In article ,
"David Eduardo" wrote:

"Eric F. Richards" wrote in message
...
"David Eduardo" wrote:

Absolutely. All generalizations are false, including this one.
Those listeners along I-25 are transients traveling to and from
cities like Denver. Pueblo does diddly along there, but Denver
booms in.

Interstates are elevated, and mostly clear of obstructions by nature.
The fact is, there is not a listenable signal to any Denver station
much south of Monument, except for sporadic places where height gives
a path into distant locations. The chances of any significant
listening occurring when the signal comes and goes and is
unlistenable on average radios is nil.

No Denver FM has a city grade signal (70 dbu) that gets south of
Larkspur.

70dBu is a pretty serious signal. While that might be the ideal,
you might find that even today's receivers can do well with less.

Nearly all reported listening to FMs occurs inside the 64 dbu
contour. Research by third parties as well as Arbitron itself where
diaries are compared to coverage maps confirms this is a pattern that
has held true for decades.

You may put up with DX-quality signals, but the average listener does
not. This is why AM skywave is not much listened to any mo the
quality is ratty and the reception is inconsistent.

None has a 60 dbu that gets more than 2 to 3 miles to the north of
Monument. None even has a 54 (protected) contour that gets to
Colorado Springs.

Monument Hill casts a great big shadow over the Springs, but you
continue south for another 50 miles and there's Denver again.

Who the heck is going to be checking every 10 or 15 minutes to see if
a Denver stations is DXable? Only someone with an obsession, as
regular listeners just let the seek button pick a better signal with
the same sort of programming and are done with it.

My personal experience differs. But that's okay -- next time I'm
down that way, I'll just tell myself I'm hallucinating the entire
time, or that it's amazing that there's some tropo happening *every
time I'm in that area.*

You are DXing, and putting up with come-and-go signals. Listeners are
not DXers. If the signal is not perfect, they don't listen.

In other words, what they do doesn't reflect reality. Your
"listener or tow [sic]" is probably more like 10 here, 20 here,
5 there, adding up to the hundreds to thousands.

First, there are only a few stations that even get, consistently,
outside their own markets.

By your filtered numbers. Which I simply do not accept as an
accurate reflection of reality. Use them all you want for your
narrow view, but I believe your methodology is *fundamentally*
flawed.

My numbers, again are not filtered. They are not even "mine." They
are Arbitron numbers. Arbitron diaries instruct each participant to
write down everything they listen to, day by day, for a week. They do
not say, "only local staitons" or anything else. Just, "hat did you
hear on the radio." If anyone listened to distant stations in any
measured market, it gets picked up. As I mentioned, 2 people out of
3000 sampled in Phoenix had listened to KFI in the last 12-week
survey period. Since that is not enough listening to project into the
usinverse, it is not in the published printed reportes, but is in the
electroinc reports that stations and ad agencies get.

Everything is measured. But if there is no behaviour of the kind you
want to see, it is not the fault of Arbitron. It is the fact that
people just do not listen to out of market stations any more.

In another response, I mentioned that Casper has, now, 11 stations.
There is no need to put up with bad signals or to wait until after
sunset to listen to the radio. Nearly everything you could want is on
the air there. No need to be a DXer to get the music or talk you
want.

My whole point is that there are several factors that have changed
since the days when families gatered 'round the radio at night to
hear The Lone Ranger on a staion sometimes hundreds of miles away.
First, there are vastly more stations. Second, evenings are no longer
prime time; 6 AM to 7 M 9 is. And, third, most listening is to FM
which seldom gets any usable signal out of each station's home
market, unless it is in the fringes of an adjacent market not far
removed.

CKLW was not "Detroit / Windsor" It was a Windsor station
always, and used "The Motor City" as a euphemistic ID point.

It was a Windsor station, but it always announced as Detroit /
Windsor. You may want to visit some of the many historical pages
on CKLW before you make any claims as to what it did when.

since I am mentioned on the CKLW tribute site as a contributor, I
think I know a bit about the staiton. It's glory years were from the
time it became a "Drake" station in the mid-60's until the early
70's. By then, the FMs in detroit, like WDRQ in 1972, had nocked it
off and it was on a decline. As CHR FMs came on in Toledo, Cleveland,
etc, it died a quick death in those places, too.

