• Get involved.
    We want your input!
    Apply for Membership and join the conversations about everything related to broadcasting.

    After we receive your registration, a moderator will review it. After your registration is approved, you will be permitted to post.
    If you use a disposable or false email address, your registration will be rejected.

    After your membership is approved, please take a minute to tell us a little bit about yourself.
    https://www.radiodiscussions.com/forums/introduce-yourself.1088/

    Thanks in advance and have fun!
    RadioDiscussions Administrators

Surprise: The Fish is # 2 without Christmas Music

S

secondchoice

Here is the OCT 6+ published just to give us something to post about. Of course there is no sales value to these:

http://ratings.radio-online.com/cgi-bin/rol.exe/arb047

Looks like the Urban’s are slightly down. I guess it’s most likely due to a change out of some meters wearers.

I wonder if this is the case for the Fish ending up #2 (6+). School starts in last week in July or the first week in August and the mothers driving their children to and from school “bump” already happened in the July to August 3.9 to 4.3 jump. Is this the highest they have had without Christmas Music? Meanwhile Cumulus keeps on “rearranging the deck chairs on the Titanic” with 106.7 signal. I was listening the other day, and every commercial break had at least 2 promos for weekend programming or other dayparts. It amazes me that the Fish with one third the power of WYAY has over three times the listeners of 106.7. Both use the same antenna. IIRC there was a posting that WFSH bills twice what 106.7 does.


As a supporter of the “all news” format, it pains me to say a “mercy killing” is due. Do the reverse of CC / I Heart 94.9 Peach / Lite flip. Go all Christmas music, and then use one of their (Cumulus) “satellite programming” signals after Christmas until the revenue rebounds. They did it with when they flipped Y106.7 to True Oldies. TOC was bad demos. I am not too sure of the lineup of the Dallas service is now but IMHO late 80’s and 90’s pop would work.
 
The Fish for a while has been getting higher ratings in the colder months of the year and declines somewhat during the summer. I'm not sure why The Fish seems to be of the cold-water variety. I'm pretty sure this is not the first time The Fish has ranked #2.

Yes, both The Fish and Newsradio 106-7 transmit from the Fish Stick. In fact, they are both at the same antenna height, but WYAY has more than 3 times the wattage. So when you start getting far from the market, The Fish becomes the more difficult catch.

We talked about this before, but Cumulus seems to be committed to News/Talk on 106.7.
 
secondchoice said:
As a supporter of the “all news” format, it pains me to say a “mercy killing” is due. Do the reverse of CC / I Heart 94.9 Peach / Lite flip. Go all Christmas music, and then use one of their (Cumulus) “satellite programming” signals after Christmas until the revenue rebounds. They did it with when they flipped Y106.7 to True Oldies. TOC was bad demos. I am not too sure of the lineup of the Dallas service is now but IMHO late 80’s and 90’s pop would work.
Click to expand...

There is a "Classic Hits" service. Toto, The Police, Billy Joel, maybe a few 90s songs.

But it seems like it would make more sense for them to just launch a new format, if they were going to flip...
 
Has anyone been talking about anyone other than The Fish going all-Christmas this year?

I've said before that The Fish has more seasonality than any other non-sports radio station in town. Crappie during summer, and then gets big in the fall and a whale for Holiday. Then back down to normal through the winter and spring, and then crappie again when school is out.
 
jabba17 said:
Has anyone been talking about anyone other than The Fish going all-Christmas this year?

I've said before that The Fish has more seasonality than any other non-sports radio station in town. Crappie during summer, and then gets big in the fall and a whale for Holiday. Then back down to normal through the winter and spring, and then crappie again when school is out.
Click to expand...

It's interesting that The Fish's rating go down when school is out given it's the station that's "safe for the entire family." But somehow during the summer, families aren't taking the bait.
 
[As a supporter of the “all news” format, it pains me to say a “mercy killing” is due. ]

106.7 is not an all news format. It's been talk station for several years, longer than the 18 months or so that it was all news.
 
