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Wilmington ratings for Fall 2010

M

MikefromDelaware

The Wilmington ratings did come out earlier this month. Here is what I saw.

WJBR still #1, with WDAS-FM 2nd, WSTW regained 3rd and pushed their sister station WXCY down to 4th. WJKS 101.7 jumped to 6th, probably their highest rating ever as WJKS or WNNN. WOGL dropped. WSOX from York PA gained listeners as possible competition for WOGL's listeners.

WXCY's still the #1 country station, but WDSD has grown significantly and continues to grow, but is still a ways off from over taking WXCY. WXTU on the other hand has remained essentially the same. WXCY gains listeners in the Spring books and loses them in the fall books, possibly due to WDSD's NasCar race coverage on weekends.

WDEL's live and local seems to be working well as WDEL is consistently ahead of WILM. My guess is, the only part of WILM's broadcast day where they beat out WDEL would be during Rush, but that's just an opinion as I don't have access to the numbers to know that for a fact. Interestingly, WPHT's numbers are about the same as WILM's. Now if WPHT ever dropped Rush, that could really help WILM, but elRushbo must be helping WPHT's bottomline as he was the only national talker not dropped from their day time lineup. WPHT a few weeks ago, switched to live and local, other than Rush. This could be a win fall for both WDEL or WILM if Wilmngton listeners don't like the change at WPHT. I guess we'll have to wait for the Spring numbers to come out next fall to find out.

Interestingly, WDEL's numbers go up in the Spring book, which makes me think the Phillies help WDEL, yet the Eagles appear to not help WDEL in the Fall numbers. There may be other factors, but that's just an observation.

Unfortunately, WHYY-FM's numbers don't show as non-comms aren't listed. My guess is, WHYY-FM gets a decent share of Wilmington area listeners based on how often I hear a Delaware caller to Radio Times.

Elliot in the Morning on WILM has been discussed on the Delaware board previously, but this new show could help WILM, apparently they are picking up local spots as I've heard quite a few of late. So just maybe WDEL and WILM will go head to head in AM drive time with their competing local morning news shows. The cross town rivalry continues.

WWTX did show in the Spring 10 ratings, but not this time in the Fall numbers. I guess the Blue Rocks give WWTX more of a bump in listeners than UofD football. Again that's just an observation, there may be other reasons.

If anyone has access to the numbers, it would be interesting to hear without disclosing actual numbers, if non-comms WHYY-FM, WRTI-FM, WVUD-FM, and WXHL-FM show up in the ratings. My guess is that all of those non-comms will show up, with WHYY having the best rating maybe near that of WDEL's rating, maybe higher, followed by WVUD, then WRTI, with WXHL all down futher in the rankings.

You've heard my spin, now it's your turn.
 
With baseball you get a lot more hours of programming time with games six or seven days a week during a long season. With football, you get one game a week (sometimes none) during a bit shorter season. Just from sheer hours, baseball is more of a factor in average quarter hour shares.

Add to that football is on FM (WYSP) and Philly FM's are always more of a factor in Wilmington than Philly AMs.

Both local talkers are getting smaller shares than they used to, with WILM taking a much bigger hit. The curious part is a significant increase for the Big Talker in Wilmington. It was one thing for talk on FM to have an impact in Wilmington when WWDB was doing talk but 1210 doesn't have that good a signal into much of Wilmington and never has done that well. Of course, the ratings period was with Beck and Hannity on 1210.

Urban formats are really big. An elevator music continues to do well. My own theory is elevator music is what people listen to when no station carries the music they really like; it is the "least objectionable program" in radio today. I'm a bit surprised that sports talk is so pathetic. I bet you could say all seven of George Carlin's Seven Words on The Ticket and nobody would notice.

Lest we forget, Wilmington is still a diary market. As we've seen when other markets switched to PPM, diary data must be taken with a lot of salt.

RRC Online still reports public radio numbers for diary markets but nothing for Wilmington. Curious. They do report rim-shots in some other markets but maybe they don't report anything unless a public radio station (or at least a repeater) is located in the market.
 
