Atlanta Demographics...??

INTERESTING:
http://boards.radio-info.com/smf/index.php?topic=163375.10

I would like someone knowledgeable to break down the accurate demographics of Atlanta, similar to how he did with Detroit... INCLUDING the suburbs.

THANKS.

If you judge Atlanta based on radio talent alone, the area is overwhelmingly Jewish, African-American, from New York, Gay, has a substance problem, knows Obama is a Kenyan-Socialist, roots for Auburn football, throws fancy wine parties and no one is Asian. In addition, many people have split personalities. The one thing we all have in common is that we are cannot live without 98 minutes of music every weekday at 9:00 am on B98.5.

Thanks. However, I was talking about the breakdown percentage of city & suburban / radio listener demographics, not the on-air personalities.

EXAMPLES:

Word! said:

Detroit
RACE
White 116,599 12.3 %
Black or African American 775,772 81.6 %

Click to expand...

DavidEduardo said:

....Indeed. The Arbitron Metro Survey area consists of the counties of Lapeer, Livingston, Macomb, Monroe, Oakland, St. Claire as well as Wayne. In fact, nearly 60% of the market population is not in Wayne County. The overall population is 22% African American and 4% Hispanic.

Click to expand...

KDM 7000 said:

Thanks. However, I was talking about the breakdown percentage of city & suburban / radio listener demographics, not the on-air personalities.

EXAMPLES:

Word! said:

Detroit
RACE
White 116,599 12.3 %
Black or African American 775,772 81.6 %

Click to expand...

DavidEduardo said:

....Indeed. The Arbitron Metro Survey area consists of the counties of Lapeer, Livingston, Macomb, Monroe, Oakland, St. Claire as well as Wayne. In fact, nearly 60% of the market population is not in Wayne County. The overall population is 22% African American and 4% Hispanic.

Click to expand...

Click to expand...

The United States Government (you might have heard of it) conducted the every-ten-year census mandated by the US Constitution earlier this year. The results are still being tabulated. They will be widely reported as soon as they are available. This is common knowledge. There is no point in looking at preliminary estimates at this time when we'll all have access to the official data in a very short period of time.

BTW, what happened to your statement about not posting in the Atlanta board any more?

Wow that didn't last long. Again as I recommended to you the order day on your who has a hot urban AC format(which you obviously knew no one did) question, the ratings page lists the demo breakdown for each market.

If that does not satisfy you may I use the following cookie metaphor to describe the Atlanta population make up.

Atlanta is like a reverse oreo cookie. It has a sweet chocolate creme center(ITP) surrounded by vanilla cookies on all sides(the OTP'ers) with some hispanic sprinkles spread through out the vanilla cookies. Then imagine further looking at said cookie and in the upper northwest quandrant of that vanilla cookie you will notice traces of a fortune cookie.

RTibbs said:

Wow that didn't last long. Again as I recommended to you the order day on your who has a hot urban AC format(which you obviously knew no one did) question, the ratings page lists the demo breakdown for each market.

If that does not satisfy you may I use the following cookie metaphor to describe the Atlanta population make up.

Atlanta is like a reverse oreo cookie. It has a sweet chocolate creme center(ITP) surrounded by vanilla cookies on all sides(the OTP'ers) with some hispanic sprinkles spread through out the vanilla cookies. Then imagine further looking at said cookie and in the upper northwest quandrant of that vanilla cookie you will notice traces of a fortune cookie.

Click to expand...

Yuuummmiiieee!!! I want to move to Atlanta!

RTibbs said:

hispanic sprinkles

Click to expand...

Great name for a salsa band.

Great, now I want milk.

bclark71. said:

RTibbs said:

hispanic sprinkles

Click to expand...

Great name for a salsa band.

Click to expand...

Or a stripper.

RTibbs said:

Atlanta is like a reverse oreo cookie. It has a sweet chocolate creme center(ITP) surrounded by vanilla cookies on all sides(the OTP'ers) with some hispanic sprinkles spread through out the vanilla cookies. Then imagine further looking at said cookie and in the upper northwest quandrant of that vanilla cookie you will notice traces of a fortune cookie.

Click to expand...

This is exac... well, this was the demographic layout I had pictured in mind. Not much has changed since late 90's - 00's. Thanks.... pretty much all I needed to know.

KDM 7000 said:

RTibbs said:

Atlanta is like a reverse oreo cookie. It has a sweet chocolate creme center(ITP) surrounded by vanilla cookies on all sides(the OTP'ers) with some hispanic sprinkles spread through out the vanilla cookies. Then imagine further looking at said cookie and in the upper northwest quandrant of that vanilla cookie you will notice traces of a fortune cookie.

