Undercharting hits

[93Q]

Excellent points Skipperthomas! I once heard someone complaining about only having 55+ numbers/listeners. Well, better than none! I think Scott Shannon first said that.

 

[warm590]

yes great input, Skipperthomas!! So at least I'm not the only one who thinks this way, by looking at the replies. As I said this has been a great thread with a lot of pro's giving us their opinions. Do you think that the Sat stations customers will get sick of the monthly fees?? I won't have it; My first radio gig was lost because the went "on the bird", although I must say that the programming is very good. And Tweaking the programming is inportant too; I am constantly looking for new ideas and the listeners respond to it. Don't have any problems with the over 55 audience here- no agency either.... ;D

Keep it going

warm590

 

[Tom Wells]

Its ok, they played Crabby Appleton on Sirius and the world didnt fall apart...

A consistent diet of non-relevant songs will kill any format. Crabby Appleton, for goodness sake. :-\

And a consistent diet of the same 300 "relevant" songs has done what for the format? Oh yeah, it has killed it off... If you think an average oldies listener who hears "Go Back" and Christie's "Yellow River" in a typical hour of oldies presentation... is going to stop listening to oldies radio and find a new format, I have a bridge to sell to you!

Careful what you wish for AZ... At the rate these PDs [with an obvious penchant for the A.D.D-afflicted] are burning out formats (and getting blown out); they may just buy that bridge—to live off the tolls

I find two things “interesting” when looking at consumer responses to Oldies or Classic Hits radio... (1)—I have NEVER heard a “regular Joe-listener” complain about TOO MUCH variety via a radio station... It always seems to be the opposite—and generally serves as a reason to cease their attention. (2)—When said consumer “kicks radio to the curb” in favor of yet another recurring monthly charge on his credit card [from XM]—the most popular rationale is that the pay service offers increased program diversity and variety within a specific genre. YES—that one trumps the “commercial-free” card nearly every time!

I managed to find some “Karma” with my morning cup of coffee... This morning at 6:20, the small-market Oldies AM that earlier served as my inspiration for the Crabby Appleton analogy, played Christie’s “Yellow River” in-between “River Deep—Mountain High” [Ike & Tina Turner] and “(I’ve Been) Searchin’ So Long” [Chicago]. GOOD POINT, AZ—I didn’t find myself turning off that station because they spiked the mix with an "oh wow" from some Rhino 70s CD! Instead, I hung around to enjoy Aretha’s “Spanish Harlem”, “HELP!”, “Who’ll Stop the Rain” by C.C.R., “Mountain of Love” [Johnny Rivers], and even suffered thru a spot break to later hear Free’s “All Right Now”... In all—about a half-hour of good music, and probably the only half-hour of terrestrial “music radio” I will listen to today.

'Way back in the 70's, I used to hear an oldies station (any oldies station) play a song that was "uncommon", and I'd joke,
"Hey! That's not on the officially sanctioned 500 oldies list!" As years have gone by, and oldies stations still focus on those limited lists,
I have nothing much to listen for. All the songs on the 500 are already seared into my memory.
Perhaps oldies listeners have poor recall, or have been proven to have musical blinders on.
The format has been long hog-tied by "testing".
I most enjoy radio bringing me something new, even if it's old.
Sadly, this concept is too dangerous for commercial radio, which is more afraid of tune-outs than it is interested in expanding our horizons,
even within such a well-defined format as "oldies".

 

[AZJoe]

Commercial radio has more to fear from the overplayed "300" favs burn out factor than they do playing one or two "oh wow" tunes per hour and "turning people off". They want to keep their audience and keep them from finding alternate choices or formats, but guess what, they already are. The ad agencies have already virtually written off the oldies audience, so what could it hurt to try ANYTHING new on an oldies format? The number one complaint of oldies fans is the repetition (thus the limited playlists), you dont have to play the same "oh wow" tune in regular rotation, but there are 100s of "oh wow" songs that can be thrown in to freshen up the incredibly stale oldies presentation that is going down into flames because the experts tell us it is best. Obviously it is not.

