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


Since we are talking about AM, and there are no AMs up on a frikkin'
mountain,

Actually, at this point we are talking about the selling of radio in
general.

Since FMs seldom get any coverage outside their own metro are, let alone
ratings, the point is moot.

Only when there are two metros that touch each other and are very close do
you see this at all, and most is A, not FM.

A good example is the Miami FMs... (whatever city in the MSA they "belong
to") where most have a tiny share of listening in West Palm Beach, a
separate market per Arbitron. The shares are so small they are unmarketable
at any price, since they do not represent very many people and are all to
the southern side of the market.

Similarly, the Riverside / San Berdoo market gets coverage by some LA
stations part way into the market geography. Since the IE is a shadow market
and has relatively few stations, a number of the bigger LA FMs show up, as
do a couple of AMS (only two or three LA AMs are listenable there) as the IE
is on the "backside" of the mountain where many of the biggest LA FMs are
grandfathered with superpower (some as much as 100 kw at 5,000 feet AMSL). A
real exception.

This is why there are less than 400 stations in the whole USA that have
ratings outside their home market. There are only about 25 cases where a
station has ratings that are above "half way up the ranker" anywhere in the
USA. So, we are discussing only a handful, at best, of stations that have
competitive listening levels outside the home market.


My experience is that local listeners are FM listeners, unless they
are sports or talk radio. Yes, KOA does very well, but they have a
niche.

Nationally, about 40% of Americans use AM, and about 85% use FM. In some
markets, AM usage is higher, and in others, lower. An example of high AM
usage is San Francisco, where only 3 stations fully cover the metro, all AM,
and no FM does due to terrain. On the other hand, in Washington, DC, AM
usage is much lower due to the horrible signals in the market... even the
all news station is on FM there.

AMs that are successful are either in the news/talk/sports arena, or in the
ethnic/religion/specialty arena. To be one of the first, you must have a
monster signal. To be one of the others, you must be gospel, teaching &
preaching, in a language like Russian, Korean or Kreyol (generally not
Spanish) or be a brand extension, like Radio Disney.

your whole point is very confusing. And no Denver FM covers down
to New Mexico.

Raton Pass. Look it up. I know my state, sir.

Picky. No Denver FM has a city grade signal (70 dbu) that gets south of
Larkspur. 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. Just like I can occasionally DX on inversions San Diego FM stations
in Burbank or get a couple of Phoenix stations on FM in Prescott, there are
no Denver FMs that get anywhere close to NM except on rare and occasional
skip... in fact, all the Denver frequencies are duplicated with closer
operations than Denver at nearly any frequency. At minimum they have
powerful adjacents very close by.

You do know that the ideal AM site is in salt water, right? Lacking that,
it
is in the lowest, flattest, wettest, most organic soil possible. FMs and
TVs
love mountains of the 2000 foot creations of Stainless, but not AMs.

Actually, I do know that. (Better tell Reg Edwards... but I
digress...) ...I also know that AM will fill the holes that FM
stations can't.

And FM covers identically day and night, while most AMs have vastly reduced
night coverage.

But FM, last time I checked, outperformed AM. (No doubt, measuring
the local market only...)

All radio ratings measure all listening, including satellite and internet
streams. Were any distant signals to have any significance, they would show
in the ratings. They do not. The fact is, FM has more listeners in the
average market and has since FM passed AM in listening share in 1978. At
present, the shares are around 80% FM and 20% AM nationally, with
exceptions, all dependent on how good local signals are in the local market.

Again, the reason is that FM covers today's sprawling metros better than
99.5% of AMs (meaning all but maybe 30 AMs in metros do not cover their
market day and night well enough to be pleasant listening). Due to quality,
AMs have gone to talk, but due to coverage, most have been pushed to the
bottom of the stack.

Actually, I picked ones that I 1) personally knew about and 2) would
be common and unambiguous. For example, I didn't include the various
clear sodas -- Pepsi Ice? -- because I don't know if that was a test
market thing that bombed or a full-fledged rollout that bombed.

