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You've got a small town station — how do you compete in the 21st century?

Andy Travis said:
If you're referring to the late, great 96.2 The Revolution, which I also loved, there may be a bit more nuance to that situation, imo.

Looking at the figures shown on the station's Wikipedia page, it appears they were doing decently (4.6 in the 2nd book of 2005, around a 5 share through 2006) and then plunged to 1.5 and 0.8 in 2007. So after the flip, it looks like they actually gained audience. I don't know what exact month in 2005 they changed format.

XFM in Manchester, the metro Rev (Oldham) was a rimshot for, signed on in March of 2006. So it appears the sign on of XFM was a huge blow to them. Then you had Rock Radio 106.1 sign on in May of 2008, so they got squeezed on both the indie and traditional rock sides, which would be a difficult scenario to continue in.

Now, they may well have been unable to monetize that 5 share to advertisers in their home town, but it appears from a ratings standpoint when they had an exclusive, there was some significant audience. I imagine it's like a number of other situations I've seen, rimshot independent against well financed full-market competition and lack of marketing/sales leverage on the part of the indie.

That being said, I have no idea how good the 96.2 signal was or wasn't in Manchester proper. It may have been no one in Oldham listened or bought ads, and that half of Manchester proper couldn't hear it clearly.
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This was the very station! It was always so much better than XFM's narrow landfill indie playlist, for me at least, but XFM had the signal and the marketing, Revolution had neither. 96.2 was "fine" in most of the city, but 97.7 and 106.1 were both 1kW from a stick on a tower right in the center of the city, whereas 96.2 was (from memory) 100 watts from about 7 miles out. There was also the factor that a lot of the indie-alternative audience are in the south and west of the city, places like Fallowfield (students) and Chorlton (trendy professionals), and Oldham is in the north-east. The 60dBu doesn't make it into those suburbs.

They never seemed to attract advertisers from the wider area. They only ever surveyed in Oldham, and the advertisers that stuck around that I recall were all based around there. It was a great station - indie/alt didn't really encompass the whole of its format or output, it had quite a big dance component because of the musical heritage of the area it covered, and played a lot of Black music that was ignored by the "white guys with guitars" XFM-style station. The people involved either went on to bigger things (OJ Borg, now on BBC Radio 2; Clint Boon, recently finished at XS Manchester) or disappeared from radio altogether the moment the station flipped (whatever happened to Phil Beckett, Steve Shanyaski, or Steve Coogan's brother Martin?).

For some reason, one ad from that era survives on YouTube:
 
Andy Travis said:

Truly brilliant - reminds me a lot of Indie 103.1 in LA, in its time. Was always disappointed no one airchecked Rev that I could find, or that they didn't manage to get a DAB station or stream to keep doing it.
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It's the only station that used to play the likes of The Fall and 808 State at 8am. It was such a great format - peppered with classics, new stuff, mixed genres, but somehow it all worked in Manchester, which has always been a music city. The closest format nowadays is BBC 6 Music, but it's not got the local taste, it's far too serious, and for a station with "Music" in the name, they sure love to talk at length (the eternal BBC affliction).

There was an attempt at a stream, it was called something like Radio Republic, but I don't think it ever properly launched beyond a non-stop music stream. The Rev studios (in a former pub, still with its bar intact) are now used for something called Mom's Spaghetti, a dance/hip-hop DAB station.

XS Manchester 106.1 was the last station in the format in the city (it evolved from the old Rock Radio via various names and formats) and has recently been flipped to all-90s. Unlike in 2008, there's a low-cost DAB platform in Manchester these days, so you'd think someone would take up the format and run with it, but it doesn't seem to be happening.
 
Miss Tuned said:
It's the only station that used to play the likes of The Fall and 808 State at 8am. It was such a great format - peppered with classics, new stuff, mixed genres, but somehow it all worked in Manchester, which has always been a music city. The closest format nowadays is BBC 6 Music, but it's not got the local taste, it's far too serious, and for a station with "Music" in the name, they sure love to talk at length (the eternal BBC affliction).

There was an attempt at a stream, it was called something like Radio Republic, but I don't think it ever properly launched beyond a non-stop music stream. The Rev studios (in a former pub, still with its bar intact) are now used for something called Mom's Spaghetti, a dance/hip-hop DAB station.

XS Manchester 106.1 was the last station in the format in the city (it evolved from the old Rock Radio via various names and formats) and has recently been flipped to all-90s. Unlike in 2008, there's a low-cost DAB platform in Manchester these days, so you'd think someone would take up the format and run with it, but it doesn't seem to be happening.
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BBC Introducing shows play some dance/EDM stuff, do you ever listen to them? I always liked listening to Annie Mac’s Mini Mixes before she retired and the podcasts stopped.
 