 

[OldiesCat]

Interesting

I find it so interesting that most all oldies PDs feel that they need to program their stations now different from the day the songs were currents.

that you fail to mention several obvious factors that would contradict you, including:

- the year you use as an example (1970), many markets had a handful of stations competing vs. several dozen in many markets, not to mention competition
today from satellite, internet, HD and iPods/MP3 players

- if what you say is so true, why does NO ONE program their oldies station like that? Answer: times have changed, listeners have aged, some songs stand the
test of time, many do not.

Face it- many of you are just pissed your Oldies station is going away. So, your solutions are "hey, start playing a bunch of songs that haven't been played in years ('cause most Oldies listeners didn't want to hear them), jack your playlist up to 1000 titles and do retro-radio".

I'm sorry, but some of your incredible levels of denial are sad and pathetic. Grow up, boys. The jig is up- Oldies, as you knew it in the late '80s and '90s, is over. REAL WORLD CALLING! There's nobody to blame, really- the audience is aging past advertiser demand. And, unless you can find a way to reverse the aging process, nothing, NOTHING you say or do will change what's happening.

The sooner you face up to it, the sooner you can drop your frustration and bitterness.

 

[hipporadio]

Re: Interesting

Face it- many of you are just pissed your Oldies station is going away...

I'm sorry, but some of your incredible levels of denial are sad and pathetic. Grow up, boys...

The sooner you face up to it, the sooner you can drop your frustration and bitterness.

I can find NOTHING resembling “frustration” or “bitterness” in the comments of one who enjoys a few “oh wows” in lunar rotation [AZJoe]; one who operates, with some perceived “success”, a small AM station that honors listener requests and presents an adventurous playlist [warm590]; or a polite and very LOGICAL engineer, who has consistently demonstrated his reliance on COMMON SENSE in repeated posts here [Tom Wells]. How on earth can one be bitter about some disappearing station or format presentation that he tired of long ago? Frustration over a format that has become more-“regular” than a morning “bodily function” is understandable ONLY if NO other options are available—but such IS NOT the case. In my first post on this thread, I made it VERY CLEAR that my enjoyment of classic hit music had successfully migrated to other mediums—I suspect MANY others have also discovered a similar use for their gigantic computer hard-drives; and enjoy their iPods and sat-radio subscriptions. The real “losers” in this equation ARE NOT those who wake up to find the constipated local corporate Oldies station replaced by something [even more mundane] called “The Beat”, “Movin”, or “[Jukebox] Jack”... The-very broadcast entities who invited this misfortune will suffer the ultimate setbacks associated with their loss of a listener class long-considered “the most loyal”!

Now, let’s cut through all the crap [or pathetic excuses] regarding 55-plus and your industry’s latest hilarious catch-phrase known as “the money demo”. I have spent more-than-enough years as a successful radio sales rep, humble station owner, and [now] seasoned marketing professional to complete a simple puzzle and/or spot “spin” when I’m presented with it. First, a few entrenched “givens”:

—[1] Advertisers have ALWAYS placed a financial priority on INVESTING in NEW (i.e. younger entry-level) customers—this has NOTHING to do with the “new millennium” or some aging radio format.

—[2] NO marketer with an eye on long-term success will dismiss the need to MAINTAIN a current (i.e. older established) customer base. They will staunchly defend their “turf” if practical.

—[3] Customer “cultivation” costs far more than does customer “maintenance”—especially when “recovery period” is considered. Given a product’s healthy appeal and cultivation—the cost of maintenance will ALWAYS be lower and held more-accountable in terms of its payback period.

—[4] The “excuse” that “boomers” are unimportant to advertisers is comical (in the least). I’ll cite the newspaper media [with an even more-accentuated “age dilemma” than ANY classic pop-based radio format]... Do you notice ANY lack of very-costly full-page layouts for banks, car dealers, supermarkets, cell phone plans, and “big-box” tech stores in metropolitan newsprint? NO!

—[5] Even in its “heyday” when the audience was late 30s/40s-centric, an Oldies format was “niche” in nature... It nearly-always shared audience with one or two other stations. This made it less-than-automatic as a radio spot buy. Radio “sales” [even then] at an Oldies station required just that—SALES!

