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D Peter Maus wrote:
Eric F. Richards wrote: [...] Actually, what I've gotten from this discussion is that even if the tracking methods -- 800 numbers, "Mention you heard it here on...," etc. have all shown that there are listeners all beyond the target areas. What happens is that the sales department doesn't like data that doesn't fit their assumptions, and dismisses it out of hand. Actually, it's a lot less sinister than that. It's that there are not sufficient numbers of them to be saleable to advertisers. The fact is that few people actually listen to any given station out of the local coverage area. Skywave listening is still going on, but not in saleable numbers. There is no mechanism for selling a widely scattered irregular, unmeasured audience. For an audience to be saleable, it needs to be measured, and fall in to the correct demographic, psychographic, and geographic areas. A zip code with less than 100 listeners, is statistically zero. A zip code with an unreliable signal is of no value. Believe me, if the numbers supported it, WLS would have a sales office in Shreveport, Louisiana. But the only one regularly listening to WLS in Shreveport, was me, in 1984. There were a half dozen of my friend in St Louis, who listened to WLS. Most of them were in Radio. Most would prefer to listen to KXOK. The signal was stronger, clearer, and more reliable. Even in the 60's there only pockets of listeners to skywave activity. Widely scattered, occasional listeners are of no statistical presence. And not saleable. But that still misses the point. The idea is not to target Shreveport, but to sell to a company that can target Shreveport, Montgomery, Pensacola, Ft. Walton Beach, Huntsville, Birmingham, and, yes, those of us like me in East Overshoe that just *might* be looking for a reliable mail-order company in a large city that has the SLR I'm looking for, because there are no local places to go. Again, the idea isn't to sell pizza from Chicago to Huntsville. Or, to sell Huntsville pizza on a Chicago radio station. The idea is that there are advertisers who appeal to any location in a large geographic area, such as J&R -- or any other business that sells mail-order -- and put their ads on the air. I wouldn't be surprised if the 100 here and the 50 there over ALL of the skywave coverage area added up to between 5 and 10% of your listener area. Would *you* want to tell the PD that the latest Arbitrons showed a 5% drop in listenership in the evening? But that is what you are doing -- assuming that the 5% is statistically insignificant because you are looking at it in terms of listener density per geographical unit. ....and its not like those listeners are costing you extra, in terms of station expenses -- you aren't increasing power for the benefit of those 5% -- you would, however, be selling to them an ad that is not targeted to a geographic area. The bottom line is that there's a bottom line. And anything that can't materially affect it is not considered. But your model is flawed. It assumes that a low geographic listener density cannot be sold to, but that's only true for greographic-sensitive products, like pizza and the local bar or Olive Garden. If that model was used on network television, there'd be no network TV ads, but there are. And somehow, network TV muddles on. That's the nature of Radio in the US. It's always about the money. In this case, there's money to be made, even money being made, and it is ignored. You said yourself, earlier, that if I call in from East Overshoe and buy, say, that $1500 SLR, and say, "I heard it on WABC," they'll throw the data out rather than count it, because, *by itself*, it's statistically insignificant. ....except that there are 100 sales thrown out that way, and they are as an aggregate, statistically significant. All the East Overshoes don't get their own pie slice, but put into the "Other -- Skywave" slice, they are pretty big. People are willing to do business cross country. And advertisers buy national radio. But radio is SOLD according to local numbers. And that is where the model is flawed. Skywave numbers are not statistically present, nor practically operable. Literally, to few, to far between to be useful. ....and I'm saying they are, but you'll never know selling pizza. But if you sell to a company that can take advantage of those distant areas, they will. How many Hallicrafters radios would have been sold if they only advertised in Chicago newspapers? Now, say you have listeners 400 miles away, well out of the groundwave, and well into skywave. How many do you expect there to be in any give zip code? You don't. But if the local survivalist is the one with the program, you sell the emergency preparedness web sites, Honda generators, and enough colloidal silver to turn 'em all blue. Survivalists don't like the city much, anyway. Substitute "local survivalist" with "Art Bell" if you need a more believable scenereo. 10? 100? If the conversion ratio of sales to impressions is 1 in 10, that means to buy that station, one could expect between 1 and 10 sales to result from a given period's advertising. 