Why Do WBEB's Competitors Never Try Softer?

Every few years, someone tries to take on WBEB. Remember when it was 97.5 after Smooth Jazz didn't work? Or 106.1? I can even remember far enough back when it was 104.5. Everyone tries to be AC, fails, then goes hotter than WBEB.

Now it's happening with WTDY. CBS/Entercom ended Top 40 on 96.5, introducing an AC format. It even stayed AC through the holidays while WBEB was playing Bing Crosby and Burl Ives. I guess Entercom thought it would grab some WBEB listeners who didn't want non-stop Christmas music. But it didn't make any difference.

In the current ratings, WBEB is #2 while WTDY is #17, the lowest rated of the full power commercial FM stations. So it's now moving hotter, I guess filing the void that WISX left to go rhythmic AC.

Why does no one ever try to go a bit softer than WBEB? There are several Soft AC stations in other big markets that have really done a great job.

WDUV Tampa #1
KISQ San Francisco #3
WFEZ Miami #3
WRME Chicago #6 (more like soft oldies)
KSWD Seattle #13 (still new)
WEZI Jacksonville #9 (fairly new to its dial position)

I realize you have to program a Soft AC very carefully. Too soft and you risk spilling out of the 25-54 demo. It would have to be softer than WBEB but not sleepy. I'm sure there are enough 40-somethings and 50-somethings who think WBEB is too uptempo, too youthful.

But I guess we may never know.

I'm not sure we have enough former competitors for "everyone" to constitute a long list, at least in the recent past (not counting the days of, what was it, four, ACs?). And among them, WSNI version 2.0 certainly started on the softer side, and that was before mainstream AC had fully reached the more uptempo vibe we have today (albeit on its gradual way there).

Maybe there's a path there, but honestly, I don't see a viable scenario currently where someone could be on the softer side of 101 without (a) being labeled as sleepy and (b) performing poorly on the 25-54 side. I wouldn't put a lot of stock in finding enough 40- and 50-somethings who find More FM "too youthful"--at least enough to make a business out of it. Anecdotally, sure, there will be some, but there's a difference--broadly speaking-- in the way that age group today views pop culture vs. decades ago, when there was more of a hard line between those "young whippersnappers" and the old...er, more mature adults.

Back when Sunny 2.0 was on the air, I actually loved them even though I was...like 29 or 30 years old. Considering our dial today, if they were still around, I'd probably still tune to them first whenever I get in a car. But I assume the main audience was way older than I and not beloved by advertisers. I think there could be a path since WBEB has become more current-based and abandoned a lot of the older AC stuff that isn't exactly oldies. I'm thinking "Something To Talk About" by Bonnie Raitt; not "Evergreen" by Barbra Streisand.

Barbara Striesand.....yeah, there's no path to a viable audience with that.

But theres a reason the older AC stuff isn't getting played...it's not what the audience wants to hear. Sure, you could play a station based in that, but you're not going to be making the dough to pay the bills.

Well, there IS a way to go softer than WBEB. It's how WFEZ is softer than WLYF, Miami's standard AC station. Or how KISQ is softer than KOIT, San Francisco's standard AC station. Or how WDUV is softer than WWRM, Tampa's standard AC station... which happens to be co-owned with WDUV. There's a way to do it. The funny thing is, the success of the Softer AC station doesn't seem to hurt the Standard AC station all that much. Which is why Cox is content with owning both WDUV and WWRM in Tampa. WDUV may always be #1 but WWRM is usually top 10 in Tampa, and I assume both stations make good money for Cox.

And what would be the alternative in Philadelphia, unless you believe Market #9 should only have one AC station? WISX has for years been trying to figure out how to be a hotter AC station in a market dominated by WBEB. Remember when it had Whoopi Goldberg's syndicated morning show? Was that a decade ago or more? Now it's left the format, going Classic Hip Hop. Does anyone think the rebooted, hotter WTDY will fare any better?

WBEB is very well programmed. But I don't believe one station can cover the entire AC spectrum in a given market, as good as WBEB might be. WBEB wants to be strong in women across the board, 25-54, 18-49 and 18-34. In order to satisfy the 18-34 crowd, WBEB HAS to be hotter than a station that only concentrates on 25-54. That's where the opening would be for a station that tries to go softer than WBEB.

Stations have tried repeatedly to go hotter than WBEB. WTDY is trying that move again. Why not try softer?

I expect all the stations in Philly who have been on this treadmill before have researched things before making their moves. If listeners expressed a preference for softer music, WTDY probably would have tried that.

I fully expect that if you did an auditorium test with women 35-45, and started playing songs off the AC chart from the 90s and early 2000s, you would get a lot of confused looks. For example, "Truly Madly Deeply" was a #1 AC song in 1998, and no one has thought much about it since. It is currently #84,013 on the Amazon best seller chart.

In 1999, the AC chart was awash in songs with "Angel" in the title. First it was Celene Dion with R. Kelly, "I'm Your Angel". #73,803 on Amazon now.
Then we had Sarah McLaughlin's "(In the Arms of an) Angel", used in the ASPCA ads these days. #5338 in sales on Amazon.
Then Phil Collins "You'll Be In My Heart" (#72,614) and the Backstreet Boys "I Want it That Way" (#1293) traded off #1 position for 6 months. I've heard "I want it that way" on the radio (adult hits) in recent years, but none of the others I've listed.

I wouldn't really trust Amazon sale charts to determine what adult contemporary songs a 40- or 50-year-old female might enjoy hearing while on her way to work. That equation can be made more successfully with current hit music, of course, because people are buying what's coming out now. And I'd posit that the CHR demo is more actively purchasing music than the AC demo.

