Lkeller said:
How is it evil and greedy to want to not lose money? Serving audience groups that advertisers don't want is a sure way to toss good money after bad.
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How is it evil and greedy to want to not lose money? Serving audience groups that advertisers don't want is a sure way to toss good money after bad.
Profit is great, but not without a future. I think in the quest to maximize profits, a lot of stations have sold their souls. It's easy to say that there is nothing wrong with radio when you get a paycheck from a station. But look at what the listener is getting and it's easy to see that the loyalty is fading for a number of very good reasons.
It's nice to be married to a wealthy good looking woman. But when she comes home night after night smelling of after-shave, you have to wonder how the long term relationship is going to go.
It's nice to be married to a wealthy good looking woman. But when she comes home night after night smelling of after-shave, you have to wonder how the long term relationship is going to go.
"How is it evil and greedy to want to not lose money? Serving audience groups that advertisers don't want is a sure way to toss good money after bad."
It's not evil or greedy - it's just business, and that was my point, David. What I was saying...by making a comparison to radio in the 60s was: we've been lucky to have Oldies radio around as long as we have. It's probably due to the huge size of the baby boomer generation, which is much larger than my parent's generation (those born in the first 2 or 3 decades of the 20th century.
Between satellite radio, HD2 stations, and downloads; Oldies will never go away - for those who seek them out, but it's understandable why they won't survive on regular FM much longer.
It's not evil or greedy - it's just business, and that was my point, David. What I was saying...by making a comparison to radio in the 60s was: we've been lucky to have Oldies radio around as long as we have. It's probably due to the huge size of the baby boomer generation, which is much larger than my parent's generation (those born in the first 2 or 3 decades of the 20th century.
Between satellite radio, HD2 stations, and downloads; Oldies will never go away - for those who seek them out, but it's understandable why they won't survive on regular FM much longer.
Music as a whole may not survive on FM much longer. Two FMs here in Nashville that had previously been music stations have become sports talkers, and have been for about the last four years. Prior to that, both of those stations had undergone at least one format change per year over the previous five years during their days as music-playing stations. And of the stations that are still playing music, an increasing number of them are now devoting at least part of their broadcast time to carrying sports programming, like ball games, etc. In other words, they are now becoming less music-intensive.
"Music as a whole may not survive on FM much longer. Two FMs here in Nashville that had previously been music stations have become sports talkers, and have been for about the last four years."
I'm not sure how many FMs you have in Nashville. In the SF Bay Area where I live, there are at least 30 FM stations in the 11 local counties, and with the exception of listener supported stations (NPR and Pacifica), all play music of one format or another. We have 2 sports talk stations, both currently on AM - KNBR generally ranks in the top 10 or 12, but their sister sports-station KTKT is in the ratings basement. I don't think there is enough interest in sports here to support more than one sports-talk station. So even if you moved KNBR, a couple of popular talk stations, and the all-news station to FM, you'd still have a lot of frequencies left over for music. Then there are the HD2 stations, which may become popular within a few years.
I don't see music leaving FM radio anytime soon.
I'm not sure how many FMs you have in Nashville. In the SF Bay Area where I live, there are at least 30 FM stations in the 11 local counties, and with the exception of listener supported stations (NPR and Pacifica), all play music of one format or another. We have 2 sports talk stations, both currently on AM - KNBR generally ranks in the top 10 or 12, but their sister sports-station KTKT is in the ratings basement. I don't think there is enough interest in sports here to support more than one sports-talk station. So even if you moved KNBR, a couple of popular talk stations, and the all-news station to FM, you'd still have a lot of frequencies left over for music. Then there are the HD2 stations, which may become popular within a few years.
I don't see music leaving FM radio anytime soon.
It's happening slowly here in Nashville. We have three FM talkers, the two I mentioned above, and one all-news/talk FM. One of the two sports talkers is all-sports talk, while the other is a hybrid of sports and other talk. I should again point out that each of these two frequencies had changed formats about once a year during the last five years of their existence as music-playing stations, from about 1998 or 1999 to 2003. I finally gave up on both of them. The station that is mostly sports-talk had been the flagship station for the Tennessee Titans of the NFL, but shifted that to their sister station, an FM country station. Meanwhile, the Tennessee Vols are now heard on the FM classic rocker, along with their sister station, an AM news-talker that has carried the Vols for years. The Nashville Sounds (the minor-league baseball team) are heard on a small FM station that I can't even pick up on this side of town, and the Nashville Predators (the NHL team) are heard on what is usually our AAA station. So Nashville is increasingly becoming a sports city, and despite our reputation as "music city USA," music and music-intensive formats are slowly leaving our FM stations.
firepoint525 said:
Curiously, aside from WSM what kind of signals do the other Nashville AMs have? That's a factor as well. If you have a lousy signal and can't cover the market (especially at night when most sporting events take place) your station isn't gonna be competitive.
