Philadelphia Radio Ratings: November 2014

Is it me, or is WOGL a poorly run classic hits station. The music selection is so overplayed and they never change their playlist. Everytime I turn it on, all that I hear is 60s motown. What happened to classic hits being a 70s,80s and sprinkle of 90s. I like 80s r&b music but they never play this. If you listen to every other classic hit station, they are playing 90s music and WOGL rarely plays 80s. I really wish Ben FM spent more money on good personality driven djs and sweepers and went after WOGL. To find a much better musically programmed classic hits stations all you need to do is go about 80 miles up the turnpike. They actually play an amazing selection of music and they change their playlist monthly and are number 1 in the 25-54. The station is WCBS FM in NYC. They have been number one in this category for 3 out of the past 4 months. WOGL is not in the top 6 in important 25-54 demo. Here is a sample of their music selection http://wcbsfm.cbslocal.com/playlist/2014/11/25/. Any ideas why they are still playing this music and not progressing like every other classic hits station in the country?

WHYY increases its lead as number 1 news/talker in town. lost 40,000 listeners in last book. KYW is 7th, gained 21,400 listeners .

I still have noticed that WOGL plays a lot more motown and 60s than any other classic hits station. Some classic hit stations completely dropped 60s and they are still playing the same tired songs by the Supremes, Vandellas, The Four Tops. How about retiring those artists for ones such as New Edition, Boyz II Men, Luther Vandross, James Ingram, Whitney Houston, Bobby Brown, Paula Abdul, Janet Jackson, Rockwell, Oran Juice Jones, Ready for the World, Timex Social Club, Jeffrey Osborne, Jermaine Jackson, Surface etc. I think the music director Tommy McCarthy is stuck in the past. He could take a page out of WCBS 101's book. They do 80s at 8 and it is awesome. They also occasionally will play some 80s lost hits. Maybe 1 every other hour.

Here are a few more artists they can play instead of the overplayed 60s motown artists I reiterated above. Gregory Abbott, Cameo, The Gap Band, Bell Biv Devoe, Al B Sure, Maxi Priest, PM Dawn, All 4 One, Teena Marie, Mariah Carey, Atlantic Starr, Shai etc. All of these artists could replace the 50 year old music they play.

I noticed you never mentioned one white artist, do you want a soul oldies station.

AM/FMRAINMAN said:

Is it me, ...

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Yes, it's you. Maybe you and Julius could meet for coffee sometime and share your various complaints about CBS local radio.

DavidEduardo said:

They are tied for 4th in billings and have a very decent and stable position in 25-54. You don't mess with that.

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And after they hit the iceberg, the captain of the Titanic said, "No problem, we're still floating." The "it ain't broke" philosophy responsible for the decline of radio and most of US manufacturing.

That was a good one. Happy Thanksgiving/Holiday Fred & David and anyone else on the board.

DavidEduardo said:

Tiny changes in cume such as those you post are insignificant and are well within the range of the margin of error in the survey.

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For the record, the so-called statistical "margin of error" is meaningless in social research or any sampling in which the subjects have a choice in the matter.

Rainman: Some thoughts. You want WOGL to play what you want. Don't confuse that with them doing their job well. Radio is a mass medium and the programmer's job is to attract a mass audience with given demographic characteristics. Also, it sounds from your posts, that you are appreciably younger than their target demo, so it's no surprise that what they play doesn't please you.

One of the problem's radio programmers face is younger listeners have far less tolerance for content they don't want than did baby boomers. Part of this is, younger listeners have more options. But baby boomers growing up were willing to sit with their parents and put up with ballet dancers, old vaudeville comedians, dancing bears, plate spinners and an obnoxious hand being used as a puppet to see the Beatles or Elvis. They listened to top 40 radio and put up with "imperfect" playlists. When a second top 40 station came to town, they might switch back and forth, unless they developed a clear preference for one of them. But broadcasting thrived when people didn't expect to have everything their way. Now you have Pandora. Maybe you should just listen to that, pick types of songs you like and hit skip when you want. Radio is never going to be your cup of tea.

Fred, that is an excellent point, and why radio is having a more difficult time today.

I think Fred & Mike you are probably both right about Pandora. I am in the target demo though...i am 40.

DavidEduardo said:

If what you are calling "social research" means "perceptual research" such as focus groups, opinion polls, etc., there is a different set of considerations based mostly on things such as people saying what makes them feel good rather than what they actually do. Interviewer bias, peer group bias and self perception are examples of influencing factors.

On the other hand, the PPM radio survey is pure quantitative research, and margin of error can be calculated.

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I am using "social" as the term occurs in "social sciences," any survey research into human attitudes and behavior. In studying humans a truly random sample is impossible because people don't have to take part in the study. Unless the same is truly random, margin of error is a meaningless figure.

AM/FMRAINMAN said:

I think Fred & Mike you are probably both right about Pandora. I am in the target demo though...i am 40.

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As a 40 year old, it makes sense that you would not be interested in hearing music from the 70s (except maybe the tail end), 60s or 50s. You might like NJ 101.5 on weekends, though.

DavidEduardo said:

That's a valid point in that there is no way to determine if the non-participants in a study differ from the participants.

However, we see time and again that polling which is compared with total behaviour comes within a few percent of reality. Political polling is a very good example, and it shows why polls can't predict tight races but they are very accurate in all other instances.

Margins of error of a few percent may make or break a political outcome, but advertisers don't need that degree of precision to buy media. So the statistical margin of error is likely very close to the same obtained with a true census (which has its own sampling error issues). In fact, many knowledgeable people believe a sample-based US Census would be more accurate than the existing system.

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Polling and elections are about the only time there is a real-world check on survey/polling data. Yes, the pollsters usually come very close. That's because they've gotten very good at fudging the data. When polling started, pollsters for a decade or two were the punchlines of jokes. They elected Landon and Dewey. But they studied their data and learned how to apply windage. They learned for example that Southerners were less likely to actually show up and vote, so they gave less weight to those responses. There were a large number of factors that ultimately had to be weighted but with experience (and the availability of computers) they could make accurate forecasts. And polls are actually forecasts, more than true surveys.

When media report the so-called "margin of error" they generally give only the plus or minus number, which is misleading. The actual margin of error gives a probability: if your sample is 405, your margin of error (no matter how larger the population being studied) is a 95 per cent change of being within plus or minus five per cent. Pollsters in their press releases can make any survey or poll sound good. They could say plus or minus three per cent but then the probability of falling within that margin is say 80 per cent.

Sampling error is not, as the name may imply, about some mistake in data collection. It's about luck of the draw. If you flip a coin a dozen times, you could likely end up with other than six heads and six tails. If you flip a coin 406 times, 95% of the time you will get within five percent of exactly half heads and half tails.