1 in 10 is very optimistic. So,the cost/benefit ratio is too high for that buy. Now in the case of a mail order business such as, taking your example, J&R, yes a clear channel station could produce a few sales here and there though skywave listening, but consider, that the numbers, again, are small compared to the local audience. And it's the size and listening frequency of the local audience that sets the rate for the J&R buy. Again, there is no statistical benefit to including the skywave listener. Making any measurement of the skywave audience prohibitively expensive. Either way, they don't matter in the real world of Radio. Because they produce no revenue enhancement. ....that your model will measure. If it doesn't fit the model it's thrown out, because the model doesn't reflect it. You aren't spending extra dollars to get the signal to East Overshoe, it's just there. Now that it is there, put something out there that will be available and useful to any and all the East Overshoes out there, no matter where they happen to be. Leave the zipcodes out of it, unless you start binning all the zipcodes from your skywave listeners according to the demographics they represent. You have one, here, two there, five here, one over thar, all of which happen to be middle class males 18-45 and add up to 100 sales. Not saleable? -- Eric F. Richards "Nature abhors a vacuum tube." -- Myron Glass, often attributed to J. R. Pierce, Bell Labs, c. 1940 |
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1. A curious interpretation. Even the CKLW web page says,"the Role of
the Canadian Radio and Television Comission (CRTC) in killing the station." .....1968 RKO/General sells the station to comply with CRTC ownership regulations .....1971 CRTC 30% Canadian content regulations hurt programming The CKLW affair was a cause celebre at the time and has generated many websites. The quote was taken from www.thebig8.net/. CKLW coverage included Toledo and Cleveland as well as Windsor/Detroit. 2. Do the CFRB engineers pay the electric bill or rent? I am sure that this comes from the company and shows that total profit maximization is moderated by some sense of public service. 3. I notice that WHO, Des Moines Iowa, (50kw) (1040) is proud of its new webcasting service and likes to read reports from far-away places. Des Moines is not a noisy place and the few listeners in the city who might be helped would not justify the expense. There are hundreds of stations webcasting now. Are they all trying to fill in noisy spots in their primary area? All three examples are of stations that are extending their coverage beyond their trading area. Why do they do this? Is the business changing? |
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"Eric F. Richards" wrote in message ... I wouldn't be surprised if the 100 here and the 50 there over ALL of the skywave coverage area added up to between 5 and 10% of your listener area. Would *you* want to tell the PD that the latest Arbitrons showed a 5% drop in listenership in the evening? Arbitron does not measure the skywave coverage area of the few AMs that get any extended skywave coverage. It measures market by market the Metropolitan Statistical Area or a similar definition adapted to the radio market. Any station from outside the market area that gets listening could show up in a distant market's Arbitron... but they don't. Out of home market Am listening in the US is almost always in a contiguous market... like Riverside listening to LA staitons or Flint listening to Detroit stations. Radio listening at night is very low. Less than a third of the daytime listening levels, and more like a quarter for AM. So 5% of nothing is nothing. Advertisers seldom ask for spots after 7 PM, so most of what you hear is bonus or freebe spots. But that is what you are doing -- assuming that the 5% is statistically insignificant because you are looking at it in terms of listener density per geographical unit. We are looking for listening in our home market. I am with a station that is #1 in LA, and is top 5 in Riverside. Riverside is a separate market, and we do not make a cent off it. So we do not care, do not promote in Riverside, do remotes in Riverside or pay attention to Riverside, even though we are a top 5 station out there. And this is with an FM... AMs care even less. ...and its not like those listeners are costing you extra, in terms of station expenses -- you aren't increasing power for the benefit of those 5% -- you would, however, be selling to them an ad that is not targeted to a geographic area. Nobody cares. If an advertiser wants listeners in Shreeveport, there are 25 stations to pick from that actually have ratings there. Why pay Chicago rates to reach Shreeveport when the city has its own successful media? If that model was used on network television, there'd be no network TV ads, but there are. And somehow, network TV muddles on. It is the same as cable. They are sold natinally based on reach and cost per national point. Radio is sold by the market, not by the country. People are willing to do business cross country. And advertisers buy national radio. But radio is SOLD according to local numbers. And that is where the model is flawed. There is no model as AM stations do not get any significant listening outside their gvroundwave coverage area, and night radio is low listening level at best and not bought by most advertisers. Mainly, distant stations do not have listeners outside thier groundwave areas in significant quantities for an advertiser to justify paying to reach them. How many Hallicrafters radios would have been sold if they only advertised in Chicago newspapers? Hallicrafters went broke. this is because long distance reception is not of interest any more, especially on AM medium wave. |