You also mentioned that the 2 stations have been dogs for years...maybe sports talk is just the latest format of the week.
I don't see FM as a music medium going away anytime soon.
Fred, you sir have pretty much nailed it.
Let me say, I've had torrid discussions with some of the brightest in the industry on these boards. Radio formats will always evolve, as will radio itself. But I believe it will always be around. There will come a day when "Oldies" will disapear, as did the Glen Miller stations, NBC Red & Blue Networks and the Charleston dance. Radio is a chamellion.
Let me say, I've had torrid discussions with some of the brightest in the industry on these boards. Radio formats will always evolve, as will radio itself. But I believe it will always be around. There will come a day when "Oldies" will disapear, as did the Glen Miller stations, NBC Red & Blue Networks and the Charleston dance. Radio is a chamellion.
Refer to the below-referenced thread, and read "scottwmro's" second paragraph at the bottom of page two of this particular thread. It might explain why at least one of these stations has not changed format lately. Much of this particular thread references this station. It is the one that is all-sports now.Oldbones said:
http://www.radio-info.com/smf/index.php/topic,86073.10.html
To answer your question, WLAC also has a strong night signal, which makes it puzzling why they simulcast sports programming on their FM sister station (the classic rocker) as well. I think they are going for "visibility" here, as AM is not "cool" anymore. Curiously, the FM only broadcasts the football Vols. The basketball Vols are still AM only. And most college football is played in the daytime, so a night-time AM signal would not be a factor. WLAC can supposedly be heard in about 38 states at night, covering about 2/3 of the country, so a weak signal would not be an issue here. Aside from that, I wonder how many listeners in those other states would want to hear the Vols anyway, unless the Vols were playing their school.
Some guys on local message boards here have complained about the poor signal offered by the AM sports talker (AM 560 in the referenced thread above), and they have a point, but I still lament the sports talkers taking away the music choices from us on our FM stations.
firepoint525 said:
There are probably two reasons for the sports simulcast. First, it likely produces more revenue. Second, the signal on 1510 is vastly inferior to any of the full power FMs in the market... the 5 mv/m coverage of WLAC (in metros, very little listenening is done even at the extremes of the 5 mv/m... most is in the 10 mv/m) is 800,000 persons, while the 60 dbu of WSIX is 1.5 million, almost double.
The problem with AM in most metros, as illustrated by WLAC, is that the bad signals do not cover the whole metro, which in the case of Nashville is now 8 counties.
The night coverage significantly reduces the local populaton covered as WLAC is severely directional. WLAC never covered 38 states... maybe 10 or 12 with a decent night coverage before the band became more noisy and full of high powered stations in other nations that interfere with it. With 50 kw stations in Boston and Spokane on 1510, as well as 1520 in Oklahoma and Buffalo and 1500 in Wahington DC, most of the useful night signal of WLAC is KY, TN, AL, GA, NC, SC, GA and a bit of VA.
AM is slowly dying, forcing the formats that work on AM to move to FM. Eventually, AM will be niche and religious and ethnic, as, increasingly, listening to the band is with folks over 55 who are not targeted by major advertisers. Yet when news and talk stations move to FM, as 50 kw WTOP in DC did, they grow in the 35-54 age group advertisers love... so expect more of this.
Amazingly, in 1970 the fight for #1 in Nashville was between WMAK in 1300 and WKDA in 1240... today, 1240 does not show in the ratings, and 1300 has a 0.6 share. In fact, the sum of all the AMs in Nashville is less than the share of the #1 FM, Urban WUBT. WSM is 14th in the ratings, very old demograqphically, and also bills about 15th in the market. Pretty much dead, to say the least.