—[6] Large market “corporate radio” SALES personnel have been infamous [in the past—and even more so, in the present tense] for their tendency to “forage the fattest fruit not far from the tree” [i.e. “easy” agency business]. When one considers the current dynamics of selling an Oldies station; is it so hard to speculate how “sales” (or lack thereof) almost-always precedes “ratings” as a “convenient excuse” to bale on the format? IF it were as simple as: “Let’s hire an older, more experienced, and more accomplished sales staff.”—you WOULD NOT see years of heritage and decades-loyal listeners so casually tossed by the wayside... FACT: “older”, “experienced”, and “accomplished” come with a steep premium; and such people aren’t likely to favor the “gymnastics” of the all-too-typical corporate radio operation... Their REAL TALENT insures much better opportunities elsewhere. Even the “suits” are smart-enough to figure that one out in advance... SAD—but very true!

Now you good and able readers here consider the prior six points, and come to your own conclusions.

The person clearly frustrated is you, O.C. The reason is simple... I assume you to be a capable PD and dedicated radio professional; but you must work for an entity that FINALLY built [and managed to highly-mortgage] their “mansion” (or “cluster”)—only to lack the essential resources to hang drapes over all the windows or furnish more than the very-minimal number of rooms required to present a good public image. In short, that payment to service debt on the “sticks” comes at the expense of what YOU require to present a compelling on-air presentation. It also restricts your options to ONLY those deemed to be “100-percent safe”. This very scenario has played itself out SO often [and so blatantly] that NO reasonable contradiction need be attempted. Circumstances [not of your making] have forced you into your second vocation—one of an “apologist” for the status quo. “Bitterness” may also be your companion; because you see no light at the end of what appears to be a clear and unobstructed roadway! Your business [the terrestrial radio industry] may be as close to its twilight as the Oldies format being discussed here! Sadly, I [and MANY others of an equal or better pedigree] can see NO long-term viability in the reckless business plan initiated, and arrogantly pursued, by your corporate masters.

We have often heard of the paradigm referencing the “social fallout” caused by that exploding retail clone called Wal-Mart... I’ll go you one better than that—“corporate radio” post Telcom Act!

 

[DavidEduardo]

Re: Interesting NOT

The-very broadcast entities who invited this misfortune will suffer the ultimate setbacks associated with their loss of a listener class long-considered “the most loyal”!

The issue has nothing to do with what you express in the first paragraph... the issue is not that you are losing listeners on an oldies station. The issue is that the listeners have been moving over the last decade into age groups that advertisers, particularly in the larger markets that are agency driven, do not want.

Now, let’s cut through all the crap [or pathetic excuses] regarding 55-plus and your industry’s latest hilarious catch-phrase known as “the money demo”. I have spent more-than-enough years as a successful radio sales rep, humble station owner, and [now] seasoned marketing professional to complete a simple puzzle and/or spot “spin” when I’m presented with it. First, a few entrenched “givens”:

If you run a station in a market where getting on agency buys is critical to profitability, then you have to accept the fact that very rarely do agenies, driven by their clients, specifiy buys for 55+. Local sales, to some extent, and unrated market sales, will not follow this dictate. It all depends on your potential revenue base as a station operator.

—[4] The “excuse” that “boomers” are unimportant to advertisers is comical (in the least). I’ll cite the newspaper media [with an even more-accentuated “age dilemma” than ANY classic pop-based radio format]... Do you notice ANY lack of very-costly full-page layouts for banks, car dealers, supermarkets, cell phone plans, and “big-box” tech stores in metropolitan newsprint? NO!

And how do you explain the absolute crisis of the newspaper industry, based mostly on the scarce 18-34 usership, declines in circulation, and declines in page reads?

Print will always, in some form (and the Web is electronic print) need for ads that require images, lengthy text (such as price item ads) and disclaimers. Thayt is a totally separate item from ages and other demos.

—[5] Even in its “heyday” when the audience was late 30s/40s-centric, an Oldies format was “niche” in nature... It nearly-always shared audience with one or two other stations. This made it less-than-automatic as a radio spot buy. Radio “sales” [even then] at an Oldies station required just that—SALES!

Every significant station shares audience with about two others in the diary. In the People meter, it is more like 5 to 6 in each week! All formats, all stations share the same listeners with other stations.

Large market “corporate radio” SALES personnel have been infamous [in the past—and even more so, in the present tense] for their tendency to “forage the fattest fruit not far from the tree” [i.e. “easy” agency business].