So in my idea for this variation, I'm not really thinking "softer" as much as I'm thinking about putting back some of the AC songs that have been abandoned. I don't believe for a second that audiences are turned off by them; they just had to be deleted by AC's like WBEB who wanted to skew younger. And 101.1 is doing with the younger set exactly as they intended. Trying to compete with them by programming a nearly-identical library is a (demonstrated) recipe for disaster. So if someone wants to try having a successful second AC in the market, why not leave out the hotter currents and replace them with the older stuff that's been abandoned? They probably won't do gangbusters with 18-34 but there's nothing wrong with aiming for the 25-54 end. Again, I'm not sure syrupy soft stuff like "I'm Your Angel" and "In the Arms of an Angel" would work but (to go back to my earlier example), I can't imagine a lot of people having a negative reaction to Bonnie Raitt's big hit. You know the type of songs I'm talking about.

Those songs have been abandoned, but 101 still plays Debbie Gibson (for example). Yes, it’s a textural matter to be sure, but the songs were abandoned because they’re not hitting the mark with the audience.

So....ok, shift the focus to the upper end. Is there enough interest that you can peel away (share)folks from 101 and 98 (and others) to cobble together a consistently sellable audience? Enough of an audience that it outweighs the cost of changing whatever you’re doing now? One that fits your cluster strategy?

You can find a boatload of songs that were abandoned, but that doesn’t mean the audience *wants* to hear them. Not just that they aren’t turned off by them, but that gives them a reason to add you to their listening. And you need to be able to sell it. Those aren’t easy hills to climb.

There is no doubt that this would be a great format for Philadelphia. They just switched one on in Seattle recently. You customize it for the market. If you listen to Lite and especially Easy in Miami, they play some soft 80s titles that would not be right for Philly, but it works down there for them. Now, for 96.5 this is not the right format. They need to stay away for WOGL, not invade their turf. These stations take from adult contemporary but they also take from classic hits as well. I'm not sure about 96.5 TDY doing all to well but in this city Entercom needs something for young adult females more than a station going after the demos WOGL does. It might not be exact overlap but there is no need for it.

We're spinning our wheels here. lol. This topic (which wasn't mine, BTW) seems to be worth some thought but it seems we're concentrating more on just shooting holes in it. haha.

The songs that 101.1 deleted were working until they decided to go younger. Before More FM flipped the script, they still had huge ratings. They didn't make the change to improve ratings; they did it to cater to a more specific part of the demographic. The older end of the demo hasn't died off or anything. I'm sure the deleted songs still test well with them (there's no reason they suddenly wouldn't). The younger end is accounted for in Philly. People keep trying and failing to compete in that space. All I'm saying is maybe compete by catering to the older end of the demo. Maybe the reason people would listen is because literally no other station is playing those deleted songs. (They're not on WOGL, they're not on BEN-FM, they're literally not on.) So play straight-up mainstream AC stuff along with the I-hesitate-to-call-it-Gold-AC that tests well but was deleted in favor of currents...and leave out anything you happen to be sharing with Q102. It's worth a shot.

Miguelito said:

We're spinning our wheels here. lol. This topic (which wasn't mine, BTW) seems to be worth some thought but it seems we're concentrating more on just shooting holes in it. haha.

The songs that 101.1 deleted were working until they decided to go younger. Before More FM flipped the script, they still had huge ratings. They didn't make the change to improve ratings; they did it to cater to a more specific part of the demographic. The older end of the demo hasn't died off or anything. I'm sure the deleted songs still test well with them (there's no reason they suddenly wouldn't). The younger end is accounted for in Philly. People keep trying and failing to compete in that space. All I'm saying is maybe compete by catering to the older end of the demo. Maybe the reason people would listen is because literally no other station is playing those deleted songs. (They're not on WOGL, they're not on BEN-FM, they're literally not on.) So play straight-up mainstream AC stuff along with the I-hesitate-to-call-it-Gold-AC that tests well but was deleted in favor of currents...and leave out anything you happen to be sharing with Q102. It's worth a shot.

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Too late to edit but I realize my wording should have said "The songs that 101.1 deleted were working when (not 'until') they decided to go younger."

They’ve (as have most successful ACs) more or less continuously kept advancing the music to keep pace with the ever changing audience, the portion of which sells. Sunny took the approach of going softer and it wasn’t a rousing success.

That's true. And in the case of More-FM, they want it all. They want to be tops in 25-54. But they also want to be in on advertisers looking for women 18-49 and even women 18-34 buys if they can. They want "More" so to speak. So as David says, they will delete library songs that test great with the 40+ audience if they think they're hurting them with the under-40 audience.

Which is why I ask, why not go older than WBEB? Why do stations which challenge WBEB and fail ALWAYS go younger? If WTDY wanted to join WDUV, WFEZ, KISQ, etc. and fully concentrate on 25-54, maybe even 35-54, they might be able to compete with WBEB in those upper demos. There is a radio graveyard in Philadelphia, filled with AC stations that tried to be younger-than-WBEB. Now WTDY is trying the same approach, likely with the same result.

Gregg. said:

There is a radio graveyard in Philadelphia, filled with AC stations that tried to be younger-than-WBEB. Now WTDY is trying the same approach, likely with the same result.

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That sounds reasonable, but then you look at the Entercom cluster, and see WXTU. Have you looked at the demographics on WXTU? You might find a lot of your 40+ women there. In some markets, country shares listeners with AC. So by doing an older AC, you steal listeners from co-owned WXTU.