WLS-FM Not working with listeners

[radioman148]

From Chicagoland Radio & media Messageboard: http://chicagoradioandmedia.com/message-board

"WLS-FM has dropped to a tie at #16 with a 2.6 share. The Classic Hits station has a 4.1 share at this time last year. This seems to indicate that WLS-FM's alteration in the playlist and silencing of its DJs is not working with fans."

 

[benale]

Legendary air talent being muzzled. The station is playing music the talent is not identified with, and with a strictly classic hits format, there is no Motown, 70's pop hits and other black artists. WJMK sounds similar, but at least they will play music that is outside of the classic hits genre.

No wonder WLS FM is doing poorly.

 

[uncamark]

Legendary air talent being muzzled. The station is playing music the talent is not identified with, and with a strictly classic hits format, there is no Motown, 70's pop hits and other black artists. WJMK sounds similar, but at least they will play music that is outside of the classic hits genre.

No wonder WLS FM is doing poorly.

Beauty pageant numbers (and even then, WLS-FM was up from the Holiday book, with some of their audience moving next door to WLIT during the holidays). What about the 25-54 target demo?

 

[davideduardo]

Legendary air talent being muzzled. The station is playing music the talent is not identified with, and with a strictly classic hits format, there is no Motown, 70's pop hits and other black artists. WJMK sounds similar, but at least they will play music that is outside of the classic hits genre.

No wonder WLS FM is doing poorly.

Beauty pageant numbers (and even then, WLS-FM was up from the Holiday book, with some of their audience moving next door to WLIT during the holidays). What about the 25-54 target demo?

25-54, WLS is off by about a quarter, and WJMK now beats it solidly. Neither, though, rank among "must buy" radio stations.

 

[Dr Wayne]

Bring back the oldies and let the jocks talk and watch the ratings go up!

 

[radioman148]

Bring back the oldies and let the jocks talk and watch the ratings go up!

You are right on. I would bet money on the ratings going up if they did those two things, but Jan Jeffries will never admit that he screwed up a good station.

 

[KFodor]

Bring back the oldies and let the jocks talk and watch the ratings go up!

But, they won't attract the demographics advertisers want, Dr. Wayne...so no matter how high the ratings go, the money will not follow.

Don't believe me? Since I'm talking to people in Chi-town, consider the case of the former WKIO-FM in Champaign-Urbana. A station taken from #6 to #1 in Arbitron by focusing its playlist to the music of the 50's-70's....the traditional oldies format....from being a hodgepodge hybrid format that could go from Nat "King" Cole to Madonna to the Beach Boys to Grand Funk Railroad.

Once realigned in the traditional music configuration, advertisers rebelled. "When are you going to add some later 70's and 80's"? They said, "The college kids won't listen to what you're playing! Your audience is too old!"

The station lost 50 cents on a dollar. The format was changed to adult hits sometime later.

I recount this story to you as I was the PD that took them from #6 to #1. Lesson learned: You can't argue with the demos. If you don't get the demos the advertisers demand, being #1 doesn't mean a thing.

Time you guys learned it.

 

[quadraphonic]

That is the coldest, stonest fact in radio, Jason.

 

[cspotrun]

Legendary air talent being muzzled. The station is playing music the talent is not identified with, and with a strictly classic hits format, there is no Motown, 70's pop hits and other black artists. WJMK sounds similar, but at least they will play music that is outside of the classic hits genre.

No wonder WLS FM is doing poorly.

i think "Corporate" is trying to kill it off slowly, or they are just plain stupid.

 

[Jay Walker]

Lesson learned: You can't argue with the demos. If you don't get the demos the advertisers demand, being #1 doesn't mean a thing.

Time you guys learned it.

No truer statement has ever been posted on this board.
It is a lesson I learned the hard way over 40 years ago.
Radio is NOT an art form, Radio is a BUSINESS.

 

[scanman1]

For those who want '50s and '60s oldies music, there are several internet stations playing it and SiriusXM offers channels for that type of music as well (I've moved to those outlets since October's change to Classic Hits).

 

[stewie]

Lesson learned: You can't argue with the demos. If you don't get the demos the advertisers demand, being #1 doesn't mean a thing.

Time you guys learned it.

No truer statement has ever been posted on this board.
It is a lesson I learned the hard way over 40 years ago.
Radio is NOT an art form, Radio is a BUSINESS.

Very good points. Radio WAS an art form at one point, NOW it's 100% business, all work no play!

 

[Jay Walker]

Lesson learned: You can't argue with the demos. If you don't get the demos the advertisers demand, being #1 doesn't mean a thing.

Time you guys learned it.

No truer statement has ever been posted on this board.
It is a lesson I learned the hard way over 40 years ago.
Radio is NOT an art form, Radio is a BUSINESS.

Very good points. Radio WAS an art form at one point, NOW it's 100% business, all work no play!

I started in broadcasting in the late 60's, during the "golden age" of music radio and know this has always been true. Radio has ALWAYS been a BUSINESS. It has ALWAYS been about PROFIT. Radio as a news and/or entertainment service costs a lot of money to provide and as a consequence depends on making a lot of money to survive.

All we are seeing today with the syndicated national shows and voice tracking are simply 21st century variations of the network radio business model of the late 30's through the late 50's pre-television. What comes around goes around...

 

[cspotrun]

i've been on this blog for several years, and i've read the posts of people who like to trash a station that plays late 60's and 70's hits, citing Demographics and ad agency bias...well for the sake of argument, lets assume this Tired belief is true...
over the years i've asked questions Yet to be answered.

