WCBS AM Moving Further Away From News?

[Gregg.]

I understand the desire to be strong in the 25-54 demo. But many of the highest revenue stations are older than that demo and still bring in the money. In talk and news, you can run many more spots. David mentioned the other day that KFI is Los Angeles' #3 station in revenue. Yet it's no where among the top 25-54 stations.

For music formats, absolutely you have to be strong in one of the big demos, 25-54, 18-49 and 18-34. But that's not as true for spoken work formats because you don't have to limit commercial minutes like so many music stations do. In NYC, many of the FM music stations, such as Lite and WCBS-FM run no commercials in the hour or hours after morning drive to stay competitive. And when they do run spots, how many can they run per hour? 10 minutes? 11 or 12? That's about the max.

 

[TheBigA]

I understand the desire to be strong in the 25-54 demo. But many of the highest revenue stations are older than that demo and still bring in the money.

On the other hand, they're very cost-intensive. You need a lot of staff to pull off all-news, and so the margin isn't very good.

 

[DavidEduardo]

Even in the two markets where all news is top rated, DC and SF, WTOP is 5th in 25-54 and most of that is 45-54, and KCBS isn't in the Top 10 at all 25-54.

But WTOP is the highest billing station in the US, and maybe in the world. It’s format reaches the “right” people in DC.

 

[TheBigA]

But WTOP is the highest billing station in the US, and maybe in the world. It’s format reaches the “right” people in DC.

Or the "right older" people, as the case may be.

As I said in post 62, it's also a very expensive format. So while it bills well, not all of that billing is profit,

 

[DavidEduardo]

Or the "right older" people, as the case may be.

As I said in post 62, it's also a very expensive format. So while it bills well, not all of that billing is profit,

But I’ll betcha’ that WTOP has the highest net profit of any DC station by far.