WPLJ K-Love ratings too low to show?

[kevtronics]

In the August 2019 ratings in both New York City and central NJ (Middlesex/Somerset/Union), the rating WPLJ (now K-Love) is listed as "N/A".

96.7 WARW (now Air 1) got a 0.2 in NYC, but it's also still listed as WKLV with another "N/A".

So did WPLJ score too low to make the chart, or is this some kind of glitch?

Otherwise, August was an unusually strong month for WLTW, and the ratings bump that WNEW-FM got from former WPLJ listeners is holding.

 

[TheBigA]

They may have stopped subscribing.

 

[DavidEduardo]

They may have stopped subscribing.

Yes, WPLJ is not listed with an (s) as a subscriber in the August book.

 

[Tibbs4]

It makes sense for them. Why should they subscribe to ratings, when all that matters is listener$?

 

[Syfy]

It makes sense for them. Why should they subscribe to ratings, when all that matters is listener$?

Problem is klove wplj doesnt have many listeners as it is so it would probably be pretty embarrassing for them to publish their ratings.

 

[mnradiofan]

Problem is klove wplj doesnt have many listeners as it is so it would probably be pretty embarrassing for them to publish their ratings.

What makes you think or say that? It's not my cup of tea, but K-Love in other markets pulls in a .5 to 1.0, including Chicago and Washington DC. Nothing to set the market ablaze, but certainly profitable given the limited amount of expenses a repeater station has.

What SHOULD be embarrassing is how Cumulus had run heritage stations into the ground, not only in NY, but in DC, Chicago, etc. As I type this, another heritage station (KFOG) is airing it's final hour of programming, but looking at the history of the station, KFOG was a shell of it's former self already anyway.

 

[Yellow Dog]

NYC is a PPM market

I did a fair share of complaining about the eCBET 'buzzsaw' on WPLJ... I personally don't see how anyone can listen to most of those stations running Nielsen encoders. Everything sounds like it's clanging a metal trash can or there's a metal pipe scraping on concrete... It makes the hairs stand up on the back of my neck. Everyone who hears the eCBET tones by themselves tend to be able to hear it every time they turn on the radio from that point forward.

PPM panelists are usually paid by Nielsen to carry that pager around with them and listen to the radio a certian amount of time per day. It's rigged 100%

 

[DavidEduardo]

Problem is klove wplj doesnt have many listeners as it is so it would probably be pretty embarrassing for them to publish their ratings.

All subscribed station shares are published, no unsubscribed stations are published in the public release data. It is not optional.

Non-commercial stations generally only subscribe if they need data for grant money or big underwriters. EMF has neither; it is pure listener support. They have no need for ratings in most markets as they do no local programming.

And EMF has their own "ratings": the flow of donations with names and addresses.

 

[DavidEduardo]

I did a fair share of complaining about the eCBET 'buzzsaw' on WPLJ... I personally don't see how anyone can listen to most of those stations running Nielsen encoders. Everything sounds like it's clanging a metal trash can or there's a metal pipe scraping on concrete... It makes the hairs stand up on the back of my neck. Everyone who hears the eCBET tones by themselves tend to be able to hear it every time they turn on the radio from that point forward.

The Nielsen encoder is absolutely not detectable as it embeds a "tag" in audio beneath program content in one of a number of small frequency mini-bands.

Some stations try to enhance the injection of the code by using the Telos Alliance Voltair unit, which creates or enhances audio in the encoding frequencies. Turned up too aggressively, it can be noticeable.

The use of the Nielsen enhancements was misunderstood when it was introduced; see how the misconceptions got propagated:

https://www.radioinsights.com/voltair/

PPM panelists are usually paid by Nielsen to carry that pager around with them and listen to the radio a certian amount of time per day. It's rigged 100%

Untrue. Nielsen incentivizes people to carry the meter, whether they listen or not. There are absolutely no requirements for listening.

 

[PTBoardOp94]

Non-commercial stations generally only subscribe if they need data for grant money or big underwriters. EMF has neither; it is pure listener support. They have no need for ratings in most markets as they do no local programming.