As for WHK and WIXY, they had their listeners. WHK targeted a
different market -- country --

WHK was THE Top 40 well into the 60's,a nd then was in a battle with
WIXY until the FMs camy. WGRC (the General Cinema staitons) and WNCR
killed both. CKLW was an afterthought in the 70's in Cleveland.

and WIXY wasn't as polished as CKLW but was vaguely similar in
playlist-type.

the palylistes were pretty much identical, and the style was pretty
much identical, save the looser personality of WIXY.

FM was certainly a factor at
that time -- mid 70s -- but the target audience of CKLW and WIXY
didn't have the money for FM receivers to get WMMS, WGCL, and WWWM.

By the early 70's, there was no price premium to get FM in most
cases. By 1975, FM had more listening in Cleveland than Am, due in
part to the horrible AM signals on all but one of the local stations

(At that time, WCLV was transmitting in quadrophonic and WWWM used
Dolby FM. FM was a player, but for an entirely different level of
income.)

Wrong. FM CHRs were going #1 all over the USA between 1972 and 1974.
Even in places like Birmingham, AL, FM CHRs beat the established AM
VHR and often drove it to a new format. Nearly every AM CHR was
losing before 1975.

You can go through the Arbitron diaries for east Overshoe
(every US county is rated at least once a year) and you will
not find that WLW gets ratings.

Because the listener count doesn't cross a certain threshold.

The threshold is intended to make the results reliable
statistically. One or two mentions could be form someone who
vacationed a day or two out of town.

No. Brenda Ann shared her experiences; I've described mine. Even
you talk about having to discourage on-air talent from
acknowledging someone from out of *your* definition of the market.

Having announcers chatter about anything the local audience cares
nothing about is bad radio. Inside jokes are another one. Announcers
may feel excited about a call from out of the area, but the
listenership does not care about any listener except themselves.
Boring.

Arbitron looks for a pattern of consistent, measurable listening
within the market. If you add up the "outside groundwave" mentions
you get nothing.

"We've adjusted the model to not show any listeners in low-density
regions, and now it tells us definitively that no one is there,
anyway." Nice.

There is no adjustment. Arbitron must, to keep its accreditation, use
accepted statistical practices. In statistics and polling, data which
is not projectable onto a universe is not usable. So there has to be
a minimum level of listening for a station to show up in the printed
Arbitrron list. still, all subscribers (radio and agencies) get the
data that shows that KFI got a share of 0.0 in Phoenix on a cume of
2,300 persons. The fact is, that is so little that no advertiser or
station would ever care... when the #1 station in Phoenix has 100 or
200 times that listening reach.

You know, I trust, that advertisers only buy the very top stations in
their target demographics? No aqdvertiser buys all 50 stations
licensed in the Phoenix Metro... just a few generally do. So no
advertiser is going to pay LA prices to reach Phoenix.

And nearly every East Overshoe has local stations.

Sure. This East Overshoe has one station that broadcasts the local
church services; that one broadcasts the farm report info; the
other is run as a labor of love.

You already stated you are inside the Denver metro. You have dozens
and dozens of local stations. Including KFI.

The metrics for ad buys are based on real listening in the home
market. the software makes no compensation for out of market
coverage.

You can argue in a circle for hours, but you'll still be where you
started. "The market is defined as *here*, and any sales outside
of it don't count. We count 0 sales out of our defined market, so
there's no out-of-market sales."

No, the markets are defined by the OMB, and are based on the old
trading zone concept. Arbitron matches them, usually exactly, but
somethimes in accordance with the coverage of the significant radio
staitons in each market zone. This is because this is what
advertisers want, and radio pays to have Arbitron deliver data to
advertisers and agencies that they can use.

Radio does not drivce advertisers, advertisers drive radio. They play
the song, we dance. In this case, the DX song never gets palyed.

This is just not going to happen, and introducing a fluctuating
variable hurts radio overall as it makes people doubt the medium.

I'm sure that AM radio is truly mysterious and frightening
technology to your advertisers. At least, it is after *you* are
done with them...

Adding a few insifnificant listeners outside the local metro is not
worht anyone's time to consider. Add the fact that this data changes
book to book and it is just considered a curiosity and regarded as
extraneous by ad buyers who are under a mandate to buy media by the
market.

I remember a 10 kw Venezuelan overriding WKYC on 1100 in Shaker
Heights one night. Atmospherics do this on occasion. It is not
normal.

Of course not. That was my point. CKLW's target was the northern
U.S. They covered it, well and consistently.