First, agency business is not easy. It is just hard in a different way... because it is mostly transactional and ratings vs. cost based. There is essentially no other kind of agency business... buys are based on metrics, and to a far lesser extent, relationships.

When one considers the current dynamics of selling an Oldies station; is it so hard to speculate how “sales” (or lack thereof) almost-always precedes “ratings” as a “convenient excuse” to bale on the format? IF it were as simple as: “Let’s hire an older, more experienced, and more accomplished sales staff.”—you WOULD NOT see years of heritage and decades-loyal listeners so casually tossed by the wayside...

In agency business (and that is what drives larger market stations) it has nothing to do with the age or experience of the sellers... it has to do ith good vs. bad sellers. Agencies will not buy out of the client demo, no matter how good the seller is in 99% of the cases.

FACT: “older”, “experienced”, and “accomplished” come with a steep premium; and such people aren’t likely to favor the “gymnastics” of the all-too-typical corporate radio operation... Their REAL TALENT insures much better opportunities elsewhere. Even the “suits” are smart-enough to figure that one out in advance... SAD—but very true!

Actually, sellers are paid a commission on sales, and, while there may be different rates for agency and direct business, sellers determine their own income to the greater extent; sellers are either not salaried or minimally salaried. You earn what you are worth based on production.

The person clearly frustrated is you, O.C. The reason is simple... I assume you to be a capable PD and dedicated radio professional; but you must work for an entity that FINALLY built [and managed to highly-mortgage] their “mansion” (or “cluster”)—only to lack the essential resources to hang drapes over all the windows or furnish more than the very-minimal number of rooms required to present a good public image. In short, that payment to service debt on the “sticks” comes at the expense of what YOU require to present a compelling on-air presentation.

The fact is that most of the big radio companies have no more debt as a percentage of equity than General Electric or any other successful company in America. To assume that debt service is a problem is ingenuous. However, with public companies in every field, there is greater and greater pressure by investors for revenue growth. That is just a fact of business today, not just of radio.

It also restricts your options to ONLY those deemed to be “100-percent safe”. This very scenario has played itself out SO often [and so blatantly] that NO reasonable contradiction need be attempted.

Why would any station owner, now or in 1960, want a format that does not have an expectation of profitability. Othewise, they would take the money and invest in mutual funds or government bonds. Just owing a station (or any business) is a risk.

 

[hammondo]

Somebody said;
FACT: “older”, “experienced”, and “accomplished” come with a steep premium; and such people aren’t likely to favor the “gymnastics” of the all-too-typical corporate radio operation... Their REAL TALENT insures much better opportunities elsewhere. Even the “suits” are smart-enough to figure that one out in advance... SAD—but very true!

David Said;
Actually, sellers are paid a commission on sales, and, while there may be different rates for agency and direct business, sellers determine their own income to the greater extent; sellers are either not salaried or minimally salaried. You earn what you are worth based on production.

David is CORRECT (ding!!). I owned 4 small market stations. The previous owner could NEVER keep salespeople. My accountant said "pay a high commission (only) and the good ones will stay."

I had a "holdover" from the previous owner who left the radio station, and SAT IN A BAR all day because he was paid a (quite meager) salary. He was a putz with little drive and worse sales ability.

The sales people I hired got 30% commission. NOBODY on the 3 person sales staff (at 1 station of the 4) made less than 50k annually. YOu could live like KING SOLOMON in a small market on that kind of pay. They were also FIERCELY LOYAL and some worked 10-12 hour days (then drove to the BANK followed by the bar!).

 

[DavidEduardo]

The sales people I hired got 30% commission. NOBODY on the 3 person sales staff (at 1 station of the 4) made less than 50k annually. YOu could live like KING SOLOMON in a small market on that kind of pay. They were also FIERCELY LOYAL and some worked 10-12 hour days (then drove to the BANK followed by the bar!).

I can relate to this, and the last station group I managed proved it. I paid as high or higher a commmission as other stations in the market, and got a group of the absolute best agency sellers I have ever had (we sold no direct business except for cash in advance walk in) and each made about $200 a year. I had no turnover in 8 years, and sales increased 28% (average) per year over the entire time I managed the team. They worked hard.