I agree in principle, but EMF subscribes to Nielsen ratings in many markets. Including Los Angeles, Chicago, and Atlanta.

But it does seem they have trimmed back on ratings purchases in New York, Indianapolis, Denver and probably others.

 

[luperm]

Problem is klove wplj doesnt have many listeners as it is so it would probably be pretty embarrassing for them to publish their ratings.

If they have no listeners, where is the money coming from that allows them to operate and acquire a formidable nationwide network of radio stations (including in just about every major market)?
I'm not a fan of religious broadcasting, but you can't deny EMF's success. It's truly impressive.

 

[kevtronics]

If they have no listeners, where is the money coming from that allows them to operate and acquire a formidable nationwide network of radio stations (including in just about every major market)?

The Bible Belt -- not liberal coastal cities.

If Southern Evangelicals have no problem donating to mega-churches with pastors who live in mansions and fly around the world in private jets, they can easily be convinced to also donate a few bucks to keep K-Love on the air.

 

[mnradiofan]

The Bible Belt -- not liberal coastal cities.

If Southern Evangelicals have no problem donating to mega-churches with pastors who live in mansions and fly around the world in private jets, they can easily be convinced to also donate a few bucks to keep K-Love on the air.

Where are you getting your information from? What kind of bubble are you living in?

When K-Love had a weak signal in New York, they had over 100k listeners in the NY area. In Chicago, where they still subscribe, they have closer to a million listeners. K-Love is not stupid, they know exactly where their listeners, and money, are coming from. If it was "just" the bible belt, then they wouldn't have spent millions (hundreds of millions, actually) acquiring stations in places like New York, DC, LA, Chicago, etc. The station started in CA, so I think there are fans even in more "liberal" leaning areas.

I get it, it sucks to lose historic stations. But don't blame EMF for that, blame poor corporate ownership that purchased these stations at 20X cash flow, then ran them into the ground until they all sounded the same and brought nothing new to the table. And perhaps the industry can learn from that before we lose more historic stations in other markets (or even in NY). All over America there are stations that have huge legacies, but are hanging on to the success of the past. Once those personalities retire, many of those stations have no "Plan B". Something we have already seen over and over again (look at what happened when Howard Stern left the airwaves, many of his former stations are now different formats because, outside of morning drive they had NOTHING).

If EMF was a failure, they wouldn't have millions of dollars to throw at these stations with no debt load. The Bible Belt probably is a major source of donations, but EMF is still a business, and if it doesn't make financial sense to be in a place, they aren't going to buy. It's just that "financial sense" for them often means breaking even on VERY low expenses (Tower and Power, in most cases).

 

[TheBigA]

All over America there are stations that have huge legacies, but are hanging on to the success of the past. Once those personalities retire, many of those stations have no "Plan B". Something we have already seen over and over again (look at what happened when Howard Stern left the airwaves, many of his former stations are now different formats because, outside of morning drive they had NOTHING).

That's the problem. You talk about "legacy" and "heritage" and both of those things are great for museums. Not so good when you're talking about personal taste and advertising. The problem with WPLJ's legacy and heritage is it all happened mainly in the 80s. Yes you can blame the last owner if you're into blaming someone, but the legacy went away long before the last owner came into the picture. They paid so much for the station because they were buying legacy and heritage that no longer existed. It's like buying an expensive antique that's already rotted and destroyed beyond recognition. What do you do with that? Restore it? The right thing to have done with either WPLJ or WNEW would have been to flip one of them to classic rock at some point in the 90s. That would have preserved the heritage and the legacy. Neither company did that. So both stations are gone. The mistake Cumulus made with a lot of these stations you mentioned is they waited to long to flip them to something else.

 

[kevtronics]

The fastest-growing religion in the U.S. is "none". But the value of radio stations is declining faster than the population of Christians in the U.S., so EMF is making hay while the sun shines. Nothing wrong with that -- and paying zero in taxes sure helps.

 

[CTListener]

If EMF was a failure, they wouldn't have millions of dollars to throw at these stations with no debt load. The Bible Belt probably is a major source of donations, but EMF is still a business, and if it doesn't make financial sense to be in a place, they aren't going to buy. It's just that "financial sense" for them often means breaking even on VERY low expenses (Tower and Power, in most cases).

