This business "strategy" appears to me to be on a path to be out of business. If radio is not going after under-35's and is also ignoring the 50+ demo they are killing the demo with the most money to spend and virtually assuring people U35 will not be radio customers when they grow up.
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- Thread starter landtuna
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This business "strategy" appears to me to be on a path to be out of business. If radio is not going after under-35's and is also ignoring the 50+ demo they are killing the demo with the most money to spend and virtually assuring people U35 will not be radio customers when they grow up.
Who says we're not going after the under-35s? Among the strongest formats now are CHR and country, both of whom are filled with under-35s. And the sports talk format is huge with under-35 males.
I don't think radio is ignoring 50+ either, except with regards to some music formats, and only in larger markets. But the industry is still aiming news & talk at 50+.
Also, as we've tried to explain to you many times, having "the most money to spend" doesn't mean they're susceptible to advertising. As you yourself have proven many times. So why would anyone spend money for advertising when the people who will hear it will ignore it?
In re-reading DE's posts, he's talking about "radio buys," which to me refers to agencies, not stations. It's not news to me that agencies are making decisions that are contrary to the goals of the radio industry.
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Add in Urban, Hot AC, Regional Mexican, Spanish Language CHR and Spanish Language Rhythmic and the spectrum in full of 18-34 formats (although most of these formats target 18-44 in reality)
Yes, I am referring to transactional ad buys which almost 100% fit in some slice or part of 18-54.
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As BigA said, there are many formats and stations targeting 18-34, 25-44 and other young-side demos. The highest billing station in the US, CHR KIIS in LA, is CHR.
The issue with 55+ is that there is no agency money. And in the larger markets, if you don't get on agency buys, but are trying to compete with the major stations, you won't make money. There is essentially no agency money for 55+ because agency clients, after spending billions of dollars in research, know that the return on investment in promoting to seniors via radio is just not there.
Sports radio is "huge" among under-35 males. In many markets is as big as many individual music formats aimed at that demo, and it generally outbills most other stations because sports radio has such huge power ratios.
I didn't say there were any commercial Classical or Jazz stations now. I was just using it as a comparison. I will concede that in markets with multiple major league teams that Sports can be huge, much in the same way that All News works in the largest markets(albeit with younger demos)but most places seem more like my city, where you have a two share which in this case is split among four stations. In such a situation, concept selling can only go so far and when you get up to ten or so Sports stations, because nothing else will work anymore, it's going to be harder to sell and at some point, improbable.
I understand all of that and agree. My only contention is with the word, "huge". It isn't "huge", in the way that WABC was "huge", when they had seven million adults listening. Even if an entire two share is made up of saleable demographics, which it isn't, it still can't be "huge".
By that criteria, there are no major market "huge" radio stations.
I think you're picking nits. "Huge" is a relative term. When you look at a graph of radio demographics, and there's a spike of young males for a particular format, that is huge. At least in the markets I look at.
I only used WABC for comparison, not expecting any present day stations to have that kind of impact. In Los Angeles, the top four stations are over three million cume and all around a five share. The Sports stations are 1.4, 1.1, 0.4 and 0.3 with cumes of slightly above 600,000, slightly below 600,000, about 300,000 and 160,000. Which of these scenarios strikes you as "huge"?
How many of those are young men, and how does their concentration compare to other formats? That's what I'm talking about.
I agree that Sports is a viable format. I just don't think the available audience in most areas is huge. Normally,this would be nitpicking but if News/Talk actually dies, Sports will be the only viable format in many areas and without truly being huge, the fifth or tenth station in the format, won't be able to justify it to advertisers.
My discussion is about demographics, and yours is about 6+ numbers. Advertisers don't care about 6+.
I wonder if there's a board similar to this for advertising professionals and fans of advertising, because it sure seems that the Baby Boomers' (and older) beef is with that industry and not with the radio industry. It makes perfect sense to me, an outsider to radio but not to communications, that a commercial medium must deliver the audience/viewership/readership its advertisers want and tailor its content to hit the target.
As with any business, it's just a matter of keeping the customer satisfied -- except, in radio's case, the paying customer is the advertiser. The listeners consume radio's end product for nothing, so what possible reason is there for a broadcaster to tailor its programming to the tastes of listeners its paying customers don't want to reach? It's like a store in a mall selling hip-hop fashions being asked to put fashions for seniors in the window because the retirees passing by don't like looking at low-rider jeans.
As with any business, it's just a matter of keeping the customer satisfied -- except, in radio's case, the paying customer is the advertiser. The listeners consume radio's end product for nothing, so what possible reason is there for a broadcaster to tailor its programming to the tastes of listeners its paying customers don't want to reach? It's like a store in a mall selling hip-hop fashions being asked to put fashions for seniors in the window because the retirees passing by don't like looking at low-rider jeans.
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What's that saying, "if you're not paying for a product, you are the product". Very apt in the radio business.
Keep in mind when referring to the 7 million come of WABC that today's numbers are PPM derived. Music stations tended to jump as much as 100% in cume when the PPM came out. But remember that roughly 50% of the cume represents over 90% of the AQH listening, so all those other listeners, who used to be thought of as "phantom cume" are very, very light listeners.
The LA sports stations (and you forgot KWKW which bills over $8 million on a 0.6 share) have fewer occasional listeners and a lot more longer-time-per-week ones are huge in billing in the case of the established ones... in 2014 KSPN billed about the same as KRTH and KLAC billed around what KLOS and KYSR billed. Even poor-signal KLAA which is more of an Angels mouthpiece than a station, billed $7 million (who says AM is dead). And sports on 980 is too new to measure, revenue wise.
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