• 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

Nash FM on the Rise With the Younger Demos

B

Barry

According to an article about the latest Nielsen Ratings in yesterday's edition of AllAccess, WNSH is now rated #8 among 18-34 year old listeners in the New York Metro. It is interesting that country music is now doing so well among the younger listeners in this area.
It seems likely the station could do even better if it had more local content, and received more promotion.
 
Summer is always big for country music, and a lot of big stars are doing shows in the area. The format is going through another artist transition with a crop of young stars having huge success. Leading the pack would be millennial superstars Florida Georgia Line. So the fact that the artists are mostly under 40, with a big group in their 20s and 30s, can help lower the average age of the audience. It doesn't hurt that some other genres are going through a down cycle right now too.

For some time, country has used a CHR presentation, with songs lasting about 20 weeks in the charts, heavy rotations of 45-50 spins a week, and all of that is good for 18-34s. Of course the format is stronger in the suburbs, so I'd bet they'll show up even higher in 18-34 in the suburban books.
 
which, ladies and gentlemen, is only because Nash-FM is playing "New Country"- guys like Brad Paisley and the like. If it was playing the stuff that I remember, like Tammy Wynette, George Jones, and Dolly Parton - I guarantee that the format would NOT be garnering the ratings in NYC that it does. BUt I'll give it to Nash-FM because as others in this thread have indicated, they ARE going after the younger audience, which is, sadly, the proper thing to be doing these days. Cos it's the younger audience (under 40) that does the music buying (and any other kind of buying)!
 
Brad Paisley doesn't seem like a natural fit for the WNSH playlist. It's 80% or more songs from 2014-present, and Paisley has only had two top-10 hits since 2014.
 
PTBoardOp94 said:
Brad Paisley doesn't seem like a natural fit for the WNSH playlist. It's 80% or more songs from 2014-present, and Paisley has only had two top-10 hits since 2014.
Click to expand...

Paisley's first hit came in 1999. He's almost ready for airplay on classic country formats now. I'm already hearing Shania Twain and other late-'90s artists on iHeart's classic country feed on WWYZ-HD2 here in Connecticut.
 
Now if we could only get a better Nash signal on Long Island, it would be great. We know it is technically very difficult to get 94.7 on a full power signal from ESB or 1WTC (not that any FM’s are there yet). The signal does not come in clearly east of the Meadowbrook Pkwy. and forget HD unless you are in Western Nassau.
 
NASH plays the billboard country airplay chart just like Z100 plays the billboard mainstream top 40 airplay chart.
 
djl said:
Now if we could only get a better Nash signal on Long Island, it would be great. We know it is technically very difficult to get 94.7 on a full power signal from ESB or 1WTC (not that any FM’s are there yet). The signal does not come in clearly east of the Meadowbrook Pkwy. and forget HD unless you are in Western Nassau.
Click to expand...

It is not possible to get a better signal to the east due to co-channel and adjacent channel protections. If it moved to the ESB or elsewhere on Manhattan, they would have to reduce power to maintain the existing protections, so there would be a net loss in coverage to the west.
 
PTBoardOp94 said:
Brad Paisley doesn't seem like a natural fit for the WNSH playlist. It's 80% or more songs from 2014-present, and Paisley has only had two top-10 hits since 2014.
Click to expand...

Yep. It is going to be more Jason Aldean, Miranda Lambert, FGL and the like.
 
I did an analysis of their music from Mediabase, and they work with a library of 50 currents, 115 recurrents, and 168 gold. Looking at the gold, only about a dozen from the 90s, with Garth, Shania, and Tim McGraw being the artists. The oldest song is Garth's Friends In Low Places, and it gets two spins a week. They're also playing Garth's new song in their currents group, getting 22 spins. Looking at the Top 50, it doesn't actually mirror the Billboard chart, because they're trying to work in a handful of new artists, building familiarity among the bigger stars who get the most airplay. Country is all about building new acts, and typically about a dozen break through with their first hits every year.

As I said, this is similar to a CHR presentation. The station is very heavily weighted to currents, with the Top 3 songs getting over 65 spins a week. That's 9 times a day, or every 2 hours. Then there's a handful getting 50 spins, another handful getting 45 spins, and so on. The record labels have access to this information, and can monitor what songs the station is playing, and how often.
 