1. If all stations programming 60's & 70's music are doomed, how can you account for the hundreds of them ON THE AIR, are YOU smarter then THEY are?
2. and would you go as far as saying, these stations should NOT Exist?
because you KNOW better....

there is alot of radio out there, Not EVERY station can vie for The "Sacred" 18-34 demographic, and IF they DO there is not only NO Variety to attract a wide range of listeners for "Radio" But the pool of listeners for the SAME demo is watered down so much Nobody can make money, and Radio is Boring.

 

[radioman148]

i've been on this blog for several years, and i've read the posts of people who like to trash a station that plays late 60's and 70's hits, citing Demographics and ad agency bias...well for the sake of argument, lets assume this Tired belief is true...
over the years i've asked questions Yet to be answered.

1. If all stations programming 60's & 70's music are doomed, how can you account for the hundreds of them ON THE AIR, are YOU smarter then THEY are?
2. and would you go as far as saying, these stations should NOT Exist?
because you KNOW better....

there is alot of radio out there, Not EVERY station can vie for The "Sacred" 18-34 demographic, and IF they DO there is not only NO Variety to attract a wide range of listeners for "Radio" But the pool of listeners for the SAME demo is watered down so much Nobody can make money, and Radio is Boring.

I've read all the comments until I'm blue in the face about 60s & 70s music not attracting the money advertising buyers. I completely get that. Yet when most stations play that music their overall numbers rise. Therefore as you say if 6 or 7 stations are playing almost identical classic hits music, wouldn't it stand to reason that at least one station could play 60s/70s based music and come out on the plus side financially?
It seems like a no brainer to me that a station with low ratings already, could only benefit by being the only station in the Chicago market playing oldies.

 

[davideduardo]

... i've read the posts of people who like to trash a station that plays late 60's and 70's hits, citing Demographics and ad agency bias...

There is no ad agency bias. Ad agencies simply follow the directives of their clients who determine the marketing demographics of their products or services.

If all stations programming 60's & 70's music are doomed, how can you account for the hundreds of them ON THE AIR, are YOU smarter then THEY are?

The successful stations are 70's based and called "classic hits" and they play relatively little 60's music. Their target is 39-54, and, while they usually deliver as much over 55 as under it, they give enough "sales demo" listening for advertisers to buy them.

Stations with mostly 60's and so me 50''s don't get buys.

...Not EVERY station can vie for The "Sacred" 18-34 demographic,

Actually, the prime sales demo is 25-54, not 18-34 (although 18-34 certainly gets buys, too).

there is not only NO Variety to attract a wide range of listeners for "Radio" But the pool of listeners for the SAME demo is watered down so much Nobody can make money, and Radio is Boring.

Actually, the sales demos are 18 to 54, and all the subsets like English dominant Hispanic women 25-44 or Men 25-54 and so on. 18-54 is a range that spans several generations, and dozens and dozens of formats, from news, talk and sports to varieties of rock, CHR, rhythmic, country, urban, Urban AC, classic hits and AC plus the half-dozen Spanish language formats found in some markets.

 

[davideduardo]

Radio WAS an art form at one point, NOW it's 100% business,

When was radio an Art Form? I've been at it for 54 years, and, while there are creative elements involved, it's never been a pure art form.

Perhaps the exceptions are a handful of LPFM stations that are small enough to be focused on a goal that neither the pubcasters nor commercial stations can deal with.

As in the 20's, there were hundreds of 20 to 50 watt AMs that were run by hobbyists and amateurs and civic groups with lofty goals and primitive equipment.

 

[davideduardo]

For those who want '50s and '60s oldies music, there are several internet stations playing it and SiriusXM offers channels for that type of music as well (I've moved to those outlets since October's change to Classic Hits).

The problem with the 50's on 5 and 60's on 6 is that the music rotations, horizontal and vertical, are primitive and dreadful. Add in the "it's an OK song as long as they don't play it again for a year" tunes they insert every few days, and both channels can be unlistenable. Add in the puking jocks and it's everything that could be wrong at a little CHR in Ishpeming on a national channel.

 

[Jay Walker]

The bottom line with radio has always been THE BOTTOM LINE.
"Feel good" has never been usable currency at the grocery store.

There are some (a very limited few) stations that can get away with playing gold based formats (50-60's) or other eclectic formats such as old MOR and Jazz. In most cases those stations are going after a very tiny niche that provides just enough income to keep the facility on the air. These stations are usually small market (un-rated) AM facilities that at best run 250w at night, usually however the night time power is under 100w. The tower light gets out further than the RF signal at night.

In situations like this there are at max three full-time paid employees (usually performing multiple duties with the focus on sales), paid minimum wage at best. I have several friends who own operations like this and if it were not for the other income stream provided by businesses they also own (the dry cleaners, an electronics store, a restaurant etc), these stations would have went dark years ago. These stations are perfect examples of "Art form" But they are ran as a hobby, with an extremely small operating budget since they know from hard experience there is no chance to make a dimes worth of profit.

So if you can afford to operate a station like this, paying for electrical power, parts when things break, BMI/ASCAP/SESAC fees, insurance, legal fees for license renewal etc, studio space, and telephone service, then by all means do it!!! But understand most likely you will never make a dime and more than likely run at a loss every single day you are on the air.

 

[Jay Walker]

To continue....

With all due respect, I think most of the dreamers, of which I am one, on this forum have no earthly idea what it costs to operate a major market FM radio station. For a top 20 major market FM, located in Chicago, Dallas, etc tower rent alone will cost you in the $6-8,000 range PER MONTH. Electrical Power at the transmitter will run you in the $3-5,000 range PER MONTH. So just to provide a DEAD CARRIER 24/7 the MINIMUM is $120,000 a year. Add in studio, a few sales people/insurance benefits and you can see how quickly the bare bones operating cost rises to a MINIMUM of $500,000 per year. That's if you are tracking the bird, broadcasting FREE shows, and the studio/office is located in a "dump" without phone service.

Do you see why the focus is on making money???