They are and WBEB is already a fairly aggressive mainstream ac. They are also a smart one. They wont chase songs that turn off those awesome female demos and send them to what would be hoped...98.1. It made me chuckle when I heard WLTW playing "No Scrubs". It's certainly time for that song and they are doing what they always do, but it certainly makes it much much much easier when you are the softest option on the dial, if not the oldest.
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Today's 96.5 rebrand?
- Thread starter Radiolover971
- Start date
They are and WBEB is already a fairly aggressive mainstream ac. They are also a smart one. They wont chase songs that turn off those awesome female demos and send them to what would be hoped...98.1. It made me chuckle when I heard WLTW playing "No Scrubs". It's certainly time for that song and they are doing what they always do, but it certainly makes it much much much easier when you are the softest option on the dial, if not the oldest.
broadcastguy
Frequent Participant
I know this has been discussed before and brings some heat to some forum members here, but being 2018 when every other major city has a Spanish CHR, wouldn't it be time for Philly to have a full power FM carrying a Spanish format? Isn't there any money to be made?
atthestars
Star Participant
I'm not well versed in the differences of Spanish formats, and the differences between say someone from Puerto Rico vs. someone from Mexico and their different Spanish Musical tastes, but how close to CHR was Rumba 104.5 when that was attempted? And what % of the market back then was Hispanic according to Arbitron?
Currently, Nielsen says the Philadelphia market is 9% Hispanic. Splinter that down even further into subsets of Hispanic formats, and the question is could a full-power FM be supported by that fractured audience? Back in 2007, the answer was no, but what about today?
Compare that to nearby Reading, PA (18% Hispanic) or Allentown (15%), where we see iHeart doing fairly well with Rumba on AM/FM Translator combos, but nothing full-signal.
MarcB
Walk of Fame Participant
How much promotion did iHeart (then CC) do with Rumba 104.5? Were there billboards? Were there ads on the local Univision and Telemundo stations and in the Hispanic Newspaper? Were their ads on buses? If Hispanics in the market were tuned to La Mega on 1310-AM, how would they know about the new station on 104.5 FM? Unless they were listening to other CC stations such as POWER 99 and they ran a cross-promotion for Rumba?
Here in Hartford we have Bomba-FM as a Spanish CHR station. It's locally owned and is based at WMRQ HD2 and fed to 6 translators statewide. (It's also fed to 1490-AM in Springfield and 1490 is fed to an FM translator on 104.5). They got a 2.1 in the latest ratings. (Radio-Online incorrectly lists WMRQ and WMRQ HD2 as AC. WMRQ is Modern Rock). Hispanics in Hartford make up 159,100 out of 1,076,300. The other big Spanish CHR station is the market is La Mega 101.7 a 27 watt translator of WLAT 910. They don't subscribe to the ratings, so they don't show up in the public ratings.
Single station Spanish language FMs don't really need much outside promotion. Rumba, the long-time #1 station in Orlando, launched with minimal promotion and depended on word of mouth (which today would be predominantly social media) and it rose instantly to the top.
They would have learned via comments from friends and family and workplace listening.
WMRQ-HD2 & Translators average (3 book rolling) a 1.7, WLAT is at a 1.4 and WRYM 0.7 in 12+
Today's Spanish language CHR is about the same from New York all the way to Chile. However, the gold on a CHR (which all behave like Hot ACs as to rotations and non-current play) will lean more Caribbean tropical than a Southwestern US Spanish language station.
The traditional music of the Greater Antilles (PR, DR, Cuba) is tropical such as salsa and merengue. The traditional music of Mexico is banda, norteña and ranchera. Salsa has nearly no appeal in Mexico and Regional Mexican (the "fake name" applied to "grupera" music in the US) has no appeal in Puerto Rico and the Caribbean.
When Rumba went on in Philly, the market was abut 6% Hispanic. The problem was that the 25-54 group was mostly second and third generation, as the community was nearly all Puerto Rican and the last big migration from PR ended in the late 60's.
Today, the 18-49 group (the target for most ethnic media) has grown both from the Puerto Rican exodus of the last decade (nearly 20% of the population has left) and from the growth of a significant Mexican immigrant community. Most of the more recent Mexican immigrant arrivals will want to hear Regional Mexican, not pop CHR. The new Puerto Rican migrants will want to hear a variety of formats, from pure reggaetón to AC to tropical to CHR.