Good point about baseball vs football. So both WDEL and WWTX probably get a bump due to Phillies on WDEL and Blue Rocks on WWTX, even though both carry popular football teams Eagles on WDEL and Uof Del on WWTX the games aren't often enough to show in the ratings, yet probably are real money makers local spot wise for both.

WRTI has a repeater at 107.7 in Marshallton DE (about a mile from Prices Corner Shopping Center) to serve the Wilmington area, WXHL COL is Christiana, DE and flagship for their Reach FM network that has repeaters all over the northern eastcoast (including Del County PA and Philly); and WVUD COL is Newark, DE at the Univ of Del. So those should fit in to what you described. WHYY-FM COL is Philly unlike its TV cousin WHYY-TV COL is Wilmington.

My guess is that WRTI which has a weaker signal into the Wilmington area than WHYY-FM, chose to put a repeater here, probably because they are getting listeners and more importantly financial supporters in high enough numbers to justify providing Wilmington with a better signal via a repeater at 107.7.
 
@MFD: WVUD and WXHL are not considered public radio stations, as defined by the CPB, so RRC does not report them. All public radio stations are non-commercial but not all non-commercial stations are public radio stations. Public radio excludes religious and student or educational stations.

From looking at RRC reports, it appears they report markets in which a public radio station is based. For purposes of comparison they also report out-of-market translators and rim-shots but only if there is a local public radio station (or more than one).

Too bad. I would love to see how the Philly public radio stations do in Wilmington. I guess that will have to wait until Wilmington gets PPM.
 
Any idea how soon PPM's will come to Wilmington? I guess, as we're market 77, we'll be right before market #78. So I'm guessing it will be years.
 
PPMs are in all of the top 50 markets except Oklahoma City (47) and Puerto Rico.

The other markets with populations close to that of the Wilmington market are continuous measurement diary markets, with four ratings periods a year. Each rating period pretty much runs into the next. Wilmington only has diary placement during two rating periods a year. If and when Arbitron decides to bring PPMs to medium (2nd 50) markets, the continuous measurement markets would likely be in line ahead of Wilmington. Not sure how Wilmington ended up a 2S market but I'd guess it's because somebody's not willing to pay the cost of four surveys each year. Maybe somebody on the inside knows more.
 
It would be interesting to also find out, of those other markets that are in the same size range as Wilmington, how many AM and FM stations do those markets have as compared to Wilmington. My guess is due to our close proximity to Philly, we'll have far less stations that are in market stations than those other cities. That too may play a part of why we only get two ratings per year vs the continuous ratings those markets get.

If Wilmington was located where Dover is, My guess is we'd have way more in market radio and TV than we now have. As you've mentioned in other posts, most folks, other than native Wilmingtonians, see the Wilmington Metro as a suburb of Philly.

What I don't understand is why Dover isn't part of the Wilmington market. Dover, I don't believe, is counted in either Wilmington or Salisbury markets.
 
Arbitron has issued raings reports on a county basis. I saw such reports back in the '90s for Kent and Sussex counties. Including such stations as WDOV and 1600AM in the Wilmington market would serve no purpose as you can barely hear them up here.
 
MikefromDelaware said:
It would be interesting to also find out, of those other markets that are in the same size range as Wilmington, how many AM and FM stations do those markets have as compared to Wilmington. My guess is due to our close proximity to Philly, we'll have far less stations that are in market stations than those other cities. That too may play a part of why we only get two ratings per year vs the continuous ratings those markets get.

If Wilmington was located where Dover is, My guess is we'd have way more in market radio and TV than we now have. As you've mentioned in other posts, most folks, other than native Wilmingtonians, see the Wilmington Metro as a suburb of Philly.

What I don't understand is why Dover isn't part of the Wilmington market. Dover, I don't believe, is counted in either Wilmington or Salisbury markets.
Click to expand...

Interesting question: Here is how markets with about the same population (give or take about 100K), which are also radio markets within an outside TV market stack up...

