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Does a poorly programmed station get listened to if they are the only one in town doing that format?

tall_guy1

tall_guy1

Different question this time. This might be for small towns or maybe towns where a station of a format "drops the ball" and programs in a terrible fashion. Do listeners still listen? Here's a hypothetical: a town has only one Hot AC, but another CHR, yet the Hot AC is not programmed well. They're all over the place but vaguely resemble a Hot AC format, yet the CHR is well-programmed and focused. Do listeners who are fans of the Hot AC sound go there, or settle for CHR? There could be other examples where a station is supposed to fill the "mold" for the town, yet drops the ball. Do listeners listen anyway?
 
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tall_guy1 said:
Different question this time. This might be for small towns or maybe towns where a station of a format "drops the ball" and programs in a terrible fashion. Do listeners still listen?
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The determination of "poorly programmed" is a judgement call, and what I think is great you may find terrible. Most major market stations have research and consultants so programming is designed as best it can be. But remember, even the world's best marketer, P&G, fails with about half of its new product launches. Radio is no different.
 
DavidEduardo said:
The determination of "poorly programmed" is a judgement call, and what I think is great you may find terrible. Most major market stations have research and consultants so programming is designed as best it can be. But remember, even the world's best marketer, P&G, fails with about half of its new product launches. Radio is no different.
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This is somewhat a hypothetical question. Many times a lot of small town stations at least to people can sound "bad" to people, but major markets can also fall short, and I've heard people on here complain (myself included!) of stations not sounding good, but sometimes there's quite a few people who might think a station doesn't sound good in whatever format it is in. I don't have any station in mind, but I've seen market share decrease in certain stations where there are format-adjacent stations (CHR vs Hot AC for instance). It could also not be poorly programmed, but have a different lean that might not suit all listeners.
 
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tall_guy1 said:
This is somewhat a hypothetical question.
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Somewhat?
tall_guy1 said:
Many times a lot of small town stations at least to people can sound "bad" to people, but major markets can also fall short, and I've heard people on here complain (myself included!) of stations not sounding good, but sometimes there's quite a few people who might think a station doesn't sound good in whatever format it is in.
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Several of us have tried to explain this to you on multiple occasions, but let's try again in a simpler form:
* Not everyone thinks, or has the same taste as you do. Therefore as David already explained: which songs you like more or less is irrelevant when it comes to a greater audience, nor does it deem any particular station as 'good or bad'.
* Not all radio stations or markets are created equal. Some markets might have a population that prefers country stations over rock or EDM, and can support multiple stations of the same format. That's just a human condition. Radio stations play to as much of an audience for their particular station/format as able. Stations don't exist to change listener's musical taste. They exist to make money by holding on to the largest audience. Full stop.

tall_guy1 said:
I don't have any station in mind, but I've seen market share decrease in certain stations where there are format-adjacent stations (CHR vs Hot AC for instance). It could also not be poorly programmed, but have a different lean that might not suit all listeners.
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Obviously you haven't been paying attention to this point either. Market share has dropped across the board for all media companies starting in 2008, primarily related to shrinking advertising model. The pandemic accelerated the drop.
None of the shrinking overall media market drop can be attributed to whether certain radio stations play one artist over another. Thinking individual songs/artists make or break radio, is unfathomably over-simplistic thinking.
 
tall_guy1 said:
Different question this time. This might be for small towns or maybe towns where a station of a format "drops the ball" and programs in a terrible fashion. Do listeners still listen? Here's a hypothetical: a town has only one Hot AC, but another CHR, yet the Hot AC is not programmed well. They're all over the place but vaguely resemble a Hot AC format, yet the CHR is well-programmed and focused. Do listeners who are fans of the Hot AC sound go there, or settle for CHR? There could be other examples where a station is supposed to fill the "mold" for the town, yet drops the ball. Do listeners listen anyway?
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No. There are too many alternatives to bad radio, or even radio that just doesn't fit a listeners tastes.

I've told here before how I started my career not at the only station in a format, but literally the only station in town. Captive audience? Hardly. Three mom-and-pop stores made a very nice income on car stereo systems. Folks figured out how to listen to L.A. FM stations on the cable and one enterprising soul even set up an illegal translator so you could listen to one of those stations (KKDJ, which is now KIIS-FM) without cable, including in your car, within a 10-mile radius.

