I am happy to report that Fred is alive and well - recently saw him trashing Steve Inskeep for "not being a real historian" in the comments section on Inskeep's book.
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News/Talk Countdown
- Thread starter semoochie
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I am happy to report that Fred is alive and well - recently saw him trashing Steve Inskeep for "not being a real historian" in the comments section on Inskeep's book.
There is one very significant difference and IMHO means that all news would never work due to *ahem* educational issues. San Franciscans are generally very well educated and take an interest in their city and general area. That is something missing from Houston and Atlanta. I suppose a talk station might work but only if it targeted that *ahem* specific demographic.
You are forgetting that radio looks at metro areas, not just central cities. San Francisco is Oakland and Fremont and Santa Rosa and Gilroy along with the enclaves of the super-rich and Stanford professors. San Francisco's MSA is nearly 25% Hispanic, 7% African American and around 20% Asian
San Francisco is 1st among metros in household income, but Atlanta is 7th with a cost of living that is about 30% lower. The Houston household income is only about 5% lower than that of Philadelphia, a market that has long supported an all-news station.
Educational levels are not all that different, and the differences are not what you think. 60% of Atlanta metro residents have at least some college, while San Francisco has 51% (http://www.censusscope.org/us/m7360/chart_education.html) Houston was around 64%.
Again, my belief is that entrenched newsers that began in the 60's and 70's do well, although some better than others. But new attempts to create all news stations... in the last decade or so... have failed. The Merlin efforts in NY and Chicago, CBS's attempt in DC, Cumulus' trial in Atlanta and the Radio One newser in Houston are examples from just the last half-decade.
Over a longer period we have seen smaller market news stations unable to sustain the format, such as Miami and Phoenix (multiple attempts) and and San Juan (where at one time there were 4 all news stations) due to audience aging, the loss of appeal of AM and other factors.
No, I didn't forget but I didn't take into account MSA when looking up city demo's since many AM's do not cover entire cities, let along MSA's. Having lived and worked in the Bay Area for quite a few years I think I know it quite well - but I didn't bring up the comparison. But as long as you brought up Philly, consider that urban Philly is vastly different than the lily white suburbs surrounding it. Then you have pockets like Lehigh Valley which can consist of total Puerto Rican populations and rural farming areas a few miles away.
My point was that low economic populations do not listen to radio news and both Houston and Atlanta cities are predominately low economic areas.
As for Phoenix, I am guessing the relative young age of most commuters make entertainment more enjoyable than news (which can be filled quite nicely by NPR if one desires).
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Any AM (or FM for that matter) that would try all news is going to be one with decent coverage.
Remember, "MSA" in radio means "Metro Survey Area" and is not the same as the government's MSA. Same initials, often different meanings.
And radio is measured and sold by MSA. There are no accredited ratings for single cities, although you can break out Nielsen to the ZIP Code level.
Metro Philly does not include Allentown-Bethlehem-Easton. And even if it did, the Puerto Rican population is very, very news oriented. Those born on the island who migrated to PA grew up where an all news station got a 30 share in morning drive and where at one time 4 all news stations existed.
But my point is that Atlanta has a greater household spendable income than San Francisco, based on the radio metro (Santa Rosa to the north to Campbell to the south). That's because the taxes and housing expenses in the SF metro are about double those of ATL.
Houston is very comparable to Philly in income and educational attainment. Yet a new news station failed in Houston while one has been successful for nearly 5 decades in Philly.
Try again. The median age of the Phoenix metro is 33.2 years and for Philly it is 36.4. Only 3 years difference. if you isolate the Hispanic population from consideration, the median age in Phoenix is just a bit older than that of Philly (in PHX the Hispanic population brings the median down by about 4 years as it is younger while in Philly, it brings it up by a fraction because they are older).
Remember again, most radio listening is not done in the car.
This is a very tough nut to crack. Remember that CA has Prop 13 which freezes property taxes at the time of last sale and allows only a fractional increase. Although current property taxes are very throughout the state those that have lived in their houses for a period of time do not pay those high taxes. Add to that a myrid of exemptions for old age, infirmaries, various military and railroad service, low-income etc., and you have many people not paying current tax rates or any taxes at all. This produces quite a distortion in calculating any sort of median spendable income.
Driving through both towns that is very difficult to believe. Philly looks like a slum compared to Houston.
Three years in a median age comparison is a rather large number. It isn't insignificant.