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"ve3..." wrote in message oups.com... 1. A curious interpretation. Even the CKLW web page says,"the Role of the Canadian Radio and Television Comission (CRTC) in killing the station." ....1968 RKO/General sells the station to comply with CRTC ownership regulations ....1971 CRTC 30% Canadian content regulations hurt programming The CKLW affair was a cause celebre at the time and has generated many websites. The quote was taken from www.thebig8.net/. CKLW coverage included Toledo and Cleveland as well as Windsor/Detroit. CKLW was not specifically called on to uniquely change programming. CanCon affected all stations alike, and ownership rule chages did as well. It was just that CKLW was in a position to have benefitted extremely from the pre-rule change situation. Moswtly, CKLW dies as The Big 8 due to the death of AM as a music band. 2. Do the CFRB engineers pay the electric bill or rent? I am sure that this comes from the company and shows that total profit maximization is moderated by some sense of public service. They have a site where the Am is located, no cost, the transmitter uses less energy than the light in the parking lot, and it just goes on and on. At some point, the people interested in keeping it running will tire and it will be turned off. 3. I notice that WHO, Des Moines Iowa, (50kw) (1040) is proud of its new webcasting service and likes to read reports from far-away places. Des Moines is not a noisy place and the few listeners in the city who might be helped would not justify the expense. There are hundreds of stations webcasting now. Are they all trying to fill in noisy spots in their primary area? Yes. There is no revenue model for stations to get any revenue from anything except locally reported listening. In fact, one of the reasons some stations give is to also serve local residents who may be in a radio survey whyle they are on a short trip or travelling out of the area. It is 100% about local. All three examples are of stations that are extending their coverage beyond their trading area. Why do they do this? Is the business changing? No. webcasting is about giving a different local source for listening to fill in for bad big building and shadow area reception. |
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"David Eduardo" wrote:
We are looking for listening in our home market. I am with a station that is #1 in LA, and is top 5 in Riverside. Riverside is a separate market, and we do not make a cent off it. I'm sure that if you cared to track it, you would find that you made quite a bit of money there. But you don't because your model tells you that the world ends at the edge of LA. It doesn't, though, and a smart advertiser would take advantage of that even if you are stubbornly unwilling to accept that radio waves go beyond LA and that people beyond LA -- in your own words, even though we are a top 5 station out there they just might spend money on products you advertise. How many Hallicrafters radios would have been sold if they only advertised in Chicago newspapers? Hallicrafters went broke. this is because long distance reception is not of interest any more, especially on AM medium wave. Hallicrafters went broke because Japan out-thought and outsold the U.S. in the 70s when it came to shortwave markets. Perhaps you'll tell me that ICOM, Sony, Kenwood, Yaesu, Degen, et. al. all don't exist now? However, that's beside the point. The point is that if Halli only sold locally in Chicago, neither you nor I would have ever heard of them. ....for that matter, had Japan's electronics companies not targeted the U.S., we would never have heard of them, nor would they have become the giants they are today. THEY certainly saw that the world didn't end beyond their shores. (And Japanese culture is almost synonymous with insular.) Your view of your listening community will do more to destroy american radio than anything else. You and Peter can insist that "that's the way it is," but the truth is "that's the way your model sees it." Fine. Ignore your real customers. Insult them even and tell them they don't exist. It's *your* career path, not mine. Enjoy the ride all the way into the ground. -- Eric F. Richards "Nature abhors a vacuum tube." -- Myron Glass, often attributed to J. R. Pierce, Bell Labs, c. 1940 |