CKLW's target was Detroit. It got a fringe benefit in Toledo,
Sandusky, etc. Remember, it is directional to protect what was XELO
in Cd. Juarez, Mexico, so the signal mostly went up and east. Most
revenue was daytime, even back then, and was mostly for detroit
(there were other canadians around Thunder Bay, ON, and Montreal, PQ,
on 800 so this thing hardly coverd the northern US as it was
directional mostly to the north.

WABC seemed to have an antenna pattern change that put their
coverage west and south for evening/night broadcasting. They were
as reliable as sunrise.

WABC has never been directional. It is one of the original 1 A clear
channels. In the 60's, under Rick Sklar, they showed up in ratings as
far off as 300 to 400 miles away from NY. Of course, many early Top
40's were widely listened to over as many as several states because
not all cities and towns with radio stations had a top 40, as the
fomar was perceived as being teen intensive and not appealing to many
smaller market direct retail advertisers. .


And CKLW when it had ratings was in an era when AM was bought
differently

...and the "new, improved" method you espouse is soo much better,
right?

Nothing will change the fact that when CKLW changed to top 40 FM was
an insignificant player and there were 40% fewer AMs than there are
today. Using Cleveland as an example, in 1960 the market had 6 viable
signals (850, 1100, 1220, 1260, 1300 and 1420) and two marginal ones,
1490 and 1540. Of the viable onnes, three if not 4 had severe signal
limitations incovering the market, and two more had smaller areas of
missed coverage. Today, the market has 30 stations competing, two
thirds of which are viable. There is no need for outside Am signals
which only penetrate by night when radio is of limited consumer
appeal.

Again, advertisers with an interest outside of the local market
buy advertising in the other markets they care about locally. They
do not use shadow stations to do this, as that is hit and miss,
especially on geography. It is just the way buyers do business,
and radio can not change this. Since it benefits so few stations,
there is no incentive.

So J&R got where they are by advertising in every market across the
country, right?

No, they mostly use direct mailing lists, and ads in specialty
magazines like hifi and stereo mags, comuputer mags and such. they
only use limited radio in thier home town, as they are both a mail
order house and a local retailer depending on walk in business.


For a while, we subscribed to the IE ratings, and tried to use the
add on bonus numbers to sell with to make our stations more
attractive. No way. All we got was a couple of hundred thousand in
extra cost for the book, and no added sales. "We do not buy
Riverside as part of LA for Radio... we buy it separately." It
was not even good as a tie breaker to get an edge on a station
with less than our Riverside delivery.

In other words, the radio industry has trained its regular
advertisers well, so you're not only thinking inside the box, you
managed to nail it shut from the inside. Congrats.

Radio is less than 10% of the total advertising pie. Radio can not
train advertisers to do anything. Advertisers tell radio what they
want, and radio provides it. Advertisers don't want to reach people
over 55? Radio does not design programming for 55+. Radio serves
advertisers. Hell, general Electric has annual revenues that are, for
one company, greater than the total gross income of the entire US
radio industry. Advertisers make the ground rules, and always have.


That's why listeners hold Clear Channel in such high esteem? I
recall reading late last year how people have been flocking in
droves to NPR, looking for something -- *anything* -- worth
listening to. When you've chased your listener base to NPR,
you've accomplished something.

Actually, NPR ratings are downtrending. And most listeners have no
idea of what Clear Channel is... they either like or dislike a
specific station.

Over what time interval? three weeks? three months? one year?
three years?

NPR has had erosion nationally over th elast two to three years.
(ratings are quarterly, so your question indicates your fundamental
ignorance of how radio works), although a couple of stations are up
where the local programming that complements the national NPR stuff
has been very effective. NPR stations are in the top two or three in
DC and SF, but not even in the top 20 in LA, for example.

This has been an interesting thread. One thought touched on in it has
been the idea that the radio advertising market may have been outcome
based to some extent.

I was surveyed once by a local rock FM station that had a top 40 format.
The wanted to know what music format I listened too. Classical music was
not one of the choices. Talk radio was not one of the choices either.
They wanted to know what mix of rock music I favored of older music from
the 80s and 90s and current hits. I told them I was tired of hearing the
old hits and dont ever want to hear them again. The new music was more
interesting but not my preference. She wanted to argue with me about
what I did listened too. The question moved on to if I was to listen to
KXXX what mix would I prefer. Good example of outcome based marketing
dont you think. I didnt fit into their listening survey so they would
make me fit. I just hang up the phone went they call now.

--
Telamon
Ventura, California