4) Bad weather boosts All-News stations. A tough Detroit winter puts WWJ one-and-a-half points of the #2 station.
True, but these numbers are massive for WWJ compared to any book of the last ten years.
Four things helped them, in my opinion:
--Local politics
--Winter weather
--U-M basketball (Pistons suck, no Wings, U-M was on fire in January)
--Joe Donovan's exit. I would *love* to see the morning daypart numbers. Greg Bowman is so much easier on the ears. Hiring Tom Jordan from San Diego is a questionable move. If the pairing of Greg & Roberta is pulling massive ratings, why change?
Clear Channel should flip 106.7 t Hot Ac to attack WDVD. They can protect wkqi on key age groups this way and help WJLB be no1 on 18-34.
WJLB is considered an Urban buy, not a "P18-34" buy. 94% of WJLB's audience is African American. 87% of WKQI's audience is Caucasian.
Also, WJLB's listenership might not be as heavily concentrated in the 18-34 cell as you may think, although they undoubtedly are a very popular station with African Americans in that age group. The station does well in P35-44 and even P45-54! Their numbers are remarkably consistent from the 18-24 cell all the way to the 45-54 cell; only a slight skew exists in favor of the younger ages.
Marv is correct. Clear Channel was clustered too tightly with WKQI as CHR, WNIC as Hot AC, and WDTW-FM as Rythmic Hot AC (they actually reported to the CHR/Pop panel for a time). As CHR drifted away from Urban/hip-hop, the duplication problem between WKQI and WDTW-FM was only going to worsen. CC was also missing the boat completely on male demo buys. That certainly explains why 106.7 flipped to Classic Rock.
Best way for Clear Channel to defend against the WDVD juggernaut is to make both WKQI and WNIC strong brands with strong content. If they cannot get the job done with these two stations, they aren't going to get the job done -- period. WNIC's music position sits right on the border between Hot AC and Mainstream AC. With WKQI being more CHR/Pop than CHR/Rhythmic these days, I'd say that's about right.