Z100 #1 NY biller again

2014 top billing radio stations per BIA/Kelsey:

1. KIIS(FM)....Los Angeles....Top 40....iHeart....$65.9 million
2. WTOP(FM)....Washington....All-News....Hubbard....$63.5 million
3. WHTZ(FM)....New York....Top 40....iHeart....$51 million
4. WCBS(AM)....New York....All-News....CBS....$49.2 million
5. KBIG(FM)....Los Angeles....Hot AC....iHeart....$42.9 million
6. WLTW(FM)....New York....Adult Contemporary....iHeart....$41.5 million
7. WFAN-AM-FM....New York....Sports....CBS....$41 million
tie. WINS(AM)....New York....All-News....CBS....$41 million
9. KROQ(FM)....Los Angeles....Alternative....CBS....$40.2 million
10. WBBM(AM)/WCFS(FM)....Chicago....All-News....CBS....$39.2 million

Z100 billed exactly the same as 2013 while the other 4 NY stations were down.

Oh no, no I don't believe it so it isn't true! No way Kiis and z100 the top billers in the top markets, they only play music for teeny bops, you know nobody over 18 listens to taylor swift, nick jonas or all that edm and hip hop garbage.

We need to make a law to force everyone to listen to music that I like, if I don't like it then the radio should not play it, I matter more than Nielson, the billons of ad dollars spent on those numbers, and all millions of people who like chr.

Now, back to why I need an empire stick to start play my rock cd collection.

9. KROQ(FM)....Los Angeles....Alternative....CBS....$40.2 million. Yet no Alternative rock outlet for NYC.

mikerock said:

9. KROQ(FM)....Los Angeles....Alternative....CBS....$40.2 million. Yet no Alternative rock outlet for NYC.

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Have you been to LA? I've lived in both cities, and they're very different places.

Also, the bulk of KROQ's money comes from a morning show that really isn't based on the music. If there was a way for CBS to duplicate this format in NYC and get the same results, they'd put it on 102.7.

It really is weird to me how advertising agencies pass on stations that are getting the demos that they want. In the 90s you had chrs that were #1 18-34 and 25-54 who were getting a third of the money that a country station with no top 5 demos was. Now they at least have wised up and spend their money on chr, but it makes no sense that a station like wrff, which just about always top 3 18-34 and 25-54 is not making any money.

Also, if a station is hot now it is hot, buy it! They wait 2 years before they buy and by then tastes have changed and said station is not as strong, yet they are now buying.

....and how can a station that is #1 make say 10 million a year, but the station right behind them that is #2 in all those key demos makes 2 million. I'd be really upset that I hired an agency to purchase buys for my company that were being made on the prejudice and short sightedness of their media buyer. There is no excuse, billing should mirror the ratings, and you are not getting that now due to a bias against alternative music as it was chr a decade or so ago.

OH yeah, obviously my post was tongue in cheek, it is like the political forums with the liberals, what they want to believe supersedes all facts, and they attack you with extreme anger and hate when you simply correct them or 'dem with the facts.

DOB said:

There is no excuse, billing should mirror the ratings, and you are not getting that now due to a bias against alternative music as it was chr a decade or so ago.

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I don't know that there's a "bias against alternative music." I don't know that advertisers even know what format their spots air in. They buy numbers. It's pretty blind.

As I said, KROQ is a very unusual station. It's not a typical alternative station. That's why it's Top 10 in billings.

WMRQ 104.1 in Hartford, CT - Alt Rock is the lowest billing station in the market. They have advertisers but a lot of them are local businesses and their advertising rates are very low. The other thing that hurts them is that they're not owned by one of the "C" Companies - CBS, Clear Channel (now I-Heart), or Cumulus. They're independently owned by a small operator who only owns a handful of stations. They also have low overhead being that they're mostly Voice-Tracked.

One of the reasons 106.9 WCCC in Hartford flipped from Rock to Classic Rock before they ultimately sold to EMF for K-LOVE is because they weren't billing enough. They had hoped by switching to Classic Rock the billing would increase. Plus they cut expenses by dropping The New England Patriots games. EMF also wanted in the market so badly that they outbid Connoisseur for WCCC. EMF paid just over $9 Mill for WCCC and its AM Classical Station while Connoisseur ended up paying just under $8 mill for WDRC-FM and its 4 AM Talk stations. And Connoisseur ended up making WDRC-FM Classic Rock in January 2015. WCCC was another station that wasn't owned by one of the Big "C's" and was independently owed.