You keep saying this and I keep disbelieving it. I don't know of anyone over the age of 20 who listens to radio at home. They do listen at work but that is predominately background noise as it is in barbershops, dental and medical practices, and welding shops. I discount "listening at work" as pretty meaningless in trying to ascertain actual listening from noise. I did it when I was working and couldn't tell you the name of the last song played or any commercial.
It's not whether Houston and Philly are different. It's whether the world in which radio operates is different now than 50 years ago. Maybe has an all news station launched in Houston in the 60s, instead of in Philly, the outcome might be different.
I'm sure David can provide exact information but it's been a good 30 years (at least) since a successful (by any standard) all news station launched.
There have been at least three attempts to establish network services to allow all news to operate cheaply (NBC NIS, AP, CNN). All three and the stations that used them flopped. Early all news outlets failed to have staying power, such as McLendon's stations and WAVA. All now footnotes in the history of all news radio.
All this suggests that without benefit of strong inertia, all news is no longer a viable format. And even long-standing all news stations like KYW are not as successful as they once were as audiences, revenue and influence erode.
I'm sure David can provide exact information but it's been a good 30 years (at least) since a successful (by any standard) all news station launched.
There have been at least three attempts to establish network services to allow all news to operate cheaply (NBC NIS, AP, CNN). All three and the stations that used them flopped. Early all news outlets failed to have staying power, such as McLendon's stations and WAVA. All now footnotes in the history of all news radio.
All this suggests that without benefit of strong inertia, all news is no longer a viable format. And even long-standing all news stations like KYW are not as successful as they once were as audiences, revenue and influence erode.
Well said. i can not add anything more... I'm still trying to think of the most recent successful launch of an all news station. Perhaps KOMO in Seattle which kind of transitioned into the format around 1999.
KOMO was also a consistent "top five" contender, occasionally hitting #1, until recently.
I clicked your link, and according to that website, San Francisco has 43% (43.6% actually) who have had bachelor's or graduate degrees, and Houston lists the percentage with bachelor's or graduate degrees as 27%. That's quite a difference.
Atlanta has 32% with bachelor's or graduate degrees. That's also a reasonable difference.
Houston's "some college" percentage was 21%. Atlanta's was 21%, and San Francisco's percentage with "some college" was 19%.
I'm guessing that you must have been looking at the graphs, which are confusing.
The actual statistics were listed below the graphs.
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No, the graphs are not confusing. I just expressed it wrong. I was trying to say that none of those markets have a radically higher percentage of college graduates or post-grad degreed persons. I just messed up my explanation.
While CA property taxes are "frozen" to a last-sale base, property values in CA are radically higher than in Atlanta or Houston or Philadelphia, resulting in greater overall taxes unless you have owned a home for several decades. But my point is not just about property taxes... it includes the now near-11% income tax, high sales taxes, multiple state taxes on services that are among the nation's highest, as well as taxes on everything from building permits to soft drinks right down to the city level that drive up the COL.
CA is particularly harsh on seniors, with nearly no tax concessions at all.
You must have driven through only the nicer parts of Houston. I have always thought it is the trashiest big city in America, due mostly to the near total lack of zoning restrictions.
Yes it is, particularly when you look at the root causes for the variation which tend to be related to whether seniors stay in a city after retirement. High COL cities (metros) lose more seniors, reducing the "average" age. And cities with higher percentages of Hispanics have lower median ages because the Hispanic population of most of the US (except for New York, Miami, Philadelphia and a couple of other Eastern markets) is about 10 years younger than that of the non-Hispanic white population.
Together, these factors... as well as lesser ones like presence of large universities... make differences of a few years statistically insignificant.
In reverse order: most at work listening is not in offices and is not "nine to five". It is in trucks, on loading docks, in warehouses, on construction projects, in domestic service and hospitality service, etc. That is in no small part because office work is not what most Americans do.
Second, listening location is measured by the PPM as "at home" and "away". At home listening is significant and about a third of the total. In the diary, it's divided into work, home and car and the tiny "other" (beach, park, etc). In-car is also about one-third in the roughly 200 diary markets. The only significantly different market is New York, which had 25% or less in-car listening when last measured... due to extensive use of public transportation in the inner core of the market.
Clearly, there are qualitative differences in the kinds of people who gravitate to some cities (and markets) compared to those who end up in other cities. It helps to have multiple elite colleges and universities and an "atmosphere" the makes grads want to stay. Some of those grads start companies and draw other grads. Some make lots of money and use some of it to support arts and culture. That draws even more brie and chablis, and iGadget types.
But having high socio-economic status, executive-professional, well-educated, yuppie types would seem to beneft the KQED, WHYY and WBURs of the world, much more than the KCBS, KYW and WBZs of the world.
