This is why you find the most successful radio stations boring. You're not the average listener. With the exception of a few small town stations, a streaming service like Spotify is probably better suited for your music needs than radio. I am the same way. I used to listen to a few radio stations all of the time because they had a wide playlist. Once corporate owners took over and tightened the playlist, I stopped listening. Most of my listening now is on Spotify.
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- Thread starter atthestars
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I gotta ask listening to the aircheck you sent me, how does WMGH make any money? Good lord. Clearly this is small markit radio. But than, maybe it doesn't matter. Maybe the owner has extra money to thro at the pit. Maybe cost of living is lower there so the money is just not there to make. and what is made goes further. It's deffinetly different. But smaller markits can get away with being different. Also a markit like yours, you have to program a couple of stations for everybody because there's a lot of frindge that not everybody can get . That's my 0.02. WMGH is a way to discover stuff I never knew existed, tha'tgs for sure! Kinda reminds me of WVLT in the same vain. which is small markit radio, doesn't just play the same 50's-70's Oldies you hear everywhere else.
Yes, in fact the average radio listener spends around 6 hours a week with radio. Even if you exclude light listeners (nearly 90% of listening comes from about 50% of listeners) it is still around 10 to 12 hours a week out of 168 total hours a station broadcasts. Even those listeners will hear the same 3x per day songs once or twice at the most.
However, those short bursts are often connected by short non-listening intervals. More than half of listening is not in the car, and the PPM shows that we take coffee and bathroom breaks at work, go to a meeting, take a call, go out to the warehouse or whatever. And at home, we take the kids to the bus stop, go to another room, talk to a neighbor and so on.
Years ago, Arbitron (before it was Nielsen) used an actual PPM example of a station that had lots of listeners that had 15 to 20 separate incidents a day... all obviously separated by times they had to turn down the volume for a call or step away from the radio at work or at home.
Classic case of a station that can't afford real research to learn which songs listeners want to hear today, so they buy a Whitburn book and play them all!
Still true. If you measured my listening in a day, most follow that pattern.
A lot of things could fall into that category.
How do they make money? Because they play good music. Im not sure what you mean by the processing. Im listening for the music. Not to mention, their only local competition is t102, a station that plays the same pop and rap songs over and over. Schuylkill County is mostly Country and Rock listeners. The average t102 listener tunes it in because in a lot of places its the only thing that comes in. WMGH signal range leaves a lot to be desired. Now i will give credit where its due… for a pop station, t102 is way better than most. When i was recording the airchecks for you i figured that out pretty quick. During the weekends they do throwbacks from the 90’s and early 2000’s.
They do well in their coverage area, a lot of people listen to it, and honestly to them, thats all that matters.
I don't think they make money.... maybe break even and the manager/owner gives himself a little salary. You may not know this, but half the radio stations in the US don't show a profit.
And actually has listeners.
No county is "mostly country and rock" as you are leaving out AC and CHR and Hot AC and other formats that also have large shares of audience where they are available.
None of the folks they have a smartphone or a tablet or an Amazon "Alexa" device?
Actually has listeners? So does MGH. Whats with the condescending tone Mr Admin?
As for the streaming im sure most of then have that, but i was clearly referring to people who want to listen to radio. Im a lot more picky than most. I have a massive music collection (physical medium only) so it just boggles my mind that with all the classic rock out there, how any station can justify playing the same song more than once in a 24 hour period. But i suppose the average joe who listens in small intervals wouldnt really notice. Whereas a music nut that listens frequently, would. I think one thing we would all agree on is that corporate greed has definitely affected the quality of the FM dial overall.
John Kluge who once owned WMMR was no less greedy than David Field. The commercial radio business has always been driven more by money than by music.
It's very simple... when you actually play a bit of each possible song and have an array of listeners to that station or that kind of station score them, you end up with a finite number of songs.
I did a rock station in a very large market and on our tests, we always ended up with between 500 and 600 playable songs. And we had the highest AQH audience level of any station in the Western Hemisphere.
How is playing what listeners tell us they want to hear "greedy"?
The music business has more examples of greed than radio, starting with Ticketmaster.
Yes, measured listening.
Not in any ratings, including the local annual county by county survey.
Not condescending, but realistic. You are using your own tastes to judge radio stations that are, in all likelihood, not in the least bit interested in having you as a listener.
Sure, but mostly for the better. They've eliminated the Carpenters music, and the awful weekend jocks (i.e: jocks like me) from the airwaves.
Fair. Serious question tho, how exactly can they tell how many listeners a station actually has and exactly when many tune out? Ive always wondered that. As for the corporate greed thing, fine example of what i am talking about is WMMR being voice tracked at night to save money when they were always live 24/7. Thats when 90% of my listening is, at night. Ive been working night shift for years now. Its obvious to me that the die hard music freaks are the minority when it comes to radio, so perhaps thats why in conversation with people i talk to, most would tend to agree.
it always boggled my mind how the average music listener is okay with hearing only the hit music. But hey, to each their own.
It's not greed when the shift that doesn't make any money isn't staffed. They're still losing money, but not as much. There was a time when the other shifts made enough to cover overnights. Not anymore. Rising costs and falling revenues have made that kind of expenditure wasteful. It's not greed when it's done by financial necessity. Nobody is getting rich on overnight radio.
I suppose from a business standpoint i see that. Still make the listening experience (for me) less enjoyable. Like i said, most of my Philly radio listening is done via vintage airchecks. I dont like change, never did, never will. Hearing radio the way i remember it growing up is what i am after. Better music, broader playlists. Things change, i get that, but that doesnt mean i have to like it. But BigA, I thank you for you respectful responses. Im removing myself now, its clear to me that my kind are not really going to fit in. Oh well, im used to that lol peace out.
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