On the Dial said:
[As a supporter of the “all news” format, it pains me to say a “mercy killing” is due. ]

106.7 is not an all news format. It's been talk station for several years, longer than the 18 months or so that it was all news.
Click to expand...

correct. it really was a questionable attempt. If you are north of Atlanta at night, 780AM WBBM is good. IMHO the CBS newsreaders seem to have more "energy" than the former CNN newsreaders had. It is less than 50 day till Christmas and they are running promos for their weekend shows in drive time. Even Cox will admit a format mistake (97.1 Jams) and move on.
 
jabba17 said:
Has anyone been talking about anyone other than The Fish going all-Christmas this year?

I've said before that The Fish has more seasonality than any other non-sports radio station in town. Crappie during summer, and then gets big in the fall and a whale for Holiday. Then back down to normal through the winter and spring, and then crappie again when school is out.
Click to expand...

I suppose B98.5 will do its partial Christmas format this year.
 
RoddyFreeman said:
I suppose B98.5 will do its partial Christmas format this year.
Click to expand...

It's strange that two major Southeast markets are really the only two majors where there is no full Christmas / Holiday music station.

I understand that Miami may not be a good market as it is 51% Hispanic and traditional American Christmas music is not "traditional" among a huge part of the audience for the kind of station that generally consider such programming. But Atlanta would seem to be a prime market of opportunity for that programming.
 
DavidEduardo said:


It's strange that two major Southeast markets are really the only two majors where there is no full Christmas / Holiday music station.

I understand that Miami may not be a good market as it is 51% Hispanic and traditional American Christmas music is not "traditional" among a huge part of the audience for the kind of station that generally consider such programming. But Atlanta would seem to be a prime market of opportunity for that programming.
Click to expand...

David, a little history: The old Peach 94-9 was a very early station to go all Christmas in the late 90's. Their ratings soared, and they continued doing it every year until they changed formats to 94-9 The Bull. In fact, they were in the middle of playing Christmas music in December, 2006 (or possibly 2007) when they suddenly made the flip to Country, making some people in the holiday spirit pretty unhappy.

The strange thing was as Peach's ratings jumped every Christmas season, and stations around the country started playing Christmas music to great ratings success, the only other AC in town, B98.5 never counter-programmed by doing the same thing. Then suddenly, around 2004, B98.5 went all Christmas the day after Thanksgiving. Not even the station's salespeople had been told about it. And they continued with all Christmas until 2015.

While B98.5's ratings went through the stratosphere during the holidays and even hung around into January, the February ratings every year were lower than they had been pre-holiday. When Chris Eagan became PD, he got together with some others at Cox/Atlanta, and they decided to go partly Christmas. They had no AC competition (except The Fish, whose Christmas music leans more religious) so they were not taking a tremendous risk. It seemed to work for them. Their ratings increased, though not as much, during the Christmas music, and were higher when February rolled around than in 2014. If another station went all Christmas, B98.5 would have to rethink this strategy.

In the past couple of years, the competition for women has become pretty brutal, and B98.5's ratings are not what they were when they made that decision. But as long as no other station except The Fish goes all Christmas, B98.5 is probably still wise in doing their partial Christmas format.
 
Any possibility that Cumulus would stick Christmas on one of their translators again?
 
RoddyFreeman said:
In the past couple of years, the competition for women has become pretty brutal, and B98.5's ratings are not what they were when they made that decision. But as long as no other station except The Fish goes all Christmas, B98.5 is probably still wise in doing their partial Christmas format.
Click to expand...

B98.5 is doing the worst it has done in a long time. It's now the worst-performing station at Digital White Columns. Would they consider doing all-Christmas to jump-start the station?

But it is doing better than Power 96 or Star 94. Heck, should Star 94 do it to jump-start themselves? Star has been the worst performer overall in the CHR/AC space for a long while.

And don't forget Radio 105.7 as another flip candidate that could stunt through the holidays.
 
RoddyFreeman said:
David, a little history: The old Peach 94-9 was a very early station to go all Christmas in the late 90's. Their ratings soared, and they continued doing it every year until they changed formats to 94-9 The Bull. In fact, they were in the middle of playing Christmas music in December, 2006 (or possibly 2007) when they suddenly made the flip to Country, making some people in the holiday spirit pretty unhappy.