My best moment ever in sales was when one of the sellers asked me to go on a four-legged call with him. I asked why he wanted to leave quite early; he said he wanted to show me something on the way. We drove by a nearly finished new home, where he said, "that is the house you bought me." Each of the sellers was so motivated they made life for themselves better while increasing billings by over 500% in less than a decade. One seller is still there, another is a manager in the market and the third has their own business.

Yeah, we had just 3 sellers for the #1 station in market 13 and lead the market in billings for the 20 years I managed or consulted it.

 

[ixnay]

"Oldies 98.6... limited playlist, unlimited FUN!"

How's THAT for an imaginative slogan? ;D

ixnay

 

[hipporadio]

I can relate to this, and the last station group I managed proved it... got a group of the absolute best agency sellers I have ever had (we sold no direct business except for cash in advance walk in) and each made about $200K a year. I had no turnover in 8 years, and sales increased 28% (average) per year over the entire time I managed the team...

Yeah, we had just 3 sellers for the #1 station in market 13 and lead the market in billings for the 20 years I managed or consulted it.

It took only 2.5 hours to attract “lightning” after posting Reply #105; and guess who provided the “electricity”? DavidEduardo [ding!] Folks reading here should understand [respectfully of course] that very-good sellers usually have very-big egos—that’s a permissible part of what makes them an exceptional salesperson.

David... I’m not going to attempt “The Resume Game” with you—other than to say that my own background as a radio sales employee was somewhat similar to yours—with a few exceptions. First, although my station’s ratings rank, sales staff size, and revenue increases were identical, the market rank was much lower. Furthermore, my boss would not have dreamed of limiting “direct business” to those who walked thru our door with cash in their hands [I strongly doubt that most SMs outside the very-largest markets would either]. I’ll share a few of my former boss’s sales credos: *Agency business is the difference between making your bonus and earning a good dependable living; *“SELLERS” bring in repeat direct business—“ORDERTAKERS” return to the office at five-sharp with a briefcase full of agency buys; *never graze at the same trough—keep building new business; *politely leave the room when a sacrificed rate card is initially-demanded... A sincere “I’m sorry” and a genuine handshake will do until you get your next opportunity.

Given an appreciative audience at a critical mass and a CPM-efficient rate structure, I’m confident the practice of those credos would yield respectable results for those enthusiastic about selling the “industry-shunned” pre-modern music format. Although DE’s professional circumstances may be admirable—they represent a very-miniscule percentage of “radio reality”; and clearly explain his protagonist stance when it comes to the sacrifice of heritage Oldies and “classic” stations in the land of large corporate radio.

I can’t admit to earning $200K/yr in market #13... What I will share, from a well-rooted perspective in my current position in business marketing, are several points applicable to the discussion here in regards to the viability of “older-demo radio”. Despite the exception of a recently-failed two-year “experiment” in our company with heavy emphasis “low-demo” [18-34] radio—there is NO concrete conspiracy within general-product and retail marketing to “write-off the Baby Boomers”—who currently possess MORE assets, recreational opportunity, and radio loyalty than ANY same-aged predecessor in a former generation! Granted, nearly every marketer views “the Boomer” as an already-established and loyal customer—hence, the need to “maintain” [opposed to the more-costly cultivation of unacquainted “new blood”]. This may result in lower budgets to outlets that are “Boomer-rich” in audience—but it DOES NOT eliminate that group from continued marketing efforts.

To infer the counterpoint is nothing more than a self-serving fabrication within the halls of large corporate radio and at many ad agencies. You may be intrigued, but the rationale is very simple—KEEP COST DOWN!!! Think like a typical CCU exec [or ad buyer] for a moment... Older-demo stations are generally “full service” in nature, more personality-intensive, and thus—MORE EXPENSIVE to operate [credible long-term professionals demanded by their like-aged audience don’t work cheap]. It’s not hard to envision the attractiveness of a jock-less Jukebox known as “Jack” running unattended from a studio closet being financially-preferable to the traditional Oldies station with a full-stable of 45-60-year-olds behind the microphone. By establishing the myth that “55-plus is no longer cool”—cost and effort-reduction opportunities abound!

