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High or relatively high rated stations that lost their audience?
- Thread starter tall_guy1
- Start date
There must be thousands of examples.
There are hundreds and hundreds just in formerly market dominant AM stations that gradually lost their audience as FM achieved prominence. There are cases of FMs that did well, and then faded due to a competitor being better. And there are other cases of stations just "losing touch" with its audience. And some just faded as the "product life cycle" entered into the "decline" phase.
joebtsflk1
Star Participant
Seems like music oriented stations have life cycle reminiscent of popular night spots.
vchimpanzee
Walk of Fame Participant
I can remember when WTQR, a country station in the Greensboro NC market, was doing so well, and was so far ahead of the number two station 12-plus that the other station couldn't even see WTQR's dust, that someone said cockroaches and WTQR would survive World War III.
About ten years ago, the market's oldies station switched to country. Others had tried and failed. The Wolf soon got better 12-plus numbers than WTQR and at times, it was way ahead. WTQR solved their problems and has often come out even or slightly ahead of The Wolf, but it has never again been number one.
About ten years ago, the market's oldies station switched to country. Others had tried and failed. The Wolf soon got better 12-plus numbers than WTQR and at times, it was way ahead. WTQR solved their problems and has often come out even or slightly ahead of The Wolf, but it has never again been number one.
vchimpanzee
Walk of Fame Participant
Even worse is WIVK Knoxville. That station once had 12-plus numbers in the 30s. It has been reported here that it is down to 10.
Huff
Administrator
WTQR peaked with a 19.9 share in 1991. It was the #1 station in the market from 1979 through 1998, though it would continue to reach #1 until Summer 2006 - the last time it topped the market.
WIVK-FM has by far been a much more dominant station (it doesn't hurt that it's in a smaller market with fewer viable signals than Greensboro/Winston-Salem.) WIVK-FM has been the #1 station in Knoxville since 1980 (you could go further back if you count the audience of its former, mostly-simulcast AM sister at the time.) It peaked with a 33.4 share in 1991 (FM alone). The Winter 2017 book and its 9.7 share is the first time the station has been in single digits since 1973. WIVK-FM had a 17.1 share just two years ago - a decline that steep is very uncommon, especially given there has not been much in the way of wholesale change in the station's formatics or presentation.
I suppose WINC in Winchester, VA would be on this list. In the 60s and 70s WINC was a solid number one. They had great numbers and a very stable staff. Joe Pasquali did mornings since 1958 and Roy Nestor almost as long. Then the 80's happened. WINC no longer was number one starting in 1982 ( that honor belongs to WUSQ Q102 ), ABC dumped them as an affiliate, Roy Nestor retired and Joe Pasquali was fired and people wanted country OR top 40...not a mix of both as WINC was famous for.
FreddyE1977
Star Participant
Best local example I can think of is KQV. At one time the top rock-n-roll station in town.
The one everybody listened to and talked about.
Now an all-news station whose signal barely makes it out to the newer suburbs,
drawing small fractions of a ratings point.
The one everybody listened to and talked about.
Now an all-news station whose signal barely makes it out to the newer suburbs,
drawing small fractions of a ratings point.
That was a normal competitive battle. Cecil Heftel's 13-Q started up and just blew KQV away. While 1320 was not the market's best signal, it was much better than that of KQV so between Bill Tanner's programming and a better signal, KQV was overwhelmed.
I think the "cloudy sky" affected them.
Was this around the time that ABC sold KQV to Taft ??? I remember reading in a book sometime ago where the PD of KQV in it's Taft days was given orders by upper management to fire Jeff Christie ( Rush Limbaugh ) even though the PD did not want to do it.
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FreddyE1977
Star Participant
Not long after the format switch 13Q did move their transmitter to a new site, several miles to the east.
This did improve their signal, especially over what were then growing suburbs.
Today's WJAS had to relocate that transmitter again to the area of the Pittsburgh Zoo.
Their current signal is just awful.
Y2kTheNewOldies
Walk of Fame Participant
KGO-AM it was once one of San Francisco's best talk radio stations during the time ABC/Disney had the station but Disney a decade ago sold KGO-AM and some of the ABC radio affiliates (Not including ESPN Sports/Talk affiliates and Radio Disney) but it was not the same though due to the fact that the audience shifted their choice for talk radio over to NPR affiliate KQED for that.
The biggest reason for the fast decline of KGO was the introduction of the PPM measurement system. In general, low cume stations with high TSL suffered large declines in audience share. KGO was one example of how the PPM effected talk stations, just as the PPM similarly effected smooth jazz stations.
What was happening is that few listeners were writing down really long listening spans in the diary. It turns out that under electronic measurement, those time spans are shorter and full of interruptions. Because KGO had not updated its format in the years preceding the start of the PPM, the core that was left was old, too. Add Bay water and you have the radio Kool-Aid.
What about those clear channel AM 50,000 watt blow tourches?? Surely they don't have the audience now as they did 30 or 40 years ago. I can remember when WRVA had listeners all over Virginia today few in Richmond care about WRVA. Same in North Carolina with WBT and WPTF. KOA once controlled Denver politics but today if it's not Broncos games why bother with KOA. Back in 1981 Buffalo's WKBW had so many listeners that they blew out one of the phone lines during a contest. Today's WWKB I doubt can do that.
In small towns in the Deep South (MS, AL, AK), my relatives and the neighbors would tune into WLS out of Chicago in the evening when the local AM station went off the air. The town locals would meet at the coffee shop to debate the topics they heard the night before. My mom, dad, and their siblings grew up listening to Wolfman every night on WLS.
I'm surprised nobody mentioned CLKW The BIG 8 just across the border in Windsor but aggressively targeting the Detroit market. Apparently, the ratings today are a fraction of what they once were.
I'm surprised nobody mentioned CLKW The BIG 8 just across the border in Windsor but aggressively targeting the Detroit market. Apparently, the ratings today are a fraction of what they once were.
That's absolutely right. They don't care what they do in Detroit. They focus exclusively on Windsor and Essex county, where they're top of the heap. People in Detroit could not care any less about what happens in Windsor.
AK is not deep south , it is far north. AK is Alaska, not Arkansas, that would be AR. Many people make this mistake ( I am from Alaska, and we know what AK is ).
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