M
Music Lover
Guest
I was 23 and that second group was certainly my preference.
I was 6 and not into either group at that time. When I was 11 or 12, I started becoming interested in both groups, except for Van Halen.
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I was 23 and that second group was certainly my preference.
A comment was made earlier (by Michael Hagerty I think) as to 'advertisers' as if they were one solid block. Does no one consider that advertisers are selling vastly different products and, as such, might have an interest in people of different ages?
Wouldn't an advertising campaign for toothpaste be far different than one for Buicks?
Sorry, but such rational common sense is an anathema to radio suits who only know how to deal in sound-bite sized profundities issued as if they were holy writ.
A professional salesman knows he has to seek out customers, not sit back and wait for them to knock on his door. If a professional salesman is selling airtime on a radio station, he seeks out those who have products to sell to his station's audience, regardless of what that audience is. A good, professional salesman will find the businesses that need to reach his station's audience no matter who that audience is, and will persuade them that his station is a good way to reach the customers that they want to reach.
It is true that if you are trying to sell Proactiv via radio spots, you need to find a radio station with an audience of listeners who have excessive spots. If your audience is mostly grumpy old assholes, then you need to reach out to people selling Preparation H, the famous medicine for assholes. If your audience is mostly old farts, then you look to people trying to sell products like Bean-O.
KOY should have remained on 550. 550 and 620 are the only two really good signals on AM any longer.
KOY had demographic trouble before leaving 550 for 1230.
Spoken like someone who's never actually done it.
Actually, I have been a professional salesman for much of my career, and often sold products in a B2B environment that had a limited appeal that forced all of us to have to put forth an extra effort to make sales. Yes, I used some examples to make a point with a little bit of humor. Yes, I know that sitting back waiting for agencies to throw money at you is much easier than going out and finding customers. And yes, I am aware that picking "a profitable niche within a demographic for which there is demand from the agencies" is the easy way out, unless all of the other businesses in your industry have already staked out their claims in those niches and you lack the means to assault them head-to-head.
The thing is, sales is a continuing, on-going process. It's not a one-time event. You don't just land some key accounts and then sit back and let the money just roll in. Unless you're in a totally static, dead community with no economic growth, there will always be old businesses closing and new businesses starting. There is always new opportunity, if you're willing to simply look for it.
Yes, I know that sitting back waiting for agencies to throw money at you is much easier than going out and finding customers.
And yes, I am aware that picking "a profitable niche within a demographic for which there is demand from the agencies" is the easy way out, unless all of the other businesses in your industry have already staked out their claims in those niches and you lack the means to assault them head-to-head.
The thing is, sales is a continuing, on-going process. It's not a one-time event. You don't just land some key accounts and then sit back and let the money just roll in. Unless you're in a totally static, dead community with no economic growth, there will always be old businesses closing and new businesses starting. There is always new opportunity, if you're willing to simply look for it.
A comment was made earlier (by Michael Hagerty I think) as to 'advertisers' as if they were one solid block. Does no one consider that advertisers are selling vastly different products and, as such, might have an interest in people of different ages?
Wouldn't an advertising campaign for toothpaste be far different than one for Buicks?
AOR was aimed at Men 18-24 and some markets had three or four stations doing so! That's only seven years total and it nearly killed the format until it moved out to 25-34 but it worked great for awhile however when it was still 18-24, they had to constantly replace listeners. (Top 40 has always had to, to some extent, just not so soon.) Why couldn't they do that on the other end of the spectrum? I'm not suggesting programming to anyone over 55, just super-serving the upper end. By the way, I have a hard time believing that 45-54 women wouldn't want a station without a hard edge, at least part of the time. I'm not suggesting anything they aren't already listening to, just without the edge. (Soft AC tie-in) Edit: OK, I posted a rather lengthy response to this same post yesterday, that is now gone. I'm sure it got to the "posted" stage. I'm wondering if the system replaces a previous post, if you respond to the same one again. Be that as it may, my baby boomers graph seems to be different from Michael's information. I've always heard that the baby boom peaked in 1957 but I show it peaking in 1947, dropping down to the starting level in 1951 and then reaching secondary peaks in '55 and 57, before heading nearly straight down. In 1972, I show it even with the millennials' peak of 1991. It continues to drop until about 1977, when it begins a fairly steady climb.Okay, I see where you're coming from now.
Ending the Baby Boom in 1961 would have made it 15 years, which all the subsequent generations have been, but demographers set it at 1964 a long time back. We're stuck with it.
The problem with 42-54 is that half your audience is in its last six years of relevance to advertisers. And, as each year drops off, you're dealing with a declining birth rate. Going 25-54 allows you to move that center 15 years back from the brink. It also allows for the gradual arrival of that huge wave of milennials, the first of whom turn 25 next year, in your audience.
The opportunity adult stations have in cycles like this, where there's little difference between CHR and AC, is that they are listenable for younger demos, who may grow out of CHR and into AC. A 25-year-old in 1984 would have been unlikely to swap Cyndi Lauper, Van Halen and Michael Jackson for Neil Diamond, Barbra Streisand and Air Supply, but it's far less of a leap between formats today.
AOR was aimed at Men 18-24 and some markets had three or four stations doing so!
AOR was aimed at Men 18-24 and some markets had three or four stations doing so! That's only seven years total and it nearly killed the format until it moved out to 25-34 but it worked great for awhile however when it was still 18-24, they had to constantly replace listeners. (Top 40 has always had to, to some extent, just not so soon.) Why couldn't they do that on the other end of the spectrum? I'm not suggesting programming to anyone over 55, just super-serving the upper end.
By the way, I have a hard time believing that 45-54 women wouldn't want a station without a hard edge, at least part of the time. I'm not suggesting anything they aren't already listening to, just without the edge.
...my baby boomers graph seems to be different from Michael's information. I've always heard that the baby boom peaked in 1957 but I show it peaking in 1947, dropping down to the starting level in 1951 and then reaching secondary peaks in '55 and 57, before heading nearly straight down.
A 50-year-old woman isn't June Cleaver, guys. Sandra Bullock, Courtney Cox, Courtney Love and Wendy Williams....that's 50.
While I am closer to the lower end of the AC demo (in my mid 30s), most of my current circle of friends are in the upper end of the AC demo, 45-50 and older. Like me, they have also become disenfranchised with AC, yet we still identify more with Sandra Bullock than June Cleaver.