The good news is that pop-classic-oriented stations in several flavors [usually “wider-span classic hits” and “next-gen oldies”] are spawning in medium and unrated markets [not every station can play AC or Country]. The “rules” seem to be more-relaxed in these less-stressful non-equity-fund-financed operations. My employer has returned to radio in these markets [after a two-year sales disappointment in their large markets using 18-34 Eduardo-style “agency metrics”]. I DO specify stations which are “top-heavy” in 40-plus—even a handful of 50-plus traditional Oldies stations ON AM that are “live ‘n local” in unrated markets. So far, results from these areas are more encouraging than our prior expensive and unrealistically-targeted “less is more” large-market experience.

The bad news... Your large-market Oldies station is gone [or soon will be]. The countdown has already begun on your Classic Rocker also—it has survived a short-while longer ONLY because it can find its morning show on sat, is less personality-intensive [with younger, many-times VT’d “voices”], and thus cheaper to operate. I can clearly imagine a point within the next decade when MUSIC [for ANY age group] may become extinct from much of the large-market FM landscape.

Corporate radio has managed the unimaginable—a near-total up-and-coming generation that views terrestrial radio as “irrelevant” and has little [or NO] use for it. So... The upper-demos are passé and “out”, and the up-an-coming youth are unexcited... How much longer before “the middle” begins enjoying all their options?

 

[DavidEduardo]

First, although my station’s ratings rank, sales staff size, and revenue increases were identical, the market rank was much lower. Furthermore, my boss would not have dreamed of limiting “direct business” to those who walked thru our door with cash in their hands [I strongly doubt that most SMs outside the very-largest markets would either].

The non agency business was such in that market that it could not pay our rates, was slow pay or no pay, and the most demandiing in creative and scheduling. Not worth it, at all. On the other hand, my list had over 600 local agency employees exclusive of creative and accounting.

I’ll share a few of my former boss’s sales credos: *Agency business is the difference between making your bonus and earning a good dependable living; *“SELLERS” bring in repeat direct business—“ORDERTAKERS” return to the office at five-sharp with a briefcase full of agency buys;

That may work in some very small markets, but agecy sales requires as much effort as any other kind... its just a different kind of sales. Generally, successful agency selllers are not good street sellers... it's not easy, but it is different.

Given an appreciative audience at a critical mass and a CPM-efficient rate structure, I’m confident the practice of those credos would yield respectable results for those enthusiastic about selling the “industry-shunned” pre-modern music format.

Agency buys get to the media department with the demos pre-esablished. For all practical purposes, they are all delivered to the planners and buyers covering some segment of the 18-54 demo... older, younger, in the middle, just men or women, even by age, sex and ethnicity sometimes. The agency seller uses ratings, negotiating ability, merchandising and relationships to sell to the determined demo. There is no way in these circumstances to change an agency demo, no matter what your format or sales ability.

Although DE’s professional circumstances may be admirable—they represent a very-miniscule percentage of “radio reality”; and clearly explain his protagonist stance when it comes to the sacrifice of heritage Oldies and “classic” stations in the land of large corporate radio.

I am just telling you what agencies buy, in markets ranging from #1 to #80, the places I am directly involved with stations.

b]there is NO concrete conspiracy within general-product and retail marketing to “write-off the Baby Boomers”

No conspiracy, just no agency buys. Local is different, unrated markets are different. But agency buys are dictated by the client usually, and clients know, through research, that the ROI on 55+ buys tends to be poor and thye don't allow them.

but it DOES NOT eliminate that group from continued marketing efforts.

Show me the buys in the top 10 markets placed against 55+. Again, with a tiny handful of exceptions, there aren't any.

Older-demo stations are generally “full service” in nature, more personality-intensive, and thus—MORE EXPENSIVE to operate [credible long-term professionals demanded by their like-aged audience don’t work cheap].

There is no major market cost difference between an active rock and an oldies station, except that the active rocker may be more expensive to run. The oldies station, with talent that has fewer opportunities, is vastly cheaper in some cases.

It’s not hard to envision the attractiveness of a jock-less Jukebox known as “Jack” running unattended from a studio closet being financially-preferable to the traditional Oldies station with a full-stable of 45-60-year-olds behind the microphone.

In LA, Jack is more expensive to run than the live hosted personality format it replaced. All shifts have a talented producer, taking phoners and editing them as the "jocks" for an audinence segment that hates DJs.