What may be overlooked is all news radio and news/talk radio once drew an upscale audience but somewhere along the line tried to go for mass instead of class and has ended up with neither.
But having high socio-economic status, executive-professional, well-educated, yuppie types would seem to beneft the KQED, WHYY and WBURs of the world, much more than the KCBS, KYW and WBZs of the world.
What may be overlooked is all news radio and news/talk radio once drew an upscale audience but somewhere along the line tried to go for mass instead of class and has ended up with neither.
I've lived in CA and will concede it is more expensive than most other states, however the biggest expense is in housing. People there tend to make more money and thus offset a lot of those other taxes. But there are also a lot of areas in CA that are very rural and not expensive (the whole north of the state. most of the eastern portion and a huge portion of the Inland Empire).
Both Philly and Houston look like dog poop but a comparison gives the very narrow edge to Houston.
For the purposes of radio why would a senior population be important unless the particular station caters to seniors and is locally supported? In every other instance seniors are anathema to radio.
But what I was referring to was education and income. They go hand in hand.
Exactly! Background noise. Just as I've been saying. BTW, the Census Bureau published these figures for 2010:
Jobs primarily conducted in offices: 113,495,000
Non-office jobs: 65,494,000
I'm guessing "at home" listening is primarily by high school and college kids which leaves two-thirds listening elsewhere (in the car/subway/airport/park/gym?)
So in your view the difference between 44% and 27% is not significant? What would you consider 'radically higher'? And in terms of all-news stations, what demo is their target audience, and how much does level of education fit in?
All of the large metros, including LA, the Inland Empire, Sacramento, San Francisco / San Jose and San Diego are vastly more expensive than the comparison cities of Atlanta, Houston or Philly.
The difference in median household income is not enough to make up for the cost of housing.
I now live in a smaller metro in CA that is not a top 100 market, and I could get an identically sized home in Tucson for 40% less and in nice areas in Houston, Dallas, or San Antonio for as much as 60% less.
Add in the high and more rapidly escalating state income tax rates and all the add-ons to property taxes (my LA area home paid 40% more in add-ons... I know some folks whose tax rate is nearly double due to Mello Roos).
Any place desirable in the IE is expensive.
The "eastern portion" is Baker, Blythe, Barstow and Brawley. Not particularly nice, and not all that cheap, either.
... because whether seniors leave an are due to high costs of living (CA, etc.) or go to it due to lower costs (TX, FL, AZ) affects the median age.
Not anathema. Just not of any sales value.
You can have highly unionized workforces that are not highly educated and still have the same median household incomes.
I think if you look you will find that nearly 2/3 of the workforce is blue collar. And of the white collar, a significant percentage don't really work in offices... think of salespeople as an example.
A growing percentage of white collar workers telecommute so they don't work in an office, either. The majority of workplace listening is, thus, not in offices and it never was.
No, at-home listening is primarily done by 25+ adults. They range from stay-at-home parents of either gender to the unemployed (functional and statistical... about 15% of the population). It also includes people getting up in the morning and getting ready for work who don't turn on the tv, etc., etc.
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Huh? Having recently joined the ranks of the retired and am watching more TV than when I was working, I have to disagree. Maybe the networks aren't targeting 50+ in prime time, but there are plenty of dayparts where there are little more than reverse-mortgatge, hospice, Depends, Viagra, and similar ads. Who younger than 50 (or even 60) pays attention to those? The stations/networks I'm sure don't charge as much for those dayparts as prime time, but don't say that the 50+ market is being dismissed.
And who does CBS go after when they air The Masters? That's their most prestigious broadcast of the year outside of 60 Minutes. Golf is geezer fare for the most part, but it's wealthy-geezer fare.
Many of those ads... like the reverse mortgages... are PI.
And network TV rises and falls on 18-49, as do the principal cable networks. While cable operations may get lots of 50+, such as Fox does, they generate most of their billings from the under 55 and under 50 groups.
The "senior" focused networks do get some products that pay cash... many of the drugs target 40 to 60... but a good amount of revenue comes from cable and satellite carriage fees, not advertising. That is why the cable nets that run 60's TV shows seem to use PI ads almost exclusively to fill in the commercial break time on those shows.
Could it be possible that Northeast cities have more people who have spent their entire lives in the area, therefore they have more connection to the local area and are more connected to local news? I'd be willing to bet the percentage of people who have been in Houston their entire lives is a lot lower than Philly or New York.
I was absolutely amazed, when I lived in the East, that so many people born and raised there never travelled outside their own state (and, mind you, most of those states could be traversed in an afternoon).
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