounts to a virtual 4-way tie for #1 biller in Houston. Along with KBXX, KILT and KODA, KMJQ is in the $21 to $22 million billing range.
KMJQ has a 1.15 power ratio, which is very, very good.
Obviously, you are not getting your facts straight so you are making all the wrong assumptions.
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