The local AM with a translator in my town, which carried a mix of conservative and local talk, gospel music, and FOX Sports Radio (primarily) couldn’t find a buyer for years and is signing off at the end of the month:

www.golaurens.com

WLBG to sign off for the final time on March 31

WLBG will sign off for the final time at the end of March, ending an era that began in 1948.
www.golaurens.com www.golaurens.com

Looks like they couldn’t compete in the 21st century. They had next to no advertisers. I don’t blame the owner.
 
101tm said:
The local AM with a translator in my town, which carried a mix of conservative and local talk, gospel music, and FOX Sports Radio (primarily) couldn’t find a buyer for years and is signing off at the end of the month:

www.golaurens.com

WLBG to sign off for the final time on March 31

WLBG will sign off for the final time at the end of March, ending an era that began in 1948.
www.golaurens.com www.golaurens.com

Looks like they couldn’t compete in the 21st century. They had next to no advertisers. I don’t blame the owner.
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So---and this is a cautionary tale for our OP---these guys were able to do essentially what I suggested---FORTY YEARS AGO, but don't see a path today.

The ship may have sailed. It's what Hemingway said about how one goes bankrupt...at first gradually, then all at once. There may be less time than we thought because of changes in listening habits.
 
There seems to be a huge difference between Midwestern small towns East Coast and Deep South small towns. In the Midwest and places like Texas a town of 3,000-5,000 in a county of 5,000 to 10,000 would find enough support in advertising to keep s station afloat and the owner, at least, pulling an an average to slightly better paycheck. Yes there are Dollar Generals and Walmarts all over. That's probably an Amazon Truck in front of you but there's enough Moms and Pops to make it happen. With that said, I'd be the first to admit it all depends on the town. Some simply support and some don't. It's not how strong the sense of community is. I know of a couple of FM stations serving counties of 3,500 and 4,300 respectively that support a station well enough to have an employee or two. I know of two towns of about 5,000 each within counties of 40,000 where the sole stations in those towns are now owned by a single owner and simulcast because, as the owner put it "these towns are so tight they squeak". It took simulcasting to generate enough income for one station to survive.
 
radiofan2023 said:
Unfortunately some emergency services departments have gone to encrypted communications and have changed their public facing websites with reports that just give the bare bones information of where a call was dispatched and a few words for the reasons, knowing local news has been so hollowed out that nobody is going to bother trying to sue the city to get access to the full written emergency dispatch reports, so their attitude seems to be, "you get what you get and kick rocks if you don't like it".
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Sadly some of those have their website URL forward to a useless social media page like Faceplant.
 
michael hagerty said:
So---and this is a cautionary tale for our OP---these guys were able to do essentially what I suggested---FORTY YEARS AGO, but don't see a path today.

The ship may have sailed. It's what Hemingway said about how one goes bankrupt...at first gradually, then all at once. There may be less time than we thought because of changes in listening habits.
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I think that one of the most telling signs of how well an AM station will do in a small town is how close the nearest FM stations are and how easily they are to pick up with a simple receiver. In the case of WLBG, Greenville is not that far away and most of the FM signals, particularly WSSL-FM licensed to the suburb of Gray Court, put in very good signals into Laurens. With that, I wonder how long it will be until the AM signal in nearby Clinton (it's at 1410 kHZ and its callsign escapes me now) shuts down for good.
 
ted chittenden said:
I think that one of the most telling signs of how well an AM station will do in a small town is how close the nearest FM stations are and how easily they are to pick up with a simple receiver. In the case of WLBG, Greenville is not that far away and most of the FM signals, particularly WSSL-FM licensed to the suburb of Gray Court, put in very good signals into Laurens. With that, I wonder how long it will be until the AM signal in nearby Clinton (it's at 1410 kHZ and its callsign escapes me now) shuts down for good.
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1590 in near by Abbeville has been a money losing dump for ages and at times has has been dark longer than it should've been.(i know this first hand) 1090 and 103.5 were sold, but 92.9 is hanging on somehow.
 
ted chittenden said:
I think that one of the most telling signs of how well an AM station will do in a small town is how close the nearest FM stations are and how easily they are to pick up with a simple receiver. In the case of WLBG, Greenville is not that far away and most of the FM signals, particularly WSSL-FM licensed to the suburb of Gray Court, put in very good signals into Laurens. With that, I wonder how long it will be until the AM signal in nearby Clinton (it's at 1410 kHZ and its callsign escapes me now) shuts down for good.
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WSSL was once licensed to Laurens. It had different letters.
 