My employer has returned to radio in these markets [after a two-year sales disappointment in their large markets using 18-34 Eduardo-style “agency metrics”]. I DO specify stations which are “top-heavy” in 40-plus—even a handful of 50-plus traditional Oldies stations ON AM that are “live ‘n local” in unrated markets. So far, results from these areas are more encouraging than our prior expensive and unrealistically-targeted “less is more” large-market experience.

Unrated markets is the key. But if you are in anything larger than Casper, and want agency business, you have to have efficient delivery of some part of 18-54 (Not 18-34, which for some reasonyou focus on all the time)

Corporate radio has managed the unimaginable—a near-total up-and-coming generation that views terrestrial radio as “irrelevant” and has little [or NO] use for it. So... The upper-demos are passé and “out”, and the up-an-coming youth are unexcited... How much longer before “the middle” begins enjoying all their options?

Funny, but over 90% of teens actually use radio. And in 18-34, the usage is comparable to older demos. Even though no station specifically targeta teens as there are no buys for teens, local or agency.

 

[OldiesCat]

Corporate radio has managed the unimaginable—a near-total up-and-coming generation that views terrestrial radio as “irrelevant” and has little [or NO] use for it. So... The upper-demos are passé and “out”, and the up-an-coming youth are unexcited... How much longer before “the middle” begins enjoying all their options?

Radio has almost always viewed 55+ as "irrelevant" (whethere they are or not). Remember the days of Beautiful Music and Easy Listening stations? We all called it "elevator music" and made fun of it. NOBODY wanted to end up working at a station like that, especially in sales (THAT old joke being "there aren't enough funeral homes in town").

This is nothing new. And, for the umpteenth time, this isn't radio not wanting older listeners-it's advertiser dollars not being there for stations who target 55+.

What part of that do so many of you not get? This isn't just about your precious Oldies station being too late to evolve- this happens with any format that doesn't generate revenue due to it's demos. I rarely hear about the other end of the spectrum, where Rock stations are having one helluva time right now. There's not a great deal of really great new music, the format's fading in market after market and mostly because the audience is shrinking and most advertisers have little appetite for niche formats with lousy demos (young OR old).

So, again I ask: what part of this do so many of you refuse to understand?

 

[hammondo]

I agree with what you said, except;
"Remember the days of Beautiful Music and Easy Listening stations? We all called it "elevator music" and made fun of it. NOBODY wanted to end up working at a station like that, especially in sales (THAT old joke being "there aren't enough funeral homes in town")."
_
In Chicago I never heasrd that "joke."Beautiful music WFMF (later wloo) was a SOLD OUT GOLD MINE at the TOP of the ratings. It was a great place to work.

"it's advertiser dollars not being there for stations who target 55+."
___
I disagree here too. BOTH agency an local business inundated that place.

 

[OldiesCat]

I agree with what you said, except;
"Remember the days of Beautiful Music and Easy Listening stations? We all called it "elevator music" and made fun of it. NOBODY wanted to end up working at a station like that, especially in sales (THAT old joke being "there aren't enough funeral homes in town")."
_
In Chicago I never heasrd that "joke."Beautiful music WFMF (later wloo) was a SOLD OUT GOLD MINE at the TOP of the ratings. It was a great place to work.

"it's advertiser dollars not being there for stations who target 55+."
___
I disagree here too. BOTH agency an local business inundated that place.

That was then and you can't apply it today.

But let's face it- as much dough as they made, who in their right mind who wanted to make it in radio (in Programming) wanted to move up the ladder thru a BM or EZ station? They were mostly automated then, anyway.

 

[hammondo]

I thought we were talking about "then?" There are hardly any bm stations now. Alot of that demographic is in the cemetery.

Still, I'd trade bankbooks with Marlin Taylor or Darryl Peters any day.

 

[amfmsw]

I hate to take the eduardo bait, but you guys are ganging up here.

First, OC and ED your experience is wonderful, but not universal.

Two: There's NO WAY 90% of teens use radio, not the way we did. That's a boldface untruth.