DavidEduardo said:

And the really successful alternative stations tend to be rather long-term, heritage stations where the audience has grown up on the station and the format. More recent alternative launches, such as iHeart's Atlanta and Philly stations have been notable underperformers in revenue.

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I must be a little late to the party again. It sounds like "Alternative" is another format that's slowly dying.

Here's another question about billing. Do bonus buys help or hurt billing. A friend of mine owns a Country themed night club and so she would advertise regularly on Clear Channel's Country 92.5 and once they told her for just a few extra bucks per month (she wouldn't tell me how much extra) they would also throw in 97.9 ESPN, but she wasn't interested.

MarcB said:

Do bonus buys help or hurt billing.

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Bonus typically means free. A few dollars more means just that. That's how much it helps billing. Assuming there's extra inventory.

That money would count for the billings of ESPN, not 92.5. But the seller would make additional commission.

TheBigA said:

Bonus typically means free. A few dollars more means just that. That's how much it helps billing. Assuming there's extra inventory.

That money would count for the billings of ESPN, not 92.5. But the seller would make additional commission.

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I used to tell my sales staff that I would consider any rate on a secondary station except "bonus" spots. I noticed that once you started giving a station away, it was irreversible. Sales people valued it at zero and zero is zero even if you double it. But if you charged even $5 for a commercial, it had a way of drifting higher as we gradually and almost imperceptibly raised the rate. After a while, a station that was considered unsellable was generating 5-10% of sales, which in this case meant about an additional 1/2 million dollars a year. With those numbers, you know it was a small market but as our national rep sellers used to tell us, the only difference between a large market and a small market was the placement of the decimal point in the rate.

It is a great way to educate a buyer from what I have seen. I seen a client who wanted the heritage hot ac pop station but did not want a complimentary buy with the hip hop station. He was given some free inventory on the hip hop station as long as he agreed to a few remotes with the pop station. Turns out he started to see direct results from his spots on the hip hop station, and at next cycle said that he wanted them to be included in the buy.

If you have the spots to fill you might as well give them away to a high profile client of a sister station or offer a very nice discount for them.

Someone said that agencies buy numbers not formats, but what I mentioned were times when the numbers they wanted were there but while they would command top dollar for some formats, other formats with those numbers did got the same money for them.

Take the old power pig, with 60% of the old q105's numbers pre chr flip, they only got about a 1/10th of the money for them. Seems that they could accept the fact that what was perceived a kiddy station had some very enticing adult numbers. q105 although classified a chr station, was then a hot ac, they just hadn't coined the term yet.

SaltyDog said:

I used to tell my sales staff that I would consider any rate on a secondary station except "bonus" spots. I noticed that once you started giving a station away, it was irreversible.

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I agree, but perhaps the thought was the advertiser might find new customers if they advertised on sports radio. Because there is an interest on the part of some sports fans in some country music, although not necessarily the kind being played on top-rated country radio stations. They might reach the husband or boyfriend of a big country fan, and he's looking for a place to take his girl. At least that's the pitch I'd make. Try it, you'll like it, then we'll do a combo deal for real money later.

WHTZ was not #1 25-54...what months are you looking at?

DavidEduardo said:

LOL. That's what the "oh, there is no alternative station" lamenters always bring up.

Before anyone thinks your post is anything but tongue-in-cheek, here are the facts:

KIIS is #1 in 18-49, 25-54 and most of the subsets. Using an average of the last 3 months of 2014, WHTZ is #1 in 18-34, 18-49, 25-34, 25-44 and 25-54.

Neither station targets teens as there is no ad revenue to be found there.

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Unregistered said:

WHTZ was not #1 25-54...what months are you looking at?

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He says last 3 mnths 2014 so oct/nov/dec avg.

Z100 had a 1st, 2nd, 3rd finish in those 3 mnths so couldve had an avg of #1 based on how the other stations did.

Funny that z100 is now rightfully the top biller in NYC, in the 80's it had even better demos yet wasn't the top biller. So these relics at the ad agencies only took 25 years to understand that their silly biases against chr was hurting the companies they bought time for, next up alternative rock.

DOB said:

So these relics at the ad agencies only took 25 years to understand that their silly biases against chr was hurting the companies they bought time for, next up alternative rock.

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BTST the agencies represent their clients. It's not just THEIR biases, but those of their clients. They sit in meetings, listen to what their clients want, and place the ads in the places that accomplish those goals. It doesn't matter what the radio sales folks tell them, because they see radio as being biased too.