69. Allentown-Easton-Bethlehem MSA (w/in Philadelphia DMA) 4S Pop 698.9K Rev $23.4M (#79)
10 AM 6 FM
73. Sarasota-Bradenton MSA (w/in Tampa-St. Petersburg DMA) 2S Pop 624.3K Rev $5.3M (#236)
6 AM 6 FM
76. Akron MSA (w/in Cleveland DMA) 4S Pop 595.9K Rev $16.4M (#102)
3 AM 4 FM
77. Wilmington MSA (w/in Philadelphia DMA) 2S Pop 592.0K Rev $22.6M (#85)
5 AM 6 FM
82. Stockton MSA (w/in Sacramento DMA) 2S Pop 559.1K Rev $8.4M (#174)
3 AM 14 FM
87. Daytona Beach MSA (w/in Orlando MSA) 4S Pop 532.9K Rev $5.2M (#240)
6 AM 3 FM
94. Lakeland-Winter Haven MSA (w/in Tampa-St. Petersburg DMA) 2S Pop 498.8K Rev $5.4 (#230)
7 AM 2 FM

4S=continuous measurement; 2S=two ratings periods yearly. I also included BIA market revenue and how each market ranks in terms of revenue. Station counts are commercial stations in each market as assigned by Katz (not including rim-shots and non-commercial stations).

It does not seem like the Wilmington market comes up especially short on in-market commercial stations. And Wilmington listeners have a lot more choices available than just in-market stations. Consistently outside stations get a combined average audience share in Wilmington of about 70 per cent. For music formats, local doesn't matter much any more. Music stations have very little (or no) local content and sound pretty much the same anywhere you go. Even news-talk stations are mostly syndicated and Wilmington has more local content available to it than most markets (including many larger markets). And in ad revenue, Wilmington does pretty well compared to other markets of comparable population in the shadow of a larger market. It does not seem like Wilmington is getting short-changed at all.

Radio markets used by Arbitron are based on metro areas as defined by the census bureau. The census bureau defines a metro area as a county with a core urban area and any adjacent counties with a "high degree of of social and economic integration (as measured by commuting to work) with the urban core." New Castle County extends to just North of Smyrna, so there are not likely to be very many people commuting to work North of the Canal from Kent County. In view of how much radio listening is done in cars, assigning counties to metro areas based on commuting patterns probably makes sense for defining radio markets, too.
 
Interesting data Matt.

6 AM that I immediately think of are: WDEL, WWTX, WILM, WNWK, WTMC- Deldot -non-comm, WFAI - Salem/Wilmington. I'd not count WTMC or WFAI, but as Salem County is part of the Wilmington Metro Area, WFAI should count. I guess then that WSRY Elkton 1550 is part of the Wilmington market. They are owned by Faith City originally as part of WXHL, even though I believe they are not airing XHL programming, but ESPN radio now, so they must be airing spots even if only national spots from the bird - commercial is commercial, so they'd probably not be considered a non-comm and part of the 6. Ironically, you can't pick up WSRY in Wilmington at all, only on the Western side of Newark as it seems to fade fast heading east away from Elton towards Newark, but if based on what county within the metro, they probably are the 6th AM. So maybe the 6 AM's are WDEL, WWTX, WILM, WNWK, WFAI, and WSRY. Of those 6, only WDEL, WWTX, and WILM cover all of New Castle County during the dayparts, but then that's not a requirement to be considered an in market station.

The 6 FM's that immediately come to mind for me are: WSTW, WJBR, WXHL- non-comm, WVUD-noncomm,, WRTI repeater - non-comm, WXCY - Havre de Grace MD, (is that in Cecil County or is it in the next county west towards Baltimore?), WJKS Salem County. So by my count there are 3 or 4 FM's if you count WXCY. What other FM's would be considered Wilmington FM's? So based on what you said, that implies there are two other commerical FM's being counted for Wilmington. There is WOEL from Elkton, but that too is a non-comm religious station, so it wouldn't make the cut. There's WVLT - Vineland, NJ, but that's not in Salem County.

There is a Media PA FM, I believe 100.3 WPHI, but Del or Chester County PA and neither of those counties are part of the Wilmington Metro. Also WMHS at McKean High School Pike Creek, but that's a non-comm too.