A lot of "engineerspeak" in that, so I need your first paragraph in layman's terms. It is WNRQ, 105.9 the Rock, www.1059.com that carries the Vols, not WSIX. I don't doubt that they actually do better broadcasting the Vols, given how weak their music format is. But it is usually no problem to find the Vols all up and down the dial here, whenever they are playing. Same with the Titans on Sunday afternoons. So I wonder just how "exclusive" the Vols broadcast is, when you can turn up and down the dial and find it again. I grew up in west Tennessee, where the same thing was possible with St. Louis Cardinal baseball broadcasts, and we were 200 miles+ from St. Louis!DavidEduardo said:
The AM/FM combo I worked for in west TN simulcasted the Vols broadcasts, but the FM was not "music intensive," never was, never has been. They also carried high school football and basketball, and local college sports, too. The FM station in the town where I grew up did not carry sports, but I have a feeling that has changed since I lived there. With the weak signal AM has, especially at night, I can understand FM broadcasting local sports. In some cases, especially with county-wide high schools, it might be impossible for residents of the fringes of their county to hear their own high school team's broadcast over the local AM station. (The first station I worked for, a local AM, had to sign off at night, but carried the broadcast tape-delayed on Saturday mornings. I remember the owner complaining about advertisers dropping their sponsorships because the team was having a losing season!)
When I get some money, I will subscribe to satellite radio, and be done with the terrestrials forever.
R
radioatlantis
Guest
The older you get, the more important the memories are. You can not commit radio genocide to entire groups of people - especially, the largest number of retiring segment in the history.
We all grew up with the "elevator" or nursing home stations for the generations of our time that were expiring and radio seemed to know how to present it and sell it to make money.
THIS is the problem. The people who run radio and own radio fashion themselves experts. While far from progressive, they can't seem to stand the thought of marketing a product under their corporate banner that they consider to be "outdated".
They become inept at selling it because they don't have the brains to recreate it, repackage it and make it vital.
The XM 60s channel that Cleveland Wheeler developed seemed to have no problem gaining a most favored status when arbitron rated from within. IT also wasn't lacking in response from listeners - an enthusiasm most OLDIES radio and CLASSIC HITS can't seem to muster.
When the powers over processes are challenged, they either steal something that works from somewhere else (Jack), bastardize it, change frequencies or give it a new name and slap something else in the box out to see if will stick.
Naturally, none of I is anything fresh and innovating.
There is definitely a market for the best music ever played and the original CBS excuse that this audience didn't possess any appreciable spendable income and weren't mainstream consumers, is about the dumbest thing I have ever heard.
Problematically, is that all the young salespeople have no understanding of how much more impactive radio was before they were born so they can't identify with the passion for the music and the feeling about radio of yesterday that the core audience has. Most of them do not know the music unless they are discovers.
But there is no point in telling corporations anything these days. This is a do-what-we-say
and appreciate that you even have a job environment and it has little to do with innovation or new ideas. It only has to do with, "did we meet budgets for the year - then let's start
tossing out bodies."
Take Wheeler and his full spectrum reflection of the 60s, not one part of the pop culture was left out..nor was the war, or the contract to what Britain was playing when the invasion was happening here, the pirates, the soul, advent of American rock bands, bubblegum, surf, novelty songs, movie themes, protest and folk, and countless artists specials and history of the music, along with constant chronology and events references. What corporately owned FM has ever presented anything remotely close to touch the soul of listeners?
The biz mires themselves in formulas and statistics so that nothing else is more real to radio than a 12 person focus group thrown slanted questions so they can justify what they WANT to do in the first place .....same moronic method with auditorium and call out music testing.
I love when these geeks start talking about the CLASSIC HITS that tested. Hey, if it sold a million or more and was a TOP TEN song, you be assure that it has a place in the format and NEEDS to be played. But we all know this isn't the case.
It doesn't take a statistician or a "scientist" to air great radio...it takes a RADIO person with street smarts and a finger on the pulse of people.
Radio has also discarded emotion and the very compelling roll it places in anything nostalgic.
We all grew up with the "elevator" or nursing home stations for the generations of our time that were expiring and radio seemed to know how to present it and sell it to make money.
THIS is the problem. The people who run radio and own radio fashion themselves experts. While far from progressive, they can't seem to stand the thought of marketing a product under their corporate banner that they consider to be "outdated".
They become inept at selling it because they don't have the brains to recreate it, repackage it and make it vital.
The XM 60s channel that Cleveland Wheeler developed seemed to have no problem gaining a most favored status when arbitron rated from within. IT also wasn't lacking in response from listeners - an enthusiasm most OLDIES radio and CLASSIC HITS can't seem to muster.
When the powers over processes are challenged, they either steal something that works from somewhere else (Jack), bastardize it, change frequencies or give it a new name and slap something else in the box out to see if will stick.
Naturally, none of I is anything fresh and innovating.
There is definitely a market for the best music ever played and the original CBS excuse that this audience didn't possess any appreciable spendable income and weren't mainstream consumers, is about the dumbest thing I have ever heard.