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"Eric F. Richards" wrote in message ... "David Eduardo" wrote: We are looking for listening in our home market. I am with a station that is #1 in LA, and is top 5 in Riverside. Riverside is a separate market, and we do not make a cent off it. I'm sure that if you cared to track it, you would find that you made quite a bit of money there. But you don't because your model tells you that the world ends at the edge of LA. We make no money and never have. The Inland Empire is bought as a separate market. As such, advertisers buy in-market stations at a tiny fraction (about 10% to 15%) of LA rates to target the IE specifically. They do not buy LA stations to cover the IE as nearly all have imperfect coverage of the area, and do not offer support, like remotes, promotions and other in-market marketing. The ad world does end at the edges of the LA MSA, whch consists of LA and Orange Counties. You get a nice, "yes, sure2 when you point out that they are getting the IE for "free" with the buy, but advertisers till want promotions and presence int he LA market and will not pay extra for IE coverage. By the way, we have had at least 2 staitons in the top 3 25-54 (the sales demo) in LA for the last 11 years, and currently have three of the top 5. We get no money from fringe markets, never have, never will. It doesn't, though, and a smart advertiser would take advantage of that even if you are stubbornly unwilling to accept that radio waves go beyond LA and that people beyond LA -- in your own words, Advertisers buy "by the market" and the IE is a separate market from LA. There are no "smart advertisers" as the customers know that out of market stations, even with ratings, are seldom as effective as in market stations that offer value added in the market. And an LA station is not going to go into the Inland Empire to sell at $120 a spot when they sell at $2,000 in LA. even though we are a top 5 station out there they just might spend money on products you advertise. I don't advertise any products. We run ads for other people with products. None of whom care an iota abut out of metro coverage as it comes with no promotional and in-market support. Hallicrafters went broke. this is because long distance reception is not of interest any more, especially on AM medium wave. Hallicrafters went broke because Japan out-thought and outsold the U.S. in the 70s when it came to shortwave markets. Perhaps you'll tell me that ICOM, Sony, Kenwood, Yaesu, Degen, et. al. all don't exist now? Drake abandoned general coverage receivers, and there has been an on-again, off agian chatter about ICOM leaving the GC sector. In any case, we are discussing distant MW reception, and the main reason the Hallicrafters and Hammarlunds and Drakes and Galaxys of the US left the market is that there is low demand... partly because there is limited interest in distant MW reception compared with the 50's and 60's. Your view of your listening community will do more to destroy american radio than anything else. You and Peter can insist that "that's the way it is," but the truth is "that's the way your model sees it." The biggest fact you are ignoring, among many, is that radio listening in daytime is on average about 22% of all people at any given time. In evenings, after 7 PM, it drops by 11 PM to about 2%. Advertisers specifically exclude nights and overnights from ad buys. So out of market coverage is irrelevant. Most Ams do not have any our of market coverage, as they are daytimers or directional or lower powered and on congested channels. The few AMs that do have fairly borad night signals do not get listening in enough quantity out of market to make anything of. Advertisers do not buy at night, and stations generally have no ratings outside of the groundwave area. Add to that the fact that most of the former 1 A stations are very localized, with lots of city-specific traffic reports and local news and local events that they are of no interest 500 miles away. They win big in the metro by being local and relevant. There is no money for out of metro advertising and such big stations are not going to sacrifice local for a couple of C.C. Crane PI spots. Fine. Ignore your real customers. Insult them even and tell them they don't exist. It's *your* career path, not mine. Enjoy the ride all the way into the ground. My ride is just fine, based on localism. Having 3 of the top 5 in the largest ad market in America is hardly riding into the ground. And we are doing fine in our other 16 markets, too, with the same model. And we have a number of 50 kw AMs. They serve the local community, well, and only. |
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"David Eduardo" wrote:
"Eric F. Richards" wrote in message ... "David Eduardo" wrote: We are looking for listening in our home market. I am with a station that is #1 in LA, and is top 5 in Riverside. Riverside is a separate market, and we do not make a cent off it. I'm sure that if you cared to track it, you would find that you made quite a bit of money there. But you don't because your model tells you that the world ends at the edge of LA. We make no money and never have. The Inland Empire is bought as a separate market. I'm sure that your advertisers, if they measure where their customers come from, would find that the world doesn't end at LA. By the way, we have had at least 2 staitons in the top 3 25-54 (the sales demo) in LA for the last 11 years, and currently have three of the top 5. We get no money from fringe markets, never have, never