Click to expand...

This is exac... well, this was the demographic layout I had pictured in mind. Not much has changed since late 90's - 00's. Thanks.... pretty much all I needed to know.

Click to expand...

Yeah, you're right. Why wait for the real data when you can just go by crude racial and ethnic sterotyping.

I'm surprised no one made any references to watermelon.

I'm sorry, but my fingers were covered in grease from all the fried chicken I'm eating.

G

upstate29651 said:

I'm sorry, but my fingers were covered in grease from all the fried chicken I'm eating.

G

Click to expand...

You know, that's an ethnic stereotype I never understood. Wasn't Col. Sanders a White dude? Fried chicken is my #2 favorite food, right after steak, and just ahead of barbecue, chile, jambalya, and sauerkraut and pork.

RTibbs said:

Atlanta is like a reverse oreo cookie. It has a sweet chocolate creme center(ITP) surrounded by vanilla cookies on all sides(the OTP'ers) with some hispanic sprinkles spread through out the vanilla cookies. Then imagine further looking at said cookie and in the upper northwest quandrant of that vanilla cookie you will notice traces of a fortune cookie.

Click to expand...

That is a delightful picture of metro Atlanta, but I would quibble with you over the location of the fortune cookie. Wouldn't that be the NorthEAST quadrant?

Doing a demographic description of Metro Atlanta is one thing, and yes, we look forward to the new census data. BUT! If you are going to describe the demographics of the Atlanta RADIO market/geography, life get tricky, tricky, tricky. There are so many stations that do not cover major portions of the Metro area, so IN THEORY, every station in Atlanta serves a uniquely different demographic potential audience.

But I assume that is true of EVERY major metro market. Is that a bigger factor in Atlanta, or is it about equal to the puzzle in all other markets?

Goat Rodeo Cowboy said:

RTibbs said:

Atlanta is like a reverse oreo cookie. It has a sweet chocolate creme center(ITP) surrounded by vanilla cookies on all sides(the OTP'ers) with some hispanic sprinkles spread through out the vanilla cookies. Then imagine further looking at said cookie and in the upper northwest quandrant of that vanilla cookie you will notice traces of a fortune cookie.

Click to expand...

That is a delightful picture of metro Atlanta, but I would quibble with you over the location of the fortune cookie. Wouldn't that be the NorthEAST quadrant?

Doing a demographic description of Metro Atlanta is one thing, and yes, we look forward to the new census data. BUT! If you are going to describe the demographics of the Atlanta RADIO market/geography, life get tricky, tricky, tricky. There are so many stations that do not cover major portions of the Metro area, so IN THEORY, every station in Atlanta serves a uniquely different demographic potential audience.

But I assume that is true of EVERY major metro market. Is that a bigger factor in Atlanta, or is it about equal to the puzzle in all other markets?

Click to expand...

It gets even trickier. It gets an order of magnitude trickier.The larger any minority becomes, the less a monolithic bloc it is. When a minority grows to the point where it becomes a plurality or even a majority, individuals within the given community have more cultural freedom to be individuals, and not just interchangeable members of a group.

There is a certain cultural pressure among all minorities to embrace common cultural trappings and externals for group identification and protection. But when the minority makes the transition to plurality or even majority, such pressures tend to release and disappear. In a market where only 11% of the total population has ancestors who lived in Africa, then there was a cultural imperative to support the "urban" station in town, even if one really didn't like that kind of music. But when the population of people who have African ancestors reaches 40%, 50%, or higher, then individuals in the group are free to choose to dislike hip-hop, just as Caucasian audiences have no social pressure to embrace heavy metal because of some identification as that being part of the Caucasian cultural heritage.

When I was a kid, one of my friends was Italian, and his grandfather lived with his family. The grandfather was a great guy, and was always listening to Italian opera. My friend didn't know more than a handful of Italian swear words, but he also grew to love Italian opera for the sheer sound of it. Now that I'm a lot older, I'm discovering that even though I don't know the words and can't understand the ads, I'm starting to like listening to Spanish music. When I lived on Pittsburgh, I'd often listen to the Indian music show on WDUQ. Working closely with people of African ancestry here in the Metro, I was pleasantly surprised to discover how many had their own, personal musical tastes, which wasn't based on any imaginary cultural imperatives.

Frankly, those who program radio stations based on racial and cultural demographics are doing more to perpetuate divisive stereotypes and prejudices than is good for society. If radio is supposed to operate in the public interest, then maybe it should start by putting an end to racial profiling in determining formats and playlists.