The narrow playlist mentioned in the previous post is consistent with my experience listening to the station. They do not seem to play more than a few hundred songs that are not current hits. This includes a handful of tunes from the 90's. The station even eludes to this predictability in sweepers that say they play songs "You know and love."
But numerous discussions on this board have indicated that narrow playlists do get ratings. Nearby, Thunder Country, on the Jersey Shore, used to be rather adventurous. It played lots of songs I did not hear on Nash, or other nearby country stations, making it an interesting listen. But listening to it recently, Thunder's playlist sounds totally conventional, offering a narrow playlist similar to Nash, and the other country stations in the region.
 
Barry said:
The narrow playlist mentioned in the previous post is consistent with my experience listening to the station.
Click to expand...

It depends what you mean by "narrow playlist" and "adventurous." Looking at the specifics of the playlist, I see a lot of adventurous songs that are not in the Billboard Top 30. They are playing Russell Dickerson, Mitchell Tenpenny, Travis Denning, and Jimmy Allen in their medium rotation. None of those songs are in the national Top 30, and none of those artists are well-known stars. So in my view, they have a very adventurous and broad playlist when you compare them to other current country stations.
 
TheBigA said:
I did an analysis of their music from Mediabase, and they work with a library of 50 currents, 115 recurrents, and 168 gold. Looking at the gold, only about a dozen from the 90s, with Garth, Shania, and Tim McGraw being the artists. The oldest song is Garth's Friends In Low Places, and it gets two spins a week. They're also playing Garth's new song in their currents group, getting 22 spins. Looking at the Top 50, it doesn't actually mirror the Billboard chart, because they're trying to work in a handful of new artists, building familiarity among the bigger stars who get the most airplay. Country is all about building new acts, and typically about a dozen break through with their first hits every year.

As I said, this is similar to a CHR presentation. The station is very heavily weighted to currents, with the Top 3 songs getting over 65 spins a week. That's 9 times a day, or every 2 hours. Then there's a handful getting 50 spins, another handful getting 45 spins, and so on. The record labels have access to this information, and can monitor what songs the station is playing, and how often.
Click to expand...

Wow lots of spins for so few tracks! The thought occurred to me that if someone has not been listening to country music in the last few decades (like me) and wanted to re-familiarize themselves with what's going on today in country music, then this would be an ideal way for that person to get familiar in a short period of time. MY problem with short playlists and heavy repetition is I like so many different types of music so I cannot devote so much time to any one genre. That's why I like the AAA format so much. There I can hear a wide variety of new acts, old acts with new songs, AAA gold tracks, selected classic rock tracks, some alternative tracks new and old, some true "oldies" like old Motown, once in a while a Sinatra track (which I heard Nic Harcourt play on 88.5 FM) or Peggy Lee (ditto). I realize I am an anomaly in the eyes of the bean counters ha.
 
SuperRadioFan said:
MY problem with short playlists and heavy repetition is I like so many different types of music so I cannot devote so much time to any one genre.
Click to expand...

That's why short playlists work. So you listen to Nash for a half hour, and switch stations to Z100, or Q104 or WFUV or some other station that plays something else. If you add up all the playlists from the five stations you sample, it's about 1500 songs. That's a lot of songs and a lot of musical diversity. Then when you go back to Nash, they're playing something completely different. If you want a wide variety, that's the way to do it. Maybe even listen to the tropical stations for a few songs. Go outside your comfort zone. Really experiment beyond things that you know.
 
SuperRadioFan said:
I realize I am an anomaly in the eyes of the bean counters ha.
Click to expand...

The real "bean counters" are the ad agencies and time buyers. They pay ad rates in proportion to the size of station audiences.

The bigger the audience, the better the rate a station can charge, so stations program to the largest number of people possible.

In nearly every format, a tight list beats a larger one. So stations program only the "best" songs for their purpose of attracting and maintaining audience.
 
DavidEduardo said:


The real "bean counters" are the ad agencies and time buyers. They pay ad rates in proportion to the size of station audiences.