 

[hipporadio]

Re: Interesting NOT

THANK YOU amfmsw! My response [after a healthy chuckle] has been in the “My Documents” folder for a couple days... I just decided to wait for the rest of the room to notice [and take some credit for] the obvious. D.E. made several outrageous ascertains in his past response...

In LA, Jack is more expensive to run than the live hosted personality format it replaced. All shifts have a talented producer, taking phoners and editing them as the "jocks"...

David... Are you asking me to even remotely-believe that some 20-year-old intern, using a share-ware copy of Audacity on a studio PC to edit incoming phone from excited “Jack” listeners [I didn’t know there WAS such a thing as “an excited Jack listener”]; pulls down a larger compensation package than a talented, ratings-rich, 30-year veteran working on an “adult” radio station? I hope you DON’T run into the likes of Dick Bartley, Tom Kent, “Brucie” Morrow, Fred Winston, Dusty Rhodes, or their numerous brethren later today at “Happy Hour”.

...I’ll cite the newspaper media [with an even more-accentuated “age dilemma” than ANY classic pop-based radio format]... Do you notice ANY lack of very-costly full-page layouts for banks, car dealers, supermarkets, cell phone plans, and “big-box” tech stores in metropolitan newsprint? NO!

And how do you explain the absolute crisis of the newspaper industry, based mostly on the scarce 18-34 usership, declines in circulation, and declines in page reads?

I’M NOT going to explain “the absolute crisis”—In fact, I’m well aware of it... THANK YOU for making my point, BUT...

Print will always, in some form need for ads that require images, lengthy text (such as price item ads) and disclaimers...

??? Again [David]... Are you expecting ANY credible Marketing professional to accept your accretion that Verizon Cellular [allegedly turned-off by 50-plus numbers] would then, enlist the aid of an even-more age-challenged metropolitan newspaper for a VERY EXPENSIVE FULL-PAGE AD for no other reason than to display the “numerous terms” [in fine print] of their latest offer? : As I earlier stated David—my nearly-30 years have [at least] taught me to detect “spin” at a thousand paces!

Funny, but over 90% of teens actually use radio.

I see you have found the “F1 key” on the Maximi$er program [which can turn a sow’s ear into a silk purse on demand]. What is this “fantasy”? ...The latest RAB “RAH-RAH piece” headed out for consumption by the uninitiated? Perhaps 85 of that 90% landed on a terrestrial FM station for five-minutes—just enough time to figure out that they weren’t impressed!

Your “90-percent” figure is interesting, because I’ve heard it presented as another very-disturbing statistic—one recently discovered by the principal of a large and successful Midwest chain of high-end electronics stores. A tabulation of high school and college-aged buyers of mobile audio radios, who later returned to the service bays [within a year] for speaker upgrades [etc], revealed that in nearly NINETY-PERCENT of the cases—the “FM station presents” hadn’t even been programmed [they read the initial “out-of-the-box” default of “87.7 MHz”]. Over SEVENTY-PERCENT of these customers had an active sat-radio subscription, and had NOT even labored to program the terrestrial radio presets! [DING!]

Here in Charleston, SC—we have numerous horses that haul carriages thru our city’s charming [yet very-narrow] streets. They are frequently outfitted with “blinders” which restrict their vision to a very narrow field controlled by the carriage pilot... They only see what the “boss” wants them to see. In the REAL profession of “Marketing”, such an appliance would be unthinkable, yet I can easily-imagine their daily use in the land of “large radio”.

 

[RememberWHEN]

DE : In LA, Jack is more expensive to run than the live hosted personality format it replaced. All shifts have a talented producer, taking phoners and editing them as the "jocks" for an audinence segment that hates DJs.


The board operators (bored??) at JACK-FM in Chicago are making $10 an hour. This is from an absolutely reliable source.

 

[DavidEduardo]

I hate to take the eduardo bait, but you guys are ganging up here.

First, OC and ED your experience is wonderful, but not universal.

Two: There's NO WAY 90% of teens use radio, not the way we did. That's a boldface untruth.

Actually, in one market for the People Meter, 92.5% of Teens listen to the radio, and the average weekly time listening to the radio by teens is only about 25% less than for 35-64.

Yes, teens listen less than adults, and we know the reasons. But a huge number, like 11 out of every 12 teens, does listen and the average listening is not " a few minutes a week." It's many hours.