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WKHX Beats The Bull

T

TheBigA

That sound you heard today was the thud of The Bull dropping to a 2 share, allowing WKHX to win the country war for the first time since 2018.

To be fair, it's the Holiday book, a time when country stations tend to drop. But this time, only one did. Here are the rest of the ratings:

ratings.radio-online.com

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Looking at who went up and who went down... do Atlanta news/talk listeners flock to all-Christmas music every year? I don't think I remember that...
 
PTBoardOp94 said:
Looking at who went up and who went down... do Atlanta news/talk listeners flock to all-Christmas music every year? I don't think I remember that...
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Not that I recall. Not only News and Talk but (almost) anything spoken word, including the 2 Sports stations. Yes, the World Series gave The Fan a nice bounce, but their numbers have been consistently higher than in the past 2 months. WSB's and the Sports stations' numbers are puzzling, given WSB airs Georgia Football and the Sports stations certainly devoted a lot of time to it.

The Holiday report is considered a throwaway by ad agencies. Also, they tend to average multiple months to determine buys. Even so, the numbers for this and last month look a little strange.

And a family wearing the People Meter must have made multiple trips to Athens. WUGA showed up!
 
It surprises me that Cumulus is able to beat iHeart with two formats they have generally have success with in their sleep - country and CHR. If Q didn’t have such a popular morning show I wonder how they would do compared to Power.

Interesting to see if 101-Five beating the Bull is a fluke or a trend.
 
Interestingly the tiny 96.7 WBZW signal achieved a full 1.0 share due in no small part to being "Christmas 96.7" I am certain this station's numbers will plummet back to near zero in the next book. Meanwhile WBZY only got an 0.5.

I know iHeart does not want to abandon the country format war, but just how much better would an AC perform on 94.9? I just find it difficult to believe no one sees value in a full-on AC station in this market. But as I mentioned before, all the entrenchment in other format wars taking place on the ATL dial does not leave any vacancy to try something different.
 
Lotologist492 said:
Interestingly the tiny 96.7 WBZW signal achieved a full 1.0 share due in no small part to being "Christmas 96.7" I am certain this station's numbers will plummet back to near zero in the next book. Meanwhile WBZY only got an 0.5.

I know iHeart does not want to abandon the country format war, but just how much better would an AC perform on 94.9? I just find it difficult to believe no one sees value in a full-on AC station in this market. But as I mentioned before, all the entrenchment in other format wars taking place on the ATL dial does not leave any vacancy to try something different.
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I believe The Bull is part of iHeart’s national strategy for the country format. It’s not common for iHeart to give up on a country station, especially in a top market where there’s a competitor they’ve come close to knocking over and have passed multiple times.

Had The Bull not come on the scene, 101-Five would probably still be Kicks 101.5 and in at least the 3’s. The overall numbers for 94.9 may not be great but I think it’s in a situation of not doing an amazing job ratings wise yet too successful for iHeart to risk blowing up for a new format and lose a country station in a top 10 market in the SE.

IMO if there’s any frequency to watch it’s 105.7.
 
Lotologist492 said:
Interestingly the tiny 96.7 WBZW signal achieved a full 1.0 share due in no small part to being "Christmas 96.7" I am certain this station's numbers will plummet back to near zero in the next book. Meanwhile WBZY only got an 0.5.

I know iHeart does not want to abandon the country format war, but just how much better would an AC perform on 94.9? I just find it difficult to believe no one sees value in a full-on AC station in this market. But as I mentioned before, all the entrenchment in other format wars taking place on the ATL dial does not leave any vacancy to try something different.
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I still consider B98.5 to be an AC station although they share some characteristics with Hot AC including Recurrents and some Rhythmic current product. But they also play AC songs from the 80's and 90's.
 
101tm said:
I believe The Bull is part of iHeart’s national strategy for the country format. It’s not common for iHeart to give up on a country station, especially in a top market where there’s a competitor they’ve come close to knocking over and have passed multiple times.
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I agree with you. Also, keep in mind the market has so many stations going after what is essentially the same demo, the AC demo: Star 94, Power 96-1, B98.5, Q99-7, The Fish. Adding an AC just would not work.
 
RoddyFreeman said:
I agree with you. Also, keep in mind the market has so many stations going after what is essentially the same demo, the AC demo: Star 94, Power 96-1, B98.5, Q99-7, The Fish. Adding an AC just would not work.
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I always enjoyed listening to Peach and even Lite driving in GA. I don’t remember the numbers when they flipped, but I don’t think they were underperforming as much as then-Clear Channel wanted a country station in Atlanta. At the time, both 101.5 and 106.7 were still country so it became a 2 against 1 battle for a couple of years.

The market is so unique in the fact there’s a COMMERCIAL contemporary Christian station that does well, then Star; neither of which are mainstream AC, nor is even B98.5 IMO. B98.5 is sort of a “modern AC” at this point bordering on a Hot AC format. I’m not sure why they don’t feel the mainstream AC format that is successful in most other markets will work, but what they’re doing now works so if it ain’t broke, don’t fix it. B98.5 segued away from the more typical AC format when they were trying to fight off a Hot AC Star and adult leaning Q100.

Atlanta has a young leaning AC with B98.5, Star and Fish taking a lot of the AC audience, and other factors. Plus, the ethnic composition of the market makes it more difficult for the market to support a mainstream AC in addition to all of this. On paper it makes sense but when you break it down it’s pretty obvious. I could see classic hits being a more viable option than a mainstream AC.