b-turner said:
There seems to be a huge difference between Midwestern small towns East Coast and Deep South small towns. In the Midwest and places like Texas a town of 3,000-5,000 in a county of 5,000 to 10,000 would find enough support in advertising to keep s station afloat and the owner, at least, pulling an an average to slightly better paycheck. Yes there are Dollar Generals and Walmarts all over. That's probably an Amazon Truck in front of you but there's enough Moms and Pops to make it happen. With that said, I'd be the first to admit it all depends on the town.
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I'd be willing to bet that there's a gap in average household income between the towns where it works and the towns where it doesn't.

b-turner said:
Some simply support and some don't. It's not how strong the sense of community is. I know of a couple of FM stations serving counties of 3,500 and 4,300 respectively that support a station well enough to have an employee or two. I know of two towns of about 5,000 each within counties of 40,000 where the sole stations in those towns are now owned by a single owner and simulcast because, as the owner put it "these towns are so tight they squeak". It took simulcasting to generate enough income for one station to survive.
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Let's remember that this is not just about support. Those local merchants and services are trying to do the same thing---survive and make a profit. Some of them could benefit from advertising but can't afford it.

Some maybe could afford it but are skeptical about what the return on the expense of advertising would be---and they're right. Even the biggest, most successful stations in history lost clients because they didn't see an improvement in their business, or at least not the improvement they expected, after spending money advertising on those stations.

Today, we're probably dealing with the most ad-resistant listeners in history. Very few people are convinced to try anything new beyond maybe a place for lunch based solely on a radio spot.

It's tough for both sides. Which, again, is why I suggest a new owner get involved in the local business groups BEFORE the sales calls start---so they know you and you know them.
 
Total coincidence---today's SFGate has a story on Habit Burger (a California chain since 1969 that's expanding) moving into Ukiah, where I programmed KUKI in 1976 and 1977.

Near the end of the piece is an interview with a local restaurant owner talking (briefly) about advertising.

It's a good glimpse into the dynamics of small-town America today.

For those who aren't familiar, Ukiah is a town of 16,000. In terms of commercial radio, there's an AM/two FM combo (KUKI-AM-FM/KQPM-FM), a stand-alone FM (KWNE), and six signals from Willits, Lakeport and Fort Bragg/Mendocino that either penetrate or are on translators.

It's 115 miles north of San Francisco, so there's not much radio competition from the city (that was different when I was there and the biggest SF stations were powerful AMs---KSFO, KFRC, KNBR, KCBS and KGO).

Santa Rosa (population 175,000) is 60 miles away---midway between Ukiah and San Francisco. None of their media makes it into Ukiah, but it has long drawn shopping dollars away from Ukiah, as it had larger and more varied retail, often with lower prices.

In the past decade, Ukiah has been punching above its weight in landing big-deal chains like Costco and In-N-Out.

 
Michael Hagerty:
Your bringing up of Ukiah radio raises a question with me that you may or may not know the answer to and which, I think, is tangential to the subject on this thread. Bicoastal Media owns both KUKI-FM and KQPM-FM in Ukiah. Both stations are formatted as country and I can't tell the difference (I'm not a big modern country fan) between the two. Why would Bicoastal have two country stations competing against each other in a small town like that. It seems to me (what do I know?) that having two stations with the same format (or almost the same format) in the same market (no matter what the size) is going to cannibalize your audience and cause neither station to make much of a dent in any ratings surveys.
 
ted chittenden said:
Michael Hagerty:
Your bringing up of Ukiah radio raises a question with me that you may or may not know the answer to and which, I think, is tangential to the subject on this thread. Bicoastal Media owns both KUKI-FM and KQPM-FM in Ukiah. Both stations are formatted as country and I can't tell the difference (I'm not a big modern country fan) between the two. Why would Bicoastal have two country stations competing against each other in a small town like that. It seems to me (what do I know?) that having two stations with the same format (or almost the same format) in the same market (no matter what the size) is going to cannibalize your audience and cause neither station to make much of a dent in any ratings surveys.
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Hi, Ted!

As I understand it, KUKI-FM is either mainstream or classic country, with KQPM being "hot country".

While the city of license for KQPM is Ukiah, the studio is apparently in Bicoastal's studio/office in Lakeport, and not in the KUKI building.

Ukiah isn't a rated market. This is probably about Bicoastal making sure all the country audience---which is big up there---is theirs and not leaving room for a competitor.
 
michael hagerty said:
Hi, Ted!

As I understand it, KUKI-FM is either mainstream or classic country, with KQPM being "hot country".

While the city of license for KQPM is Ukiah, the studio is apparently in Bicoastal's studio/office in Lakeport, and not in the KUKI building.

Ukiah isn't a rated market. This is probably about Bicoastal making sure all the country audience---which is big up there---is theirs and not leaving room for a competitor.
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KUKI is playing david lee murphy at 827am pacific, KQPM is playing kelsea ballerini

not an entirely bad idea to do what Bi coastal is doing... you own the country audience
 
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