It was a novelty flavor. These are like the green shakes at McDonalds, done
for a while for novelty and brief sales, and then discontinued. Selling
sodas in disposable rather than reusable bottles has made this viable and it
is done all the time.

But, even if they do get a listener or tow at night outside the Cicny
MSA,
they do not quantify the sales that way. They look at the sales by region
and city and the local ad expenditures to determine effectiveness of the
ad
campaign.

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. And we are talking about maybe a few thousand listeners
outside the normal groundwave coverage for AM and none for FM. Let's take
KFI in LA for a moment... an AM on the best 1-A channel in the USA. If it
gets total listening at night of 200,000 persons in the LA market, and picks
up another 5,000 on skywave listening outside the groundwave coverage, that
is not enough to be significant. It is less than 2% increase, which is
smaller than the margin of error of the whole survey.

Advertisers buy by the market, so that will not change. Advertisers do not
buy stations that are not in the top few in the demographic they are looking
for, so the minor stations will not get bought anyway (that is why they are
ethnic, religious or whatever anyhow).

I gave you a list of stations that have the potential to get a signal
reliably into areas outside their local groundwave coverage. You can add a
few I-B stations like KWKH, KFBK, KGO, WMVP, etc to the list of ones that do
get some, directional, skywave coverage, but after a handful of those, there
are NO stations in the US capable of getting skywave without frequent
interference, etc, to many listeners. The number of stations is so small,
and the listening levels so low that no advertiser is going to look at this
as anything except a tiny bonus to their existing buy providing the station
is even on the buy due tolocal ratings.

You are trying to quantify on a grand scale something that does not
matter:
night DX AM listening.

It doesn't even necessarily have to be night listening, and I do not
view the listener of MW BCB who does so purely for the program content
as "DX." Especially when it doesn't have to be that far. Growing up
in Cleveland, my parents' station was WJR, Detroit and mine was CKLW,
Detroit/Windsor.

The CKLW ratings were, for a while, good in Cleveland because the CHR
stations there were on 1420 and 1260, both horrible AMs in suburban
coverage, both to the east (neither night covers well even to Lyndhurst) and
to the West as well. And in the time CKLW was a factor, FM was not. As soon
as the FCC forced FM to develop, CKLW died in Cleveland, Sandusky, Toledo,
etc.

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

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.
Arbitron looks for a pattern of consistent, measurable listening within the
market. If you add up the "outside groundwave" mentions you get nothing. I
just did for KFI in PHX and Las Vegas and came up with two diaries in
Phoenix and none in Las Vegas. Since each diary is representing
approximately 1000 persons, that means that there are maybe a couple of
thousand people who listened to KFI in the most populated areas that are
skywave accessible... compared to way over a million total listeners in the
market.

This is just not enough for any advertiser to care about. It does not give
measurable impact outside the market, and goes nowhere in satisfying the
needs in the other two markets.

The
problem is, though, that there are a *lot* of East Overshoes out
there. I'll say it again: No one is asking you to advertise East
Overshoe Laundramat; the idea is to be aware of the sales in the local
market that are created by non-local buyers.

And nearly every East Overshoe has local stations. Since advertisers seldom
buy ads on AM at night, and radio at night itself is not much used by
advertisers, there is no gain for advertisers to use speculative,
unsubstantiated data when they usually by with very complex reach and
frequency matrix based systems that determine buys on cost per point in the
target demo. Agencies are not going to rewrite their buying software
toaccomodate a few listeners to a few 1 A AMs that get a couple of
occasional skywave listeners.

So, statistically, it is not a factor even if in
reality one or tow people listen occasionally.

Statistically, your odds of winning the Lottery are 0. The odds of
someone winning the lottery, however, are quite high. But you are
saying that because the odds of any individual winning is 0, the odds
of someone winning must also be 0. It's a statistical fallacy.

The metrics for ad buys are based on real listening in the home market. the
software makes no compensation for out of market coverage. This is just not
going to happen, and introducing a fluctuating variable hurts radio overall
as it makes people doubt the medium. Radio is bought by market at the
station level. Even network or syndicated radio is bought by the total of
the individual markets, even in RADAR (an Arbitron network product).