I would agree that the fortune cookie is in the NE quadrant.

To pick a pedantic nit, not all Asians are "Chinese" (and neither are fortune cookies, being a Chinese-American invention). Most of the Asians in the NE quadrant are Korean, with a significant number of Vietnamese. Kimchi and pho to go with your cookies, anyone?

Also to agree with Talk Dude, once those Asians overcome the language barrier, they assimilate pretty quickly--but often not until then, which would explain the (relative) popularity of Korean-language radio and other media in the ATL. Sometimes this doesn't happen until the second generation.

You also see this phenomenon with Latinos, most of whom in the ATL are Mexican (but not all). Once they get out of the barrio they assimilate pretty quickly as well, with the same considerations as above.

Question: If Latino immigration slows significantly, would this bode ill for Spanish-language media as the existing resident Latino population becomes more fluent in English? I think it would. Would Patron continue programming Regional Mexican but with more English (DJs, spots, VOs) between the songs to appeal to a broader audience (including some native-born Latinos who might be like Erik Estrada and hardly speak a word of Spanish)?

Also see http://www.goodneighboring.org/

jabba17 said:

I would agree that the fortune cookie is in the NE quadrant.

To pick a pedantic nit, not all Asians are "Chinese" (and neither are fortune cookies, being a Chinese-American invention). Most of the Asians in the NE quadrant are Korean, with a significant number of Vietnamese. Kimchi and pho to go with your cookies, anyone?

Also to agree with Talk Dude, once those Asians overcome the language barrier, they assimilate pretty quickly--but often not until then, which would explain the (relative) popularity of Korean-language radio and other media in the ATL. Sometimes this doesn't happen until the second generation.

You also see this phenomenon with Latinos, most of whom in the ATL are Mexican (but not all). Once they get out of the barrio they assimilate pretty quickly as well, with the same considerations as above.

Question: If Latino immigration slows significantly, would this bode ill for Spanish-language media as the existing resident Latino population becomes more fluent in English? I think it would. Would Patron continue programming Regional Mexican but with more English (DJs, spots, VOs) between the songs to appeal to a broader audience (including some native-born Latinos who might be like Erik Estrada and hardly speak a word of Spanish)?

Also see http://www.goodneighboring.org/

Click to expand...

I live in Gwinett, in a mostly Korean neighborhood. In working with many different Asian people I've learned that Asians enjoy being lumped together into one indiscriminate mass about as much as European-ancestored people do. If you refer to a Korean as Chinese or Japanese, their reaction will be similar to how a Welshman would react if you called him an Irishman or a Scot, or to how an Italian would react if you called him a Greek or Spaniard. Of course, if you just refer to him as a "person", then there's no problem.

Regarding the second and third generation descendants of people from Spanish speaking countries, my guess is that the next generations of musical performers will begin recording traditional sounding music with English lyrics. As Mexican music becomes more like Cuban or Puerto Rican music, with the traditional sound but English lyrics, the radio stations playing that music will also switch to more English DJ's and ads. If the radio stations that cater to ANY immigrant community wants to serve their community's best interests, it will encourage learning English, and will increase the English spoken word content of their broadcasts even if the lyrics remain mostly Spanish. It would be interesting to see who the first Mexican music cross-over artist will be, along the lines of Gloria Estefan or Marc Anthony.

It's funny how music can cross ethnic lines. My Polish mother-in-law was always listening to polka shows, so I became a little familiar with the genre. The first time I accidentally tuned into a station playing Norteño music, it was an instrumental. I thought I had found a polka show!

Chill out. It was a joke ala say Liusa Lampanelli.Heavy on the stereotypes. and yes I meant Northeast Quadrant.

RTibbs said:

Chill out. It was a joke ala say Liusa Lampanelli.Heavy on the stereotypes. and yes I meant Northeast Quadrant.

Click to expand...

That's the problem. Lisa Lampanelli is almost, but not quite, as funny as a dead baby joke.

Talk_Dude said:

RTibbs said:

Chill out. It was a joke ala say Liusa Lampanelli.Heavy on the stereotypes. and yes I meant Northeast Quadrant.

Click to expand...

That's the problem. Lisa Lampanelli is almost, but not quite, as funny as a dead baby joke.

Click to expand...

Hey--I like dead baby jokes.

How do you get 1000 dead babies in a Volkswagen? LA MACHINE!!!

Yes, I know I just dated myself. Badly.

And, no, I was not trying to be an über-P.C.-Nazi with my clarification about the Asians in Gwinnett (I live in one of those aforementioned Korean neighborhoods, too).