We still have a huge portion of the 18-49 or 25-54 audience that is second and third generation and which does not listen to Spanish language radio. And we have the growing percentage of Mexican heritage listeners, most of which will not use CHR (in LA, CHR gets a 3 share of the total market while Regional Mexican gets a 20 share).
Actually, many cities that have only one Spanish language FM don't have a CHR... the first choice format in markets with majority Mexican heritage potential listeners is Regional Mexican.
For example, in 18-49 in Phoenix in the last book, there were 19 Spanish language shares. The CHR station got a 1.9.
J
Jul
Guest
If this doesn't work, will they finally put KYW or I dare say it WPHT (if it stays talk long term) on 96.5 ?
AbrahamJSimpson
Walk of Fame Participant
It will not be WPHT. Not going to happen.
broadcastguy
Frequent Participant
That's expected, all markets that border with Mexico will be predominantly Reg-Mex, I should have said East Coast major markets where the latin demo is predominantly from Puerto Rico, Dominican Republic, Costa Rica, Honduras, Venezuela, El Salvador, etc, etc, etc, etc where Salsa, Bachata, Merengue and Latin pop are kings.
Chicago, Indianapolis, Raleigh, Atlanta, Nashville, Seattle, Portland, Denver, Omaha, Birmingham, New Orleans, etc., etc. have Regional Mexican formats as their only or dominant radio format in Spanish.
"Reg-Mex" is not a usual or acceptable abbreviation or name for the format in question.
There are so few Costa Ricans in the US that the group is not a significant influence on formats anywhere. The #1 radio station in El Salvador is... Regional Mexican. Same in Honduras and Guatemala's major rated cities.
Salsa is pretty much dead except among persons over 45 to 50; the only all-salsa station in Puerto Rico does very poorly in younger demos.
Bachata is not a hit genre... there are a few Bachata hits, by very few artists. But the genre as a whole is limited in appeal; except among Dominicans, dominant only in New York City, the genre is very, very niche. It's not well liked (except a few songs) by Puerto Ricans, for example. Merengue, like salsa, is appealing mostly among older demos and then, mostly Dominicans.
broadcastguy
Frequent Participant
Ok, let's let's reduce the radio (no pun intended) even more... NYC has one 2kW signal for Regional Mexican and three other, mid of the dial signals with 2x the power that carry Latin CHR and Latin AC. Washington DC/ Baltimore area has a 50kW powerhouse and multiple lower power AM's and translators around, don't know why Philly that happens to be in the middle of those two areas (and has a wide Latino population) won't support a full power station in Spanish.
Don't be arrogant, it's a colloquial, abbreviated way of naming it, it's been used here before, and you still understood what I was trying to say.
More in favor of a Latin CHR station that touches everybody a little bit, all those spreaded latinos from different regions will prefer to at least listen to something in their language than nothing at all.
[/QUOTE]More in favor of a Latin CHR station that touches everybody a little bit, all those spreaded latinos from different regions will prefer to at least listen to something in their language than nothing at all.[/QUOTE]
That sounds like an idea that a club I deejayed for back in the 90's tried. I was asked to play various forms of Spanish and African Music in sets of 30 minutes per style. I turned down the job after telling the owner that I didn't think only 30 minutes per night of each style would be enough to draw a crowd, and I was right, as the club went urban less than two months after they opened, after his idea failed. If anything, that idea sounds like it would pull non-Spanish speakers that don't know the differences in styles, and turn off the intended listeners, once they discover how the music is dayparted, for lack of the correct term.
That sounds like an idea that a club I deejayed for back in the 90's tried. I was asked to play various forms of Spanish and African Music in sets of 30 minutes per style. I turned down the job after telling the owner that I didn't think only 30 minutes per night of each style would be enough to draw a crowd, and I was right, as the club went urban less than two months after they opened, after his idea failed. If anything, that idea sounds like it would pull non-Spanish speakers that don't know the differences in styles, and turn off the intended listeners, once they discover how the music is dayparted, for lack of the correct term.
Philadelphia has a much older Spanish dominant population as the migration from PR occurred in the 50’s and 60’s. The younger demos are mostly second or second ven third generation and do not speak Spanish.
I’ve never heard it called that before.
Music taste is divide by age as well as socioeconomic level and nationality. A regional Mexican partisan is usually not going to listen to reggaeton whether it in Spanish or not. And most folks not from Mexico will not tolerate regional Mexican. In fact, even in Mexico City, less than 25% of listening is to that format.
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