Keep in mind iHeart had the option to take every other signal in the cluster AC had they wanted. The Bull is the oldest format in the cluster. They could have multiple times with 105.7, 96.7 (multiple times), 105.3 (awful signal for AC) and 96.1 a decade ago. Audacy could have taken Star mainstream AC. There’s a reason nobody is taking up mainstream AC or even classic hits which are the biggest format holes. I hate it, but it’s just the unfortunate truth.

It’s a shame when all news failed Cumulus didn’t take 106.7 back to classic hits, it may have been a success and may not be K-Love now. The largely canned AGH format didn’t do terribly considering it was on a low budget.
 
Atlanta's aversion to 1980s pop is certainly quite strange to me, given that most other markets have a Classic Hits and/or a traditional AC playing that music and doing well with it. While WBZY would thereoetically be a good signal for either The Lake or a pure Classic Hits format due to its good coverage of the northern suburbs, but given complaints on this board in the past over its signal in downtown/midtown, it may not be the best idea to put a format like Adult Hits or Classic Hits that's meant for at work listening on a signal that has trouble perpetrating buildings in downtown/midtown. Those complaints were quite awhile ago when it was still WiLD, maybe things have changed since then?
 
I don’t think the market could support a mainstream AC, but I don’t think classic hits viability should be ruled out. It may not be a big performer like it is in other markets, but considering 106.7 was able to get a 3 and some change with it on a shoestring budget as well as 97.1’s massive success tells me there’s potential. It’s just a case of nobody really wanting to budge right now IMO.

Audacy has a ton of classic hits stations in big markets. Are they content with 94.1’s performance? iHeart has also been investing in the format, 105.7? Those seem like the most likely options, I would say 100.5 but cumulus seems content to let it dwell in the ratings basement.

Urban is such a big deal in Atlanta due to its history and demographic makeup that I find it extremely unlikely any of those stations (definitely not Urban One’s) ever change which takes up a significant portion of real estate on the dial so there really aren’t a ton of frequencies for non-urban formats unless V103 completely collapses or iHeart doesn’t like how 105.3 is performing, but I don’t see 105.3 changing, no other format really fits that signal well. AC or classic hits wouldn’t.
 
Adult Hits would thread the needle nicely.

As far as the country battle is concerned, absolutely no conclusions should be drawn based on the Holiday survey period or any single survey period in general. The Holiday survey period is generally regarded as an outlier in any event.

Good point was made earlier that Contemporary Christian AC's popularity in Greater Atlanta could make it more difficult for an older-skewing secular AC to thrive. Is that an absolute guarantee? No. The two formats co-exist quite nicely in Dallas-Ft. Worth, for example.
 
I've always heard that Atlanta is considered a "young" market and Millennial/GenZ-heavy; is that really the case? Is that what is "preventing" a true classic hits station from entering the market?

But then there's this trend: Music Radio: A Kingdom of Gold - Radio Ink

Can someone explain what the difference is between "classic hits" and "adult hits"? I thought the terms, along with "variety hits", were synonymous. Or does Adult Hits lean more soft/AC gold-ish, and Variety Hits has a deeper playlist (e.g., Jack and most of the other "name" stations)?

Interestingly, this article provides a strong hint as to why Bull+101.5 and Rock100.5 are not doing especially well, as well as why mainstream AC isn't getting much interest.

The fact that Fish plays music that, musically, is mainstream AC might be what is plugging that format hole, in addition to that demo already being super-served in the market. And in a specific format that is nationally doing well.
 
jabba17 said:
Can someone explain what the difference is between "classic hits" and "adult hits"? I thought the terms, along with "variety hits", were synonymous.
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Classic hits is pop-oriented 80s-90s with hosts. Adult hits is AOR hits from the 80s-90s with no hosts. So The River is a hybrid.
 
jabba17 said:
I've always heard that Atlanta is considered a "young" market and Millennial/GenZ-heavy; is that really the case? Is that what is "preventing" a true classic hits station from entering the market?
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San Diego and Denver are relatively young, but Classic Hits does well there, certainly enough to break even.

The problem is that Atlanta may have more segregated tastes (or at least that's what it seems like). If you listen to classic rock, you are unlikely to listen to R&B or pop, and vice versa.

jabba17 said:
Can someone explain what the difference is between "classic hits" and "adult hits"? I thought the terms, along with "variety hits", were synonymous. Or does Adult Hits lean more soft/AC gold-ish, and Variety Hits has a deeper playlist (e.g., Jack and most of the other "name" stations)?
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Rarely does an adult hits station lean towards Soft AC, if ever. Adult Hits stations are more often than not rock-leaning. Compare WCBS, WOGL, and WOCL to the likes of KKHH and WSMW.
 
Adult Hits combines the standard '70s/'80s Classic Rock with Alternative golds from the '90s and '00s, but throws in some pop/rhythm songs as well. Songs range from the '70s through a couple of years ago. Most Adult Hits stations are rock leaning, but some are pop friendly. From the few times I've listened, The Lake on WUBL-HD2 is pretty pop friendly (although I'll admit it's been awhile), and the aforementioned KKHH in Houston had a slight pop lean until the past couple of months, which I discussed in the Houston board.

Classic Hits plays top 40 hits from the mid to late '70s through the '90s, with most stations in the format being pop oriented.

Both formats are focused on the '80s, but the '80s focus is much stronger on Classic Hits.
 
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