When you have, for example, 1.6 million listening to KFI in the LA
market,
the fact that maybe 3 or 4 people listened in Needles or Barstow or
Bishop
or somewhere way off in the wilderness is totally insignificant. Does not
make a material change in either KFI or the people who hear ads on KFI.

But that 3 or 4 might be much higher than that, but are pre-filtered
by Arbitron.

There is no filtering. The diary mentions are there to see. I just looked at
them for two markets. the fact is, there are practically none of this type
of listening mentions.

The only "material change" that your advertisers care
about is someone who makes a sale. The guy who owns a Porsche in
Needles certainly isn't going to Fred's Garage in Needles to get it
serviced -- he'll go to where it can be done, in LA. And your Porsche
dealer advertising there might get his interest piqued.

The guy with the Porsche in Needles already knows where to take it. Most
radio advertising is for goods and services that are available in every
market of any size in the US. We are talking Wal-Mart, Bed Bath and Beyond,
Exxon stations, Heinz catsup, coke and Pepsi, Allstate agents, Ford dealers.
People who live in Needles who shop rodeo Drive already know where it is. We
are talking mass market, and the only way to reach most consumers via radio
is by local stations.

And, in most places in the Southwest, Mexican station interference has
made
the usefulness of clears on skywave pretty limited in the last few
decades
(KFI and KNX are unlistenable 150 miles from LA, for example) and in the
Southeast, Cubans and Caribbean stations chew up WSB and WLW and stations
like that most nights of the year... another reason why these stations do
not even try to serve out of market listener groups.

Perhaps -- that's a believable explanation. However, CKLW, targeting
the American audience, had to contend with PJB being a flamethrower on
that same frequency ALSO targeting an American audience.

Actually, TWR on 800 was directional at South America at night. In fact,
form 10 PM to 4 AM EST it was in Portuguese for Brazil. It did not aim at
the USA at all. I have been there and owned a station on 805 in Ecuador that
got hit every night by the directional beam of TWR.

Usually
CKLW won out in the northern states, but I recall one evening of freak
atmospherics where CKLW was overwhelmed by PJB in Cleveland.

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

And CKLW when it had ratings was in an era when AM was bought differently
and when AM was dominant to the extent of being about 95% of all listening.

Except that we do extensive field research on a monumental level.

It matters not a whit if the methodology is flawed. That's something
I'll never see because it's a closely guarded secret.

No, you will never see it. But the fat that there are 40 or so companies
doing radio research for stations should indicate they know a lot about
their listeners.

Irrelevant. Your experience with Quest and the purposes of the survey
were
at odds. Maybe the did not want to know your feelings, just your actual
behaviour... in other words, don't tell me what you feel, tell me what
you
actually did.

The questions they could have asked were, "Have you lost telephone
service in the last year?" or "How many times have you needed to
contact qwest in the past 12 months for loss of telephone service?"
or "Was your telephone service restored within 3 days?" or "Was your
telephone service restored with only one service call placed?"
Feelings aren't measurable in such a survey. The above numbers are.

I have no idea what they were surveying, but it could have been anything. If
they want a service satisfaction survey, they will do it. If they want to
ask about interest in a new service, they will not ask about existing ones
or about satisfaction.


LA ad rates on major stations are in the $1000 to $2000 per spot range.
In
Riverside / San Bernardino, the Inland Empire separate market, the local
stations sell for from $60 to a bit over $100 a spot. There is no way I
can
go in there and offer $2000 spots for the #5 station when the #1 station
sells for $100 a spot. And that is why major metro stations do not sell
in
fringe markets, even if they cover them partly or fully.

(sigh) here we go again. You don't sell ads to a local Riverside /
San Bernardino location; you sell (and track) information regarding an
LA business which may also be of practical use outside of LA. Not to
Riverside, but *anyone* outside of LA. The example I come up with
again and again would be J&R advertising on WABC. J&R is a New York
City store with a national clientele. You should make use of that
fact. (J&R isn't the only one in the known universe with these
features.)