Although they did apparently consider Hartford a fertile market when they invested in a full-power, full-coverage FM signal there in the form of WCCC. I can also attest to the fact that Connecticut is not the liberal monolith some people see it as. While it's true that Catholicism is the majority religion here, Protestants are a significant presence and every town has Protestant churches. Also, some Catholic churches here are extremely conservative socially and politically -- parishioners of the Polish churches, especially, largely support the government back home in Poland (Duda) and President Trump here.

Actually, I wouldn't be surprised if WCCC has Catholic listeners as well -- there's no hardcore Southern Baptist-style preaching and the music is upbeat and deals with Christian concepts that Catholics and Protestants agree on. Jews (mainly in the suburbs, and a significant presence in only a few), Muslims (not many anywhere), Mormons (ditto) and others, including non-religious, won't listen or give money, but that isn't likely to concern EMF one bit.

BTW, WCCC has not appeared in one ratings release since the purchase. I doubt it's because EMF fears public embarrassment, but I'm sure that won't stop certain wishful non-insiders from believing that.

 

[AbrahamJSimpson]

Problem is klove wplj doesnt have many listeners as it is so it would probably be pretty embarrassing for them to publish their ratings.

I don’t think you understand the way their approach works.

 

[KML0224]

Although they did apparently consider Hartford a fertile market when they invested in a full-power, full-coverage FM signal there in the form of WCCC. I can also attest to the fact that Connecticut is not the liberal monolith some people see it as. While it's true that Catholicism is the majority religion here, Protestants are a significant presence and every town has Protestant churches. Also, some Catholic churches here are extremely conservative socially and politically -- parishioners of the Polish churches, especially, largely support the government back home in Poland (Duda) and President Trump here.

The other religious stations in greater Hartford are WJMJ-FM 88.9 Hartford (Saint Thomas Seminary of Bloomfield) and WIHS-FM 104.9 of Middletown. WJMJ-FM actually plays some A/C music which other A/C stations no longer touch, particularly WRCH-FM 100.5 of New Britain ("Lite 100.5"). They also carry ABC News on the hour and run a syndicated music show with Dick Robinson on weekends. At least three of their jocks all once worked for WDRC-FM 102.9 Hartford, before that station dumped their classic hits format for classic rock (becoming "102.9 The Whale").

I haven't listened to WCCC-FM 106.9 Hartford ever since the switch. I recorded one of their first TOH stations ID that day. I then removed my Walkman's preset soon afterwards.

 

[DavidEduardo]

The Bible Belt -- not liberal coastal cities.

If Southern Evangelicals have no problem donating to mega-churches with pastors who live in mansions and fly around the world in private jets, they can easily be convinced to also donate a few bucks to keep K-Love on the air.

Although already posted by others, EMF uses sound return on investment principles to buy stations. And they are expanding rapidly into areas of music events and other fields. And as they gain listeners, they have added more people to their pastoral staff who will talk with folks who have problems in life and need help taking a first step. In other words, they have a considerable outreach program beyond just the radio signals.

And reading their annual reports, it is obvious that they are able to generate a good level of contributions in every market once the new stations are established and develop a P1 base.

You are free not to be a believer or to not care for their brand of Christianity. But EMF offers a pretty good format for one segment of the audience, and it helps keep a diverse programming spectrum on FM. From a commercial perspective, they don't go after commercial revenue, so in each market there is a better division of market revenues.

 

[DavidEduardo]

I agree in principle, but EMF subscribes to Nielsen ratings in many markets. Including Los Angeles, Chicago, and Atlanta.

But it does seem they have trimmed back on ratings purchases in New York, Indianapolis, Denver and probably others.

They may have taken over contracts from the "old" owner at good rates, or perhaps they want just a couple of markets to see an overview. They don't sell ads, and don't seek underwriting, so there is no need for a book in every market.

Were I at EMF, I'd perhaps subscribe for one station in each kind of market based on region and market size. Probably 6 to 8 total markets nationally.