So maybe WDSD and WRTX are being counted in the Wilmington Market even though they are in Dover out of market and Kent County isn't considered to be part of Metro Wilmington. However, if those are the other two FM's counted that leaves Dover's WDOV and 1600 WAMS (formerly known as WKEN 1600) still in no market.

So my guess of the 6 FM's for the Wilmington Market might be: WSTW, WJBR, WXCY, WJKS, WDSD, WRTX.

I found it quite interesting that even though 70% of the listening within the Wilmington market is to out of market - meaning Philly stations, the Wilmington market had the second highest revenue of the markets you displayed. So I'm assuming, that means the Wilmington market stations that are generating local spot revenue are generating fairly high revenue in local spots. I'd assume those would be WJBR, WSTW, WXCY, WJKS, WDSD, WDEL, and possibly WRTX. Even though not in the Wilmington market, it appears that Dover's WDOV is also doing OK local spot wise as compared to WILM and WWTX. Of course of late there has been an surge of local spots on WILM, so maybe something's changed at CC Delaware and WWTX and WILM will be carrying a heavier spot load vs PSA's.

But I agree with you, that from what you showed, it does appear that radio wise Wilmington is doing pretty good, especially when adding Philly's stations to the mix there is a pretty big choice other than for older demo music like Oldies, Classic Country, and Standards. As there are no Standards stations receivable in Wilmington and only WOGL for oldies (WVLT's signal is very clear) and no classic country that I know of that's receivable in Wilmington.

The stations I actually regularly listen to during weekday mornings and during workday are: WDEL (AM newsblock, Al Messitti, Loudell newsblock, on very rare occasions Rick Jensen; WILM (Elliot in the morning, on very rare occasions Rush); WWTX(Jim Rome, Dan Patrick); WPEN-FM 97.5 - the Fanatic; WHYY-FM (Morn Ed, Radio Times, Here and Now, Fresh Air, ATC) ; WRTI-repeater 107.7 for Classical Music; sometimes WMGK for classic rock; sometimes WDSD or WXCY for country; and with the new change in talk shows I've started checking out WPHT after work as it doesn't come in well at work. Depending on what each is discussing determines which station I listen to each day, which is why the overlap in programs. But to your point, yes a major part of my radio listening is from Philly.

If my computer at work would let me stream I'd also search out a good standards station and a good oldies station or greatest hits station that featured 50's, 60's, and nondisco 70's music that wasn't too heavy into Motown and Soul as WOGL is.
 
But I agree with you, that from what you showed, it does appear that radio wise Wilmington is doing pretty good, especially when adding Philly's stations to the mix there is a pretty big choice other than for older demo music like Oldies, Classic Country, and Standards. As there are no Standards stations receivable in Wilmington and only WOGL for oldies (WVLT's signal is very clear) and no classic country that I know of that's receivable in Wilmington.

I mistyped, it should have said (WVLT's signal isn't very clear).
 
Yes, Wilmington does do well in revenue for an adjoining market. I don't have access to the full BIA revenue data but some of the Wilmington FMs almost certainly have additional listeners in Philly metro and that added cume may mean added dollars. In a way, being close to Philly might in some ways have advantages.

I was glancing at the census bureau commuting figures. Maybe it would be a stretch to include New Castle County in the Philly metro but I think a case could be made for having New Castle and Chester County in the same metro area. Lots of people commuting between the two. And Chester County is adjacent to New Castle but not Philadelphia County. I went to school in Cecil County and the Wilmington stations did not come in at all well. Some Baltimore stations came in OK and people did listen to them. The best signal and the most popular station was from York. So, these market designations don't necessarily reflect the real world of what people listen to.

Your guess about the FMs on Katz' list was spot on. The AMs they counted were WDEL, WILM, WWTX plus WDOV (?) and WNWK. I'm not sure how WDOV got included. And I hadn't noticed WNWK was back on the air but it is listed. Wilmington potentially might also have 1380 listed but right now it's being wasted. I looked a little further into the Katz data base and they do include non-comms (public and religious) in other markets. Some smaller stations (commercial and non) are not listed. Not sure what determines who is not listed. Maybe stations have to provide listing info to either Katz or Arbitron to be included and smaller stations and maybe educational stations don't bother.