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.

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.

Since advertisers do not care, and can not be persuaded and there are so few
affected markets and stations, this is a non-issue. Even if it made sense,
thousands of advertisers and agencies are not going to change just to pick
up a few extra listeners from a handful of stations. There is no incentive.

Clear Channel and its component parts literally saved AM radio. In fact,
the
name of the company reflects on its first purchase, WOAI in San Antonio,
a
bankrupt AM. They expanded by buying good AMs even in places like Wyoming
and Montana and putting on good talk programming and, for all practical
purposes, creating or significantly contributed to the model that saved
AM.


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.

Oh, I know, Clear Channel will continue to thrive for a while, since
people *tolerate* -- not enjoy -- their product.


Look: You want a local audience? Use a local medium, like FM. We
should have done what Canada did and opened up a new, different band
solely dedicated to digital broadcasting without butchering up the two
BCBs we have. But we didn't. And now, people who complain will be
ignored because they aren't local listeners. But those people who
complain are real, just like your non-local listener base is real.
And you will lose them, along with the 10 people who don't complain
and just tune out.

We did not have them to begin with on 13,300 of the US radio stations. Those
that do do not care, so there is no loss.

In article ,
"David Eduardo" wrote:

"ve3..." wrote in message
oups.com...
I am about 600 miles northeast of WHO Des Moines 1040 and hear them on
skywave until they fade out. I like to listen to Don Thompson's
breakfast program on Sunday morning (7am-8 cst). I find it a delightful
mix of music of the 50's/60's, reminiscences of Hollywood, and pleasant
talk. I have to report that in the introduction, Don greeted listeners
from COAST to COAST and metioned a few towns around the country.
Horrors! Heresy! Why is this station greeting dx'ers who won't show up
on their ratings book. Are they mad?

It is really hard to keep talent from wanting to mention distant listeners,
and it does add a "bigness" if not overdone. Essentially, it is a fallback
to decades past when there were fewer stations in more rual areas and folks
had to listen to distant signals.

WHO, like regional signals such as WMT, WNAX, KFYR and KFGO, used to be huge
billing stations based on thier agricultural coverage. As the owner operated
family farm dwindled, and farmers could get weather and commodity prices on
pagers and cell phones, agribusiness advertising has fallen about 90% from
the 60's.

So you are hearing the end of an era on one of the few 1-A stations that has
enormous groundwave coverage (due to conductivity in the prairie states).
Few other stations do this or care. And, I believe, WHO was always the
smallest of the 1-A clear channels in terms of listenership and revenues.

Remember, there are only a handful of stations with as much protection as
WHO. 640, 650, 660, 670, 700, 720, 750, 760, 770, 780, 820, 830, 840, 870,
880,890, 1020, 1030, 1040, 1100, 1120, 1160, 1180, 1200 and 1210 are all
there are vs. nearly 5000 AMs that can not provide regular, reliable skywave
today.

Eduardo says profit
maximize...don't let a cost escape your eyes. WHO is fading out early
these days but I did note two commercials: one for a function at the
Iowa State Fairgrounds and another announcing a tour of the Canadian
maritimes. Whoda thunk it? A station not only greeting am dx'ers but
encouraging them.

If I am not mistaken, the IA state fair takes place within the groundwave
coverage area of WHO, and a tour to visit the maritimes would be directed at
WHO listeners who want to travel to new places, not to listeners in the
Maritimes (where WHO can rarely be heard, even by DXers with excellent
equipment).

With reference to CFRX. They use a Harris 1kw transmitter and I
would guess that the electric cost would be about $100 a month. They
also have an active support group that handles QSL's.

It is nice that they get support. I had an SW license years ago and truned
it in as there was no way I could afford to keep it running.

WBCQ and WWCR seem to be making a go of it. Ever consider taking another
stab at a short wave station?

--
Telamon
Ventura, California

"Telamon" wrote in message
...

WBCQ and WWCR seem to be making a go of it. Ever consider taking another
stab at a short wave station?

