Why so many urban stations?

[wpb1999]

I happened to notice something while preparing my PPM report for the company and noticed something:

Atlanta has 5 urban stations in the Abitron reports:

WVEE
WALR
WHTA
WAMJ
WWVA

It's better than the 6 we used to have before the beat became extinct.

Why in the heck do we have so many darn urban stations? While Urban has 5 stations.... AC only has 1 and country has 2.

Another thing....why do we have 4 rock stations?
WSRV, WNNX, WKLS, AND 99x.

That is way to many. We need more variety in our format. Just my Ps and Qs. What's your opinion?

Bill Bradley
[email protected]

 

[quietboy]

Don't know much about the Atlanta market but maybe these formats are making money. I just got hired at a radio station in another market and I can tell you this station doesn't even have good numbers, but they are making a lot of money.

 

[jabba17]

Atlanta has a very large black population, for one.

 

[atlantaboy]

Yeah, this isn't a very hard question - because there are a lot of black people in Atlanta!!

 

[kilamanjero]

Atlanta is the highest black population outside of New York, and the region is 30.4% black, amongst the highest percentage of the US metropolitan areas. Only Memphis (43.9%) and Jackson, Mississippi (about 49%) have high percentage of black populous in their metropolitan areas. High black population equals 'gold mine' for advertisers that want to target this demographic.

 

[wpb1999]

Atlanta is the highest black population outside of New York, and the region is 30.4% black, amongst the highest percentage of the US metropolitan areas. Only Memphis (43.9%) and Jackson, Mississippi (about 49%) have high percentage of black populous in their metropolitan areas. High black population equals 'gold mine' for advertisers that want to target this demographic.

I get it, but 5 of them?

 

[Rick Rose 2.0]

None of the 5 have the same target/format. I see that based on 20 good FM signals in the market that 25% target blacks. Actually i would say that Wild targets whites like the beat did. I hear the same arguments over religious radio but people dont take the format differences into account. Only one prime signal 103.3 targets black audiences.

 

[kilamanjero]

Atlanta is the highest black population outside of New York, and the region is 30.4% black, amongst the highest percentage of the US metropolitan areas. Only Memphis (43.9%) and Jackson, Mississippi (about 49%) have high percentage of black populous in their metropolitan areas. High black population equals 'gold mine' for advertisers that want to target this demographic.

I get it, but 5 of them?

Memphis has 6 urban stations and Jackson has 7 urban stations, so this trend isn't uncommon for these type of demographically arranged markets.

 

[kilamanjero]

None of the 5 have the same target/format. I see that based on 20 good FM signals in the market that 25% target blacks. Actually i would say that Wild targets whites like the beat did. I hear the same arguments over religious radio but people dont take the format differences into account. Only one prime signal 103.3 targets black audiences.

Exactly!

WVEE - full service, urban contemporary - the only one with a full-market signal
WALR - Urban Adult Contemporary
WHTA - Mainstream Urban
WAMJ - Urban Adult Contemporary
WWVA - Rhythmic Contemporary Hit Radio (CHR)

WPZE - Urban Gospel
WAOK - Urban News/Talk

 

[RoddyFreeman]

WWVA-FM's audience is only 33% African-American. I've never considered Wild an Urban station.

The number of Urban stations is a function of broadcast companies wanting to make as much as they can. They looked at the market and the number of African-Americans and decided that was going to be their format. Also, keep in mind that Urban is not really a format. As K-Man pointed out, several formats fit within the Urban classification.

Why does McDonald's have so many locations? Same reason why we have multiple Urban stations. The customer base is there.

 

[wpb1999]

WWVA - Rhythmic Contemporary Hit Radio (CHR)

You cannot tell me that WiLD would be considered a CHR. CHR is Z93... not WiLD or Q100.

 

[RoddyFreeman]

WWVA - Rhythmic Contemporary Hit Radio (CHR)

You cannot tell me that WiLD would be considered a CHR. CHR is Z93... not WiLD or Q100.

It's classified as CHR/Rhythmic.

 

[atlantaboy]

Atlanta is the highest black population outside of New York, and the region is 30.4% black, amongst the highest percentage of the US metropolitan areas. Only Memphis (43.9%) and Jackson, Mississippi (about 49%) have high percentage of black populous in their metropolitan areas. High black population equals 'gold mine' for advertisers that want to target this demographic.

I get it, but 5 of them?