Problematically, is that all the young salespeople have no understanding of how much more impactive radio was before they were born so they can't identify with the passion for the music and the feeling about radio of yesterday that the core audience has. Most of them do not know the music unless they are discovers.
But there is no point in telling corporations anything these days. This is a do-what-we-say
and appreciate that you even have a job environment and it has little to do with innovation or new ideas. It only has to do with, "did we meet budgets for the year - then let's start
tossing out bodies."
Take Wheeler and his full spectrum reflection of the 60s, not one part of the pop culture was left out..nor was the war, or the contract to what Britain was playing when the invasion was happening here, the pirates, the soul, advent of American rock bands, bubblegum, surf, novelty songs, movie themes, protest and folk, and countless artists specials and history of the music, along with constant chronology and events references. What corporately owned FM has ever presented anything remotely close to touch the soul of listeners?
The biz mires themselves in formulas and statistics so that nothing else is more real to radio than a 12 person focus group thrown slanted questions so they can justify what they WANT to do in the first place .....same moronic method with auditorium and call out music testing.
I love when these geeks start talking about the CLASSIC HITS that tested. Hey, if it sold a million or more and was a TOP TEN song, you be assure that it has a place in the format and NEEDS to be played. But we all know this isn't the case.
It doesn't take a statistician or a "scientist" to air great radio...it takes a RADIO person with street smarts and a finger on the pulse of people.
Radio has also discarded emotion and the very compelling roll it places in anything nostalgic.
radioatlantis said:
XM 6 reaches an AQH audience of less than 14,000 persons and cumes less than 350,000. That is about the audience level of the #10 station in Dallas, TX. It is about 8% of the listenership of the single #1 station in New York City.
Jack, if you are saying said format is stolen, was actually created pre-satellite era in Canada. Change is evolotionary, not revolutionary. Nobody changes to a station with music 100% of which they are unfamiliar with, nor do they change to one with many songs they do not like.
The reason the "original" CBS changed even prior to the Jack period was that most of its audience was unsalable and billings were declining severely. When they returned, it was as a classic hits station, not an oldies one. In the mostly-70's new version, the demos are ideal for most agency buys... before they were ideal for being skipped on most buys.
This has never had to do with the age of the sellers or the buyers, the quality of the sales pitch or the dedication of management. When a client specifies the demos for its campaign, as determined by the client's marketing dep0artment, the agency says, "Yes" and buys that demo. There is no argument there. The agency is a contractor to the client, and only loses the account if they buy out of demo or do not produce sales results.
Did I mention that the 25-54 Average Quarter Hour listening is around 6,000 persons? That is about half of the AQH listening of WLIB, the lowest rated station in NY right now. Of course, that is pretty good proof of what happens when you play a list of songs that are mostly, today, stiffs that people do not want to hear.
Most radio sales people these days don't sell their format - they sell their numbers. If they don't have numbers in the right demo, they will not make the sale (or take the order). The days of sales people truly selling radio are long gone - with the exception of a very few!
Oldies as defined previously will never pull the kind of demos necessary to keep the bean counters happy. Oldies stations with a eight or ten share of the audience are only doing five or six percent of the business in the market. Therein lies the rub!
Oldies must evolve to survive.
Meanwhile, comparing radio to satellite delivered music is comparing apples to oranges. Satellite can program whatever they want - you have to pay for it - whether you listen or not.
Oldies as defined previously will never pull the kind of demos necessary to keep the bean counters happy. Oldies stations with a eight or ten share of the audience are only doing five or six percent of the business in the market. Therein lies the rub!
Oldies must evolve to survive.
Meanwhile, comparing radio to satellite delivered music is comparing apples to oranges. Satellite can program whatever they want - you have to pay for it - whether you listen or not.
XTalker said:
Radio sales people are not suposed to sell the format. except for a small number of format specific buys the advertiser sdoes not care about format, but, rather, the ability of a station to deliver potential consumers. The era of selling how great a station is ("It's all about me") had given way to selling how much a station can do for the advertiser.
The first measure of an effective ad medium is the relationship of price to users... circulation, listenership, viewership. It's the basis for price comparisons.
[/uote] If they don't have numbers in the right demo, they will not make the sale (or take the order). The days of sales people truly selling radio are long gone - with the exception of a very few![/quote]
How dare that pesky radio station try to sell an audience group to an advertiser that the advertiser either does not sell to or does not want to send a message to! Blindfold that advertiser, and make him buy what we are offering, even if they don't want it. If all fails, waterboard the entire marketing department until they renounce their marketing plan they spent millions developing. Who says there is no civilian application for military technology!