The license I owned was for a Tropical Band facility linked to HCSP1, 595
kHz, which I moved form San Pedro de Amaguaña, Pichincha, Ecuador in 1967.
After debating what to do with with the SW facility, we decided to put the
transmitter in a landfill after stripping it of parts, and turn the license
in.

If I had to deal with the kind of clients that are on WWCR and WBCQ, I would
rather quit and study for the priesthood.

In article ,
"David Eduardo" wrote:

"Telamon" wrote in message
...

WBCQ and WWCR seem to be making a go of it. Ever consider taking another
stab at a short wave station?

The license I owned was for a Tropical Band facility linked to HCSP1, 595
kHz, which I moved form San Pedro de Amaguaña, Pichincha, Ecuador in 1967.
After debating what to do with with the SW facility, we decided to put the
transmitter in a landfill after stripping it of parts, and turn the license
in.

If I had to deal with the kind of clients that are on WWCR and WBCQ, I would
rather quit and study for the priesthood.

That's a pretty funny response. I had a good laugh.

I would like to think (dream) that a commercial type short wave station
of some type would have a chance of being financially sustainable
offering programming not so repulsive to you.

--
Telamon
Ventura, California

"Brenda Ann" wrote:


"David Eduardo" wrote in message
et...
Only those stations, like KOA, will be fully
competitive because they cover the market. the rest willhave to figure out
niche or brokered options to survive.


Just as an aside, when I was 19 and living in Casper, WY, there was no local
station that I could stand to listen to for more than a few minutes at a
time. I worked for the local CATV company as an installer. Their trucks had
no radios in them, so I was stuck with bringing my own. What I could afford
was an old off brand 6 transistor pocket radio that I could leave on the
dashboard as I drove around. My station of choice as I went about my
workday? KOA. Loud and clear. Great daytime coverage, that.



Doesn't matter -- David says you don't exist. :-)

--
Eric F. Richards

"This book reads like a headache on paper."
http://www.cnn.com/2001/CAREER/readi...one/index.html

"Eric F. Richards" wrote in message
...
"Brenda Ann" wrote:


"David Eduardo" wrote in message
et...
Only those stations, like KOA, will be fully
competitive because they cover the market. the rest willhave to figure
out
niche or brokered options to survive.


Just as an aside, when I was 19 and living in Casper, WY, there was no
local
station that I could stand to listen to for more than a few minutes at a
time. I worked for the local CATV company as an installer. Their trucks
had
no radios in them, so I was stuck with bringing my own. What I could
afford
was an old off brand 6 transistor pocket radio that I could leave on the
dashboard as I drove around. My station of choice as I went about my
workday? KOA. Loud and clear. Great daytime coverage, that.



Doesn't matter -- David says you don't exist. :-)

That is not skywave coverage, as Brenda Ann mentioned. Today, with computer
noise, ignition noise, dimmers, and all manner of other items, the daytime
coverage that was useful in the 60's is significantly reduced by RFI.

"Eric F. Richards" wrote in message
...
"Brenda Ann" wrote:


"David Eduardo" wrote in message
et...
Only those stations, like KOA, will be fully
competitive because they cover the market. the rest willhave to figure
out
niche or brokered options to survive.


Just as an aside, when I was 19 and living in Casper, WY, there was no
local
station that I could stand to listen to for more than a few minutes at a
time. I worked for the local CATV company as an installer. Their trucks
had
no radios in them, so I was stuck with bringing my own. What I could
afford
was an old off brand 6 transistor pocket radio that I could leave on the
dashboard as I drove around. My station of choice as I went about my
workday? KOA. Loud and clear. Great daytime coverage, that.



Doesn't matter -- David says you don't exist. :-)

Oh, in 1964 Casper had 3 AM stations, two of which were class IV's and one
was a daytimer. Today, it has 4 AMs, one a 50 kw station, and 11 FMs, 6 of
which are 100,000 watters. There is relatively no need for listening to
distant signals, especially since the 50 kw station carries most of the same
programs as KOA in Denver.