Today, it's even easier to simply not listen to radio regardless of how few over-the-air choices there are.
 
tall_guy1 said:
Different question this time. This might be for small towns or maybe towns where a station of a format "drops the ball" and programs in a terrible fashion. Do listeners still listen? Here's a hypothetical: a town has only one Hot AC, but another CHR, yet the Hot AC is not programmed well. They're all over the place but vaguely resemble a Hot AC format, yet the CHR is well-programmed and focused. Do listeners who are fans of the Hot AC sound go there, or settle for CHR? There could be other examples where a station is supposed to fill the "mold" for the town, yet drops the ball. Do listeners listen anyway?
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The scenario sounds like it was possible before SiriusXM, Ipods, IPhones and Dashboard apps existed. Today not likely
 
tall_guy1 said:
Different question this time. This might be for small towns or maybe towns where a station of a format "drops the ball" and programs in a terrible fashion. Do listeners still listen? Here's a hypothetical: a town has only one Hot AC, but another CHR, yet the Hot AC is not programmed well. They're all over the place but vaguely resemble a Hot AC format, yet the CHR is well-programmed and focused. Do listeners who are fans of the Hot AC sound go there, or settle for CHR? There could be other examples where a station is supposed to fill the "mold" for the town, yet drops the ball. Do listeners listen anyway?
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Simple: listeners will seek out wherever they can get the music they want to hear. No format semantics, no ā€˜formalā€™ format terminology. Done.
 
Back in the early 2000s I lived in an area with a small market then-Oldies station that played the wide variety playlist that everyone claims they want to hear. They were the only game in town for Oldies. The music mix was awful (think anything ever published in a Whitburn book as fair game) but you would hear them everywhere.
 
I know in CCM radio in the Memphis area the local stations were at least good when they had music mostly during drive time and sometimes in the evening, but depended too much on (often times bad) programs on some stations. You might hear some anti-CCM preacher tearing down the music you had been listening to 5 minutes earlier. WGSF 1210 in Memphis was the best local CCM station Memphis had, but even they got to depending too much on programs toward the end. I know that also went on in other places as well. It was a definite improvement when groups like EMF came in and bought some of those stations and changed them to all CCM. I miss having the local CCM stations that did a great job with the music, but I don't miss how some of them were no better than a dollar a holler station at other times.
 
Let's try rewording the original question: If your format of choice is represented by a station that is completely automated with zero personality or information, are you more likely to listen to that or to a similar format with all the right elements such as Hot AC to CHR?
 
Kelly A said:
Exactly, right for whom? Tall_Guy, or average consumers of a certain demographic? Which demographic?
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Increasingly, not the demographic attracted by CHR. If anything, those people might be lured back to radio if all the "disc jerkies" -- as some in-demo posters to the late, great XMFan board used to call them -- were shown the door and an automated hits format with long uncluttered stretches of music were implemented. That "just play the music" attitude advances with each passing year as more and more listeners have become used to having gab-free options to traditional radio at their fingertips.
 
tall_guy1 said:
Different question this time. This might be for small towns or maybe towns where a station of a format "drops the ball" and programs in a terrible fashion. Do listeners still listen? Here's a hypothetical: a town has only one Hot AC, but another CHR, yet the Hot AC is not programmed well. They're all over the place but vaguely resemble a Hot AC format, yet the CHR is well-programmed and focused. Do listeners who are fans of the Hot AC sound go there, or settle for CHR? There could be other examples where a station is supposed to fill the "mold" for the town, yet drops the ball. Do listeners listen anyway?
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I think they stay to a point. That being said I do think they flip channels often with no loyalty if the station is all over the place.
 
tall_guy1 said:
Different question this time. This might be for small towns or maybe towns where a station of a format "drops the ball" and programs in a terrible fashion. Do listeners still listen? Here's a hypothetical: a town has only one Hot AC, but another CHR, yet the Hot AC is not programmed well. They're all over the place but vaguely resemble a Hot AC format, yet the CHR is well-programmed and focused. Do listeners who are fans of the Hot AC sound go there, or settle for CHR? There could be other examples where a station is supposed to fill the "mold" for the town, yet drops the ball. Do listeners listen anyway?
Click to expand...

As David points out, defining ā€œpoorly programmedā€ is difficult. Even if you can come to a consensus of what constitutes poor programming, the results are going to be variable. Some will get enough of a default audience to be viable while others will not.
 
tall_guy1 said:
Different question this time. This might be for small towns or maybe towns where a station of a format "drops the ball" and programs in a terrible fashion. Do listeners still listen?
Click to expand...

There are fewer of these kinds of small market stations. Usually these are the stations that'll use turnkey satellite/syndicated formats, and these tend to be pretty well programmed.
 
TheBigA said:
Usually these are the stations that'll use turnkey satellite/syndicated formats, and these tend to be pretty well programmed.
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I think that observation is outdated. I'd say close to half of stations I know that ran satellite formats have dropped them in favor of local automation. There's not a lot of value in the syndication when the jocks are voice tracked and the music mix is updated every three years.
 
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