The markets in Florida don't seem to be making much money. I can't help wondering if the large retirement age populations in those areas might be a factor. Allentown does well. It is a bit further from Philly and the terrain makes reception of Philly stations not as good as Wilmington has. That seems to work to the favor of the local stations there.

Havre de Grace is in Harford County (other side of the Susquehanna River). That station is not listed under the Baltimore market, which includes Harford County.
 
Matt, you have access to some interesting data. You've dug up some interesting info in this discussion. WDOV does surprise me, especially as 1600 WAMS/WKEN isn't included as both 1410 and 1600 are Dover AM's. Neither are heard in Wilmington, except for those unusual days where weather helps the skip. There have been some days where WDOV and to a lesser extent 1600 WAMS came in pretty well, in my car. However, maybe only WDOV can be heard reasonably in lower NCC just above Smyrna into Middletown thus making it into the Wilmington market.

WNWK 1260 has been back on the air as a "Regional Mexican" format for about a year and a half, as I recall. They even showed once in the 12+ numbers, albeit a very low rating, but still showing.

I'd agree with you that Chester County, I'm guessing that's the county Media is located, where WPHI 100.3 COL is connects more with Wilmington like Kennett Square, Longwood Gardens and the DuPont's, etc, seem to connect more with Wilmington than Philly, and yes more commuting between Chester County and NCC than Philly.

Maybe one reason WDOV is part of the Wilmington AM radio market as WDSD and WRTX on the FM side is due to the increased commuting between Wilmington and Dover that has occurred during the past 10-15 years. There are a lot of bedroom communities in Middletown and Smyrna going into Dover now. I've noticed a pretty large amount of North - South traffic weekdays in the traffic reports concerning Del Rt 1 and US 13 between Dover and Wilmington (Pine Tree Corners seems to be in the traffic reports almost as much as the jam up on 13 Northbound in Wilmington Manor). This is why I believe the Dover market should be incorporated as part of the Wilmington market adding Kent County into the Wilmington Metro as the fourth county), which apparently it has been for radio other than 1600 WAMS, into the Wilmington market. But I'm even saying as part of the census version of metro as Kent and NCC seem to be growing together more and more.

That may be one smart thing CC Delaware has done in connecting WILM and WDOV together via their simulcast during morning drive with their newsblock, now Elliot in the Morning as commuters going either way can switch to the other 1410 to 1450 or 1450 to 1410 as they work their way up and down the state, and even in the PM drive with Hannity on both WDOV and WILM thus putting WDOV even more into the Wilmington market than might have been the case in the past when their programming during AM/PM drive was separate.
 
MikefromDelaware said:
I'd agree with you that Chester County, I'm guessing that's the county Media is located, where WPHI 100.3 COL is connects more with Wilmington like Kennett Square, Longwood Gardens and the DuPont's, etc, seem to connect more with Wilmington than Philly, and yes more commuting between Chester County and NCC than Philly.
Click to expand...

Media is in Delaware County, which originally was part of Chester County (so partial credit). Southern Delaware County is more oriented toward Wilmington but the bulk of the county and its population is in Philly's orbit. I don't know how reliable an indicator this is but it seems a lot of the groups attending Blue Rocks games, and a lot of the program and billboard advertisers, are from Chester County.

New census data is coming out shortly and metro lines have been known to change. Curious that Nielsen defines their TV markets on what stations more people watch and Arbitron goes more by commuting patterns rather than listening patterns for radio. Just eyeballing the census commuting spreadsheet it seems like not a large percentage of workers are commuting between Kent and New Castle Counties in either direction. There has been a lot of residential development South of the canal but it's still in NCC and there's still a lot of open space in Southern NCC and in much of Kent County. Even Salem County doesn't seem to generate much traffic. On the other hand, as anyone who drives 202 can tell you, there seems to be a lot of commuting between NCC and Chester County (and even Delaware County).

Around Odessa and Middletown is about where WDOV and WILM's signals equal out and just South of that seems to be where residential development still gives way to farms and trees. If we see more residential development South of Odessa and Middletown with people commuting to Dover and/or more commercial development in that area with people commuting from Dover, we could see Kent added to the Wilmington market.
 
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