The strange thing was as Peach's ratings jumped every Christmas season, and stations around the country started playing Christmas music to great ratings success, the only other AC in town, B98.5 never counter-programmed by doing the same thing. Then suddenly, around 2004, B98.5 went all Christmas the day after Thanksgiving. Not even the station's salespeople had been told about it. And they continued with all Christmas until 2015.

While B98.5's ratings went through the stratosphere during the holidays and even hung around into January, the February ratings every year were lower than they had been pre-holiday. When Chris Eagan became PD, he got together with some others at Cox/Atlanta, and they decided to go partly Christmas. They had no AC competition (except The Fish, whose Christmas music leans more religious) so they were not taking a tremendous risk. It seemed to work for them. Their ratings increased, though not as much, during the Christmas music, and were higher when February rolled around than in 2014. If another station went all Christmas, B98.5 would have to rethink this strategy.

In the past couple of years, the competition for women has become pretty brutal, and B98.5's ratings are not what they were when they made that decision. But as long as no other station except The Fish goes all Christmas, B98.5 is probably still wise in doing their partial Christmas format.
Click to expand...

This is a pretty good reader's digest of the history of Christmas music in the A-T-L. You posted a great summary on your old blog site (I still miss it but respect your reasons for tabling it). One point you made was the fact advertisers loved the Christmas music programming as it drove sales and put listeners in a buying mood. That would seem like a factor again as Americans seem to have emerged from the recession doldrums and are ready to buy again.

94.9 LITE flipped to the Bull on December 18th, 2006. The following year, the LITE format moved to 96.7 for one year, up to and including Christmas music in 2007. On December 26th, 2007, that station flipped to The Legend. Other than the 2015 holiday season when the 98.9 translator flipped to the decoy format, WARM, and played 24/7 Christmas, that is the extent of wall-to-wall holiday tunes on Atlanta radio.

I concur with David that it seems a bit strange that a market as large as Atlanta, save for the SW corridor with Magic 98.1, is void of an all-Christmas format, especially with surrounding smaller markets playing the format every year.

But - like you mentioned in your original AAWA Blog on the subject, the all-Christmas format seems to run in cycles, so who knows. with 98.5's ratings down as of late, maybe this will be the year they reconsider (and surprise their sales force - again)...
 
jabba17 said:
B98.5 is doing the worst it has done in a long time. It's now the worst-performing station at Digital White Columns.
Click to expand...

What are you basing that statement off of? 6+? No one in the industry uses that metric, everything is 25-54. Media buys, bonuses, etc. Success for stations is measured by that demo.
 
DoctorRadio997 said:
What are you basing that statement off of? 6+? No one in the industry uses that metric, everything is 25-54. Media buys, bonuses, etc. Success for stations is measured by that demo.
Click to expand...

I am basing it on 6+, unfortunately. How does B98.5 do in 25-54 vs. the other Cox Atlanta stations? What about its CHR/AC competitors?
 
jabba17 said:
I am basing it on 6+, unfortunately. How does B98.5 do in 25-54 vs. the other Cox Atlanta stations? What about its CHR/AC competitors?
Click to expand...

Without getting into a static math exercise, 6+ is worthless to agencies and sales folks, but if you make some assumptions and they can give an idea of what is going on. If two narrow demographically programed stations (sports for example) show a large difference (The Game’s 3.4 verses The Fan’s 1.5). I would bet a cup of coffee 92.9 is beating 680 in billings too. I would draw the same conclusion with a WSB to WYAY comparison: 10.2 verses 1.5.


IMHO one of two things has happen to 98.5. A change in meter wearers, and hopefully the loss was in non revenue demos. A worse issue is some the dropping 6+ has taken place in the money demos too. The loss of P1 audience could get someone fired.


Sometimes, a format and or a station “over performs” for a while. Sometime a format underperforms too. Both stations that identify as a form of “AC”: Star and 98.5 are headed in the wrongs direction 6+. If I was sitting in the Digital White Columns I would wait till Entercom sorts out it’s new cluster before making changes.
 
Status
This thread has been closed due to inactivity. You can create a new thread to discuss this topic.
Back
Top Bottom