The bigger the audience, the better the rate a station can charge, so stations program to the largest number of people possible.

In nearly every format, a tight list beats a larger one. So stations program only the "best" songs for their purpose of attracting and maintaining audience.
Click to expand...

as long as said audience is in the under-40 demo, so both the advertisers AND the audience would be attracted to the station!
 
andreajesus said:
as long as said audience is in the under-40 demo, so both the advertisers AND the audience would be attracted to the station!
Click to expand...

The key sales demos are 25-54, 18-49 and 18-34 and their subsets, with 25-54 being the biggest broad demo for sales. There is very little 55+ money available, although plenty of buys do accept stations that are 45-54 heavy as the client may want good coverage of all the subsets of 25-54.

6 of the top 10 billing stations in NYC are predominantly listened to by those over 40, and a 2 more are is fairly equally split among unders and overs. The only two of that top 10 that are mostly 18-44 are WQHT and WHTZ, in fact.
 
DavidEduardo said:


The key sales demos are 25-54, 18-49 and 18-34 and their subsets, with 25-54 being the biggest broad demo for sales. There is very little 55+ money available, although plenty of buys do accept stations that are 45-54 heavy as the client may want good coverage of all the subsets of 25-54.

6 of the top 10 billing stations in NYC are predominantly listened to by those over 40, and a 2 more are is fairly equally split among unders and overs. The only two of that top 10 that are mostly 18-44 are WQHT and WHTZ, in fact.
Click to expand...

David, I know you know your stuff about radio, BUT.....i somehow find it surprising your statement that "plenty of buys accept stations that are 45-54 heavy...." - i heard years ago that basically radio was writing off ANYBODY over 40 (I'm 59.....) - and since we're slightly going off topic with this one anyway....one of those stations was FORMERLY 45-54 heavy WCBSFM - since 2014, they've written off 50's/60's/70's music and are primarily 80's/early 90's focused.....
 
andreajesus said:
David, I know you know your stuff about radio, BUT.....i somehow find it surprising your statement that "plenty of buys accept stations that are 45-54 heavy...." - i heard years ago that basically radio was writing off ANYBODY over 40 (I'm 59.....) - and since we're slightly going off topic with this one anyway....one of those stations was FORMERLY 45-54 heavy WCBSFM - since 2014, they've written off 50's/60's/70's music and are primarily 80's/early 90's focused.....
Click to expand...

I have occasionally heard the "nothing over 40" idea brought up, but it's quite obviously an urban legend.

Agency buys that include those over 40 are immensely common. Usually an agency buy will be many stations deep, and they will use buying techniques to make sure that all parts of the target demo are covered equally. So a buy against 25-54 will include stations that are more 25-34 or 25-44 and others that are 35-54 or even 45-54 to get balance. That means they buy WAXQ and WHTZ and WKTU and WQHT and WBLS and WSKQ and WLTW so that they get good coverage of the total spectrum.

WCBS and WINS are about 2/3 55+, yet both are in the top 5 billers in the market. WFAN is about 55% over 55, and it is also in the top 5 billers in the market. 50% of the WLTW audience is over 50, and it is the second highest billing station in the market. Even half of Z-100's audience is over 35, and they are the highest biller in New York.

So that "nobody over 40" idea is not provable.

CBS FM, when it switched to Jack, was incredibly 55+ in audience. When they came back after Jack, it was not as an oldies station but as a classic hits station... 70's and some 80's. Now, just about 15 years later, they have taken off most of the earlier 70's, a percentage of the mid-70's and some of the later 70's songs. The audience aged 15 years, yet the music median age only moved up about 10 years.

CBS FM plays very few 90's titles. Of the 832 played in the last four weeks, only 7% of the titles were from the 90's, and the number of spins was commensurate. Almost 25% of the music is from the 70's still, based on song count.

Of the AQH listenership, about 60% is under 55, and the rest is 55+. That's about the best under-55 listenership split they have had as a classic hits station. By comparison, 10 years ago the average in 18-54 was 55%... so the station has managed to improve both its 25-54 share and the percentage of its audience in that demo.
 
Last edited:
Status
This thread has been closed due to inactivity. You can create a new thread to discuss this topic.
Back
Top Bottom