"David Eduardo" wrote:


your whole point is very confusing. And no Denver FM covers down
to New Mexico.

Raton Pass. Look it up. I know my state, sir.

Picky.

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.

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.

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.

Just like I can occasionally DX on inversions San Diego FM stations
in Burbank or get a couple of Phoenix stations on FM in Prescott, there are
no Denver FMs that get anywhere close to NM except on rare and occasional
skip... in fact, all the Denver frequencies are duplicated with closer
operations than Denver at nearly any frequency. At minimum they have
powerful adjacents very close by.

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.*



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.


It doesn't even necessarily have to be night listening, and I do not
view the listener of MW BCB who does so purely for the program content
as "DX." Especially when it doesn't have to be that far. Growing up
in Cleveland, my parents' station was WJR, Detroit and mine was CKLW,
Detroit/Windsor.

The CKLW ratings were, for a while, good in Cleveland because the CHR
stations there were on 1420 and 1260, both horrible AMs in suburban
coverage, both to the east (neither night covers well even to Lyndhurst) and
to the West as well. And in the time CKLW was a factor, FM was not. As soon
as the FCC forced FM to develop, CKLW died in Cleveland, Sandusky, Toledo,
etc.

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.

As for WHK and WIXY, they had their listeners. WHK targeted a
different market -- country -- and WIXY wasn't as polished as CKLW but
was vaguely similar in playlist-type. 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.
(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.)


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.

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.


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.

But they have no useful information. The East Overshoe *I* live in
has no local stations. None. Nada. The previous owners of my house,
non-techies by any measure, had some substantial FM antennas on the
house to get their stations. The neighbors do, too.


So, statistically, it is not a factor even if in
reality one or tow people listen occasionally.

Statistically, your odds of winning the Lottery are 0. The odds of
someone winning the lottery, however, are quite high. But you are
saying that because the odds of any individual winning is 0, the odds
of someone winning must also be 0. It's a statistical fallacy.

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."

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...

Perhaps -- that's a believable explanation. However, CKLW, targeting
the American audience, had to contend with PJB being a flamethrower on
that same frequency ALSO targeting an American audience.

Actually, TWR on 800 was directional at South America at night. In fact,
form 10 PM to 4 AM EST it was in Portuguese for Brazil. It did not aim at
the USA at all. I have been there and owned a station on 805 in Ecuador that
got hit every night by the directional beam of TWR.

Usually
CKLW won out in the northern states, but I recall one evening of freak
atmospherics where CKLW was overwhelmed by PJB in Cleveland.

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.

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.


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?


I have no idea what they were surveying, but it could have been anything. If
they want a service satisfaction survey, they will do it. If they want to
ask about interest in a new service, they will not ask about existing ones
or about satisfaction.

IIRC, it was after Qwest bought US-west and found out that they
inherited all the record fines and customer dissatisfaction. I don't
know for sure. But the questions were irrelevent, truly. I took the
survey and laughed about it for a long time.


(sigh) here we go again. You don't sell ads to a local Riverside /
San Bernardino location; you sell (and track) information regarding an
LA business which may also be of practical use outside of LA. Not to
Riverside, but *anyone* outside of LA. The example I come up with
again and again would be J&R advertising on WABC. J&R is a New York
City store with a national clientele. You should make use of that
fact. (J&R isn't the only one in the known universe with these
features.)

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?


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.


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?


--
Eric F. Richards

"This book reads like a headache on paper."
http://www.cnn.com/2001/CAREER/readi...one/index.html

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

"Telamon" wrote in message
...

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.

There is lots of bad research in all fields. the fact that the station
identified itself is a good clue... introducing the name of the client
creates respondent bias that is capable of ruining the responses.

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.

It sounds like they were, very badly, trying to qualify respondents for a
phone call out music test. In such cases, only certain combinations of
stations are of interest, and screening does occur. This sounds like they
did not know how to do this right.

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.

Generally, this only works if they play you mix samples, as there has to be
a common ground to evaluate all responses against. Usually, a variety of
"pods" representing a mix will be played, and the respondent scores them on
a scale.