We are more concerned with keeping advertisers happey. We are an ad medium. And a medium, coming from the same root as mean and median and middle, means we are the conduit between advertisers and consumers. We really ought to pay a little attention to what the advertisers want, or they will not like us any more and talke their marbles home.
Few have an 8 to 10 share, unless they are in a market with few stations and little competiton. Usual is 3 to 5 shares in larger markets.... not 8's or 10's.
David, you made most of my points.
Radio sales today is not really sales. Buying decisions are often made long before there is any contact with so called sales person at a radio station. Media buyers set criteria and the order take tries to meet it. That is not sales.
As for the comment about audience share - you may be right that there are few stations with 8 shares (of any format) these days. Markets are extremely fragmented by move ins and the many format variations. Point is this: traditional oldies stations have had a very hard time getting their percentage of business to come close to their percentage of audience!
Why? The core demo is not in demand.
Now, that opens a whole different conversation about why business thinks there is no money to be made catering to an older demo. Today's 55 to 65 year old is a pretty ripe target. They generally have lots of disposable income, many are retired and have lots of time to spend as well!
I know a 62 year old who just bought a 350 Z at $45,000 - so why wouldn't Nissan target him?
Radio sales today is not really sales. Buying decisions are often made long before there is any contact with so called sales person at a radio station. Media buyers set criteria and the order take tries to meet it. That is not sales.
As for the comment about audience share - you may be right that there are few stations with 8 shares (of any format) these days. Markets are extremely fragmented by move ins and the many format variations. Point is this: traditional oldies stations have had a very hard time getting their percentage of business to come close to their percentage of audience!
Why? The core demo is not in demand.
Now, that opens a whole different conversation about why business thinks there is no money to be made catering to an older demo. Today's 55 to 65 year old is a pretty ripe target. They generally have lots of disposable income, many are retired and have lots of time to spend as well!
I know a 62 year old who just bought a 350 Z at $45,000 - so why wouldn't Nissan target him?
XTalker said:
Check how many retirees have only social security checks. Better off are those with government pensions or union pensions, but the average savings of retirees is less than the equity they have in their homes... it only takes a couple of super-rich 65+ perslons to make averages look much better than they are.
I know of between 800 thousand and a million Americans who can not live in the US on Social Security and so they have moved to Mexico where the money goes further.
The main reason why advertisers do no target over-55 is that the return on investment kis low; it takes lots of advertising to change buying patterns and often the cost of the sale is greater than the profit on the sale.
Seniors are nowhere near as affluent as may think, and they are not easily converted to products different than the ones normally consumed and familiar and comfortable with.
And a lot of the advertising targeted at 55+ requires text disclaimers or product warnings or needs pictures or demonstrations... the disclaimers are why Viagra is not on radio, the demonstrations are why the stairstepper are not.
There are no 55 year old retirees that have Social Security checks. Most people who are retiring in that age group could care less about SS. They have planned for their retirement, and they have money to spend.
The numbers will do nothing but increase over the next ten years and that 55-65 cell is becoming very attractive for a large number of advertising sectors. As the Baby Boom generation begins to retire, that demo will represent a great deal of wealth.
The younger demos, meanwhile, are living on their credit cards and that bubble will burst soon. Look at what has happened to the housing industry.
You can ignore the 55-65 demo if you want - just more for those who pay attention!
The numbers will do nothing but increase over the next ten years and that 55-65 cell is becoming very attractive for a large number of advertising sectors. As the Baby Boom generation begins to retire, that demo will represent a great deal of wealth.
The younger demos, meanwhile, are living on their credit cards and that bubble will burst soon. Look at what has happened to the housing industry.
You can ignore the 55-65 demo if you want - just more for those who pay attention!
XTalker said:
I requested that the figures be checked for retirees to determine how many retirees only had SS checks. Very few 55-62's (the age where people currently can take partial SS benefits) can voluntarily retire. Many are involuntarily retired by downsizing, offshoring, changes in the economy... and taked a "forced retirement" with a payout... or are simply left with nothing like the Maytag situation in Newton, IA.
The numbers will increase, but radio and most media will not benefit because of return on investment issues, not income levels. If advertising does not have a payback, the age groups where there is no payback will not be advertised to. This is similar to beer not being advertised to 35-54 women... no payback.
That is assumptive.
There is nearly no money being placed by ad agencies against 55-64 by instructions of the advertisers they represent.
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