More than 10 Atlanta stations target whites, so why not have 5 stations that target blacks? (that's pretty close to 30% of the stations, in a market that's about 30% black)

 

[gregg75]

Each of the black stations seems to have found their niche (as many stated above). They are just
different enough from each other to set themselves apart. Kiss and Magic are probably the closest
thing to being sisters.

 

[Wildstyle K]

I have to check out this Z93 station because if there's a chr in Atlanta, then... I don't know what I would do. I remember trying to request "hey jealousy" by Gin Blossoms on Z93 back in 1994 since no one else was willing to play it (and they wouldn't either). Star*94 did eventually pick it up a few years later. In other words, I remember Z93 as a rock station. I'll be shocked to see any chr material on there once I go check.... Maybe somebody can finally play "blackout" by Breathe Carolina there.

Anyway, what I originally came to say; WWVA is DEFINITELY not urban. It is a very good pop rhythmic station, though. 95.5 The Beat was close enough to urban sounding to carry a "hip hop" slogan... sort of like KPWR. WWVA, however, could appropriately use a "hit music" slogan the way they are now.

 

[acheron1982]

I had a friend once in Coweta county who went to High School there. While looking at his yearbook, a question was asked what station most listened to and 107.9 was it. Not the population at the high school was mostly white. Younger whites love more urban style music. Urban, specifically hip hop, is not longer a black genre. Just take a listen to V103 during the morning when they get on some hot divisive issues that involves race.

With regards to the rock stations, I agree, there are many rock stations in Atlanta and personally, I love it. I'm biased, of course, but when I get so aggravated with Atlanta radio, I just think about poor New York City. Did you know that New York City (Downtown) does not have a modern rock format? Few to the west and east that has a hard time reaching the heart of New York. Yes, there are lots of rock and urban stations but I'm not complaining. It's variety and I love it.

What about Top 40? Well, it's hard to have more than 2 Top 40 stations because top 40 plays the same few songs over and over and over. I ask again, who is tired of hearing LMFAO's sexy and I know it and Adel's someone like you?

 

[acheron1982]

Wild is not Urban when it plays Adel but it's not CHR either when it plays T-Pain (God I hate that song). I've had a lot of praise for Wild but my praise is about to go to condemnation for their **GASP** constant repeats. Probably should create a new thread for this "rant" but that dance/mix show they have with mama someone at night is AWFUL. I love house music and remixes but check out this set she plays each night; It's an encore. It's the same 10 songs every single night! ARGH!!

 

[trusty]

Also, Atlanta is a quickly becoming a large breakout point for urban artists. Some artists in Detroit have a 'second studio' here while others have already made the move.

For years I've suggested that WGST do an urban news/talk format in the evenings when they cut power. I believe it would work on a heritage station, and such variety would be great pr for them - but CC has deaf ears.

 

[Wildstyle K]

it's hard to have more than 2 Top 40 stations because top 40 plays the same few songs over and over and over.

Not necessarily... at least, not in my world.... but then again, I've been told that I can't judge "the whole world" based on what's happening in "my world."

I think it's somewhat easy to have more than 2 chr's - if they are all programmed in a unique fashion. Some places have a bunch that sound almost identical musically, but the specialty shows and hosts make the overall deciding factor on which one is more preferable. For example; When I was in LA, KIIS had the mixshows and better on-air hosts, so I favored them over KAMP. Where I am now, KZZP has the biggest playlist and KMVA is pretty good with playing strictly new hits, but KZON just sounds better overall in EVERY department (from music to on-air personalities to specialty shows), so they win in my book (and apparently in the ratings book, too). That's the station everyone was telling me would 'never work' about 2 or 3 years ago.. And lastly, when the new dance friendly school programmed chr debuts on an additional signal later in Jan. making it audible for my part of town, I'll be listening to them in addition to the other 3 I just mentioned.

So I, of course, have a biased opinion about having 2 or more chr's, being that I have an abundance of them to choose from.

 

[ShawtyBlack_ATL]

WiLD 105.7/96.7 is anything but Urban, but I'm sure Clear Channel would love some of the Urban pie. 95.5 THE BEAT skewed more Urban (music wise) than WiLD does and THE BEAT pulled more numbers. Anyone think ATL could support another Urban station on the Hip-Hop/R&B side? Remember the poor attempts with CC's WiLD 96.7 (when the switched from Rhythmic to Urban/the beginning of Premium Choice), Cox's 97.1 JAMZ and the short lived STREETZ 102.9.