Sept Ratings

http://ratings.radio-online.com/cgi-bin/rol.exe/arb011

WXYT remains on top. A big jump for WXMD coupled with a notable drop for WYCD means that iHeart (CC) gets its first spot in the Top 5 in some time. Two stations in that 'dead' AM band are in the Top 10. 105.1 drops below a 1 share. I doubt the start of the Pistons season will do much, but the World Series on ESPN coupled with that might get them to the stratospherhic heights of a 1.2 maybe. WDMK saw a big drop, so clearly CC made some moves to regain those listeners to WMXD, or it was a one time PPM anomaly.

Not much else of note in this book.

umfan said:

http://ratings.radio-online.com/cgi-bin/rol.exe/arb011

Not much else of note in this book.

Click to expand...

C'mon. You haven't seen "the book." All you have on that site are limited topline numbers - AQH share. The beauty contest.

I'm surprised that WDET's ratings are so abysmal, with WUOM getting twice the ratings even though its signal is far from the center of the market and its signal is weak on the East Side and Macomb Co.

But look at WRCJ! Three times the ratings of WDET. Maybe those of us who thought WDET was wrong to kick out all of the music are vindicated?

Also noted conservative talker WDTK 1400 is nowhere to be seen here. Don't know who much of that is WDTK's awful graveyarder signal and how much the loyalty of WJR's listenership is a factor.

WDTK doesn't subscribe. I wish they did. They've added a lot of local advertisers and seemed to have pulled a few WJR Sponsors away. Lloyd Jackson did those hour long programs which were advertisments, and WDTK has at least one of those, Dr. Richard Klein, and John McCullouch hosts it. I would guess WDTK is pulling about a 2 share.

The WUOM/WDET numbers puzzle me, too. Both run Morning Edition/All Things Considered during drive times and given that the published numbers are averages, they are weighted toward periods with more listeners. Both are mostly national public radio shows between the two tent-pole NPR news magazines but I doubt Diane Rehm v. On Point would account for the difference. Maybe it's something as simple as WUOM is in the non-commercial band (WDET is not) and that's where people expect to find public radio. Or maybe as simple as WUOM was there first with the public radio news and information format (WKAR was actually first but they don't get into Detroit hardly at all) and fans of the format had little reason to change when WDET flipped. Off-hand, the only market I can think of where two public radio news and information stations can go head to head with anything close to parity is Boston. I can't think of any place else where a second station in the format has made a go of it long-term.

I won't say WSU was wrong to "kick out" music. Music public radio stations' (classical, jazz, even alternative) listeners don't pledge at rates anywhere near those of news and information listeners, and music formats don't draw corporate sponsors at the same levels either. But WDET hasn't given people a reason to switch or hasn't differentiated itself from WUOM. In their shoes I'ld be looking to do something local targeting Oakland and McComb, and doing more promotion. The last thing they should do is target the city; no money there (but that seems to be their impulse).

I would faint dead away if WDTK got anywhere close to a two share. More like point two. Again, off the top of my head, I can't think of a market in which a Salem talk station gets a share to the left of the decimal point. And their stations don't subscribe to Nielsen because they don't sell spots on ratings. People buy Salem because the like it or to "support it." Even so, their talk network and talk stations are subsidized by their brokered preaching network and stations. If ratings helped generate revenue, Salem would subscribe.