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WPHT - Is it a radio station or half a YouTube channel?

W

wadio

I don't live in the Philly area but I used to enjoy the morning and afternoon shows on WPHT. No more.

Lately they've become unlistenable, especially the morning show. They constantly try to push listeners over to YouTube:
  • Look at this! (2-minutes of yelling and screaming during a fight at a Pancake House.) Look-look-look!! (More yelling.)
  • Why are you wearing that shirt?
  • Your camera needs adjusting.
  • PLEASE like us!!! We need 20 more likes!
  • etc. etc.
It's just not good RADIO anymore. I've mostly stopped listening but tuned in briefly this morning to hear that nothing has changed.

I'm wondering, how does this affect ratings? If people are watching on YouTube they're not listening to WPHT. Is that a good thing?
 
So many stations these days promote their podcasts, that you can hear many of the station's shows whenever you want via a podcast, even if you don't tune in live. But this is new, WPHT promoting its You Tube videos, to the point where radio listeners might be confused about what's going on if they can't see the video.

Audacy is giving many of its valuable AM news/talk stations an FM simulcast. It happened earlier this month for 1120 KMOX St. Louis, now calling itself 104.1 KMOX. But that's not going to happen for WPHT. It isn't bringing in that much revenue that Audacy would blow up an FM station to give it a simulcast. So I guess management is trying another route for its AM-only talk outlet. Try to get people to watch it on You Tube.

.
 
wadio said:
I'm wondering, how does this affect ratings? If people are watching on YouTube they're not listening to WPHT. Is that a good thing?
Click to expand...

Keep in mind that YouTube is a revenue stream for the station. It's possible it might exceed spot revenues.

I know video creators who post shows on YouTube who have become millionaires.

It's possible the reason they're so excited about YouTube is because they can see it's their future. Moreso than AM radio.
 
You Tube can be a powerful tool for stations. Especially News Talk. And a revenue maker! And there is revenue to be had. I higjhly doubt Audacy blows up an FM for PHT. They chose to get an FM for KYW.
 
TheBigA said:
Keep in mind that YouTube is a revenue stream for the station. It's possible it might exceed spot revenues.

I know video creators who post shows on YouTube who have become millionaires.

It's possible the reason they're so excited about YouTube is because they can see it's their future. Moreso than AM radio.
Click to expand...
Two very good points.

But it seems to me they need to either make a choice, or make it much more "radio friendly."

I often listen to Fox Business in the car on SXM, and I tend to forget it's a TV show. They focus on content, not attracting eyeballs.
 
wadio said:
But it seems to me they need to either make a choice, or make it much more "radio friendly."
Click to expand...

Based on what you're saying, they already have. And so have you.

You asked about ratings and it's possible to encode the YouTube for PPM. It depends on if the audio feed is off the board or post-processing.
 
I believe WIP has also recently launched a YouTube feed as well that streams their daily programming (with a shot of 30th Street Station from their Aramark building during breaks). Perhaps they’re targeting people at their desks at work, or the world of connected/smart TVs
 
I read recently that YouTube is the largest podcast platfotm so they will probably get more listeners/viewers than referring people to the Audacy app (and having to spell Audacy so people don’t look for Odyssey!)
 
Young guy here... I have zero interest in "watching" a morning talk show. Maybe if it were a fun "morning zoo" type of thing. Even then, my interest would be minimal. I do listen to a lot of things on YouTube, but the keyword there is "listen." If it's primarily talk-based, I have no interest in watching it. And I'd probably never watch a radio station's morning show online. Once I'm online, there's just too much better content for me to consume.

But that's just one guy's opinion.
 
WHYY's Studio 2 program also streams live on YouTube and frequently mentions comments from YouTube. It's a way for them to get instant listener feedback more efficiently than taking callers on the air (although they do that as well).
 
TheBigA said:
If you're a young guy, you have no interest in WPHT regardless of platform. Am I right?

If you want to watch old people talk, you visit your grandparents.

The YouTube stream isn't for young people. It's for their core fans who want more than audio.
Click to expand...
I actually used to listen to a decent amount of talk radio, though it's pretty much all become politics lately which has swayed me away.

I used to fall asleep to my closest cities talk AM every night through middle school and much of high school (and I don't mean fall asleep to because I was bored haha I was enjoying listening to them). I'm not from Philly and can only catch them at night by skip, so I don't know exactly what they carry.

And my post was wider than WPHT. When I'm listening to someone talk, I usually don't care to watch them talk. Most of the YouTube videos I watch on my phone I do so with the screen off, just listening to the audio.
 
You go where listeners are, if you don't.. they'll look for someone who is providing what they want and they wont come back to you. Radio is a multimedia expierience today
 
AMRadioGuy said:
And my post was wider than WPHT. When I'm listening to someone talk, I usually don't care to watch them talk. Most of the YouTube videos I watch on my phone I do so with the screen off, just listening to the audio.
Click to expand...

I get all that. I don't think they're doing YouTube for you.
 
You go where listeners are, sure. But for the average talk station, the content isn't where the technology is. The number of people with the time and lifestyle who need to watch upper demo caucasian guys who are well paid rant about how they're being screwed by (insert boogeyman here) and how only a certain party or man can save the country is slim.

You don't put a rapidly aging and shrinking demo product on a new platform and expect it to suddenly sizzle. Sometimes it works with sports shows because it's lively, or you want to see the guest interaction. For news/talk where that format is today, you're not suddenly going to attract some greatly monetizable audience in most cases simply because of what used to be called a webcam.
 
TheBigA said:
I get all that. I don't think they're doing YouTube for you.
Click to expand...
I don't think I'm an outlier doing that...
Andy Travis said:
You go where listeners are, sure. But for the average talk station, the content isn't where the technology is. The number of people with the time and lifestyle who need to watch upper demo caucasian guys who are well paid rant about how they're being screwed by (insert boogeyman here) and how only a certain party or man can save the country is slim.

You don't put a rapidly aging and shrinking demo product on a new platform and expect it to suddenly sizzle. Sometimes it works with sports shows because it's lively, or you want to see the guest interaction. For news/talk where that format is today, you're not suddenly going to attract some greatly monetizable audience in most cases simply because of what used to be called a webcam.
Click to expand...
This is largely what I was trying to say, Andy.

It's one thing if they're doing something... entertaining. But I can't imagine any demo wanting to sit and watch a webcam feed of people sitting in front of a computer talking. It isn't like the old days where radio stations had "showcase studios" with jocks juggling records, carts, news, etc. In those days, there was a visual "showcase" to watch - the folks behind the mic were really putting on a "show." But today? Most radio studios themselves don't look interesting at all on their own, let alone what goes on in them. Now, if there is a live talent and the shift isn't voicetracked, they're pretty much just interacting with a computer. *snore*.

I just lost my grandfather earlier this year. He was an avid talk radio listener and the radio was always on at his house. I cannot imagine him being interested in watching something like that. Not in a million years. He'd put it on largely as background. Which is what I suspect a majority of the old fellas listening to WPHT and other talk outlets are doing. Decent chance they might be living alone and they've got the radio on for some company. I don't think those folks are going to pull up YouTube and watch a video feed which would move the programming from the background to the foreground.
 


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