will. Sure, if you don't sell to advertisers who ignore their customer base outside of LA. All those ignorant yokels out in the boonies, though, they might want to buy things too, and if those ignorant yokels happen to have quite a bit of money, they might want the finer things that LA can offer but the local stores don't. I guarantee you that within a 10 mile radius of where I live, the median and mean incomes are far, FAR above the Denver metro area, where advertisers following your model will target. For that matter, I guarantee you that if you swept a ring 10 miles wide with its inner edge 50 miles outside of Denver around denver, that median and mean income collection would also be higher than the Metro area. In any case, we are discussing distant MW reception, and the main reason the Hallicrafters and Hammarlunds and Drakes and Galaxys of the US left the market is that there is low demand... partly because there is limited interest in distant MW reception compared with the 50's and 60's. Disagree. I think in fact your view is utterly inaccurate. The market for inexpensive MW reception will go on until you kill it, and you appear to be working very hard at it. Your view of your listening community will do more to destroy american radio than anything else. You and Peter can insist that "that's the way it is," but the truth is "that's the way your model sees it." The biggest fact you are ignoring, among many, is that radio listening in daytime is on average about 22% of all people at any given time. In evenings, after 7 PM, it drops by 11 PM to about 2%. Advertisers specifically exclude nights and overnights from ad buys. So out of market coverage is irrelevant. Most Ams do not have any our of market coverage, as they are daytimers or directional or lower powered and on congested channels. After 11 PM, yes, to 2%. What's your 7-9 PM numbers? Yet you still manage to sell ads at night. I've never heard a station that went consistently commercial-free from 11 PM to 6 AM. The few AMs that do have fairly borad night signals do not get listening in enough quantity out of market to make anything of. Again, if you don't sell to advertisers who can 1) utilize that market and 2) measure it, I think you'd find differently. But, you'll never know if Arbitron throws away any numbers that don't fit the market. Hell, even the local NPR outlet knows better, based in Greeley, CO and pitching themselves from Wyoming to Denver. I wonder what their pledge numbers look like -- they certainly don't throw away pledges from outside of their coverage area. (As an aside, I wonder what Arbitron does with their numbers?) Advertisers do not buy at night, None? Never? I'll just ignore the ads I hear at night, then. and stations generally have no ratings outside of the groundwave area. Hmmm. I'll have to go read up on the Minn. Twins debacle to see about that. It was covered in this thread... someone went by the numbers (and the dollars they believed they had) and killed off their market. Fine. Ignore your real customers. Insult them even and tell them they don't exist. It's *your* career path, not mine. Enjoy the ride all the way into the ground. My ride is just fine, based on localism. Having 3 of the top 5 in the largest ad market in America is hardly riding into the ground. And we are doing fine in our other 16 markets, too, with the same model. And we have a number of 50 kw AMs. They serve the local community, well, and only. There are really only a couple reasons to listen to AM radio today. 1) low cost of receivers. 2) long-range reception for whatever reason that listener may have. 3) talk radio -- AM is never going to challenge FM on fidelity, IBOC or not. I wonder how many classical and jazz AMs there are out there? That's an answer I'd trust you to have. But I think your ride is going into the ground. In fact, this thread has depressed me into thinking that XM and/or Sirius may just succeed, because they aren't foolish enough to accept an arbitrary boundary on their footprint. (okay, national boundaries, but things get really complicated on that one.) Their coverage area is the continental U.S. and they'll go ahead and sell their ads to anyone willing to put them on the air. (Commercial free? ha. I doubt one channel of the satellite services will be commercial free in 10 years.) It would be very, very interesting to see the raw, unmassaged data that Arbitron (and the other one) collect and see what happens when they start putting together demographics and quantity (but NOT geography) of all the out-of-market listeners. Obviously that's closely held, but probably someone like you or Peter could have seen it in some job somewhere along the line. -- Eric F. Richards "Nature abhors a vacuum tube." -- Myron Glass, often attributed to J. R. Pierce, Bell Labs, c. 1940 |
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Don't get me wrong -- I *get* that you and Peter say, "that's the way things are done." I just think it's a hell of a way to run a railroad. -- Eric F. Richards "Nature abhors a vacuum tube." -- Myron Glass, often attributed to J. R. Pierce, Bell Labs, c. 1940 |
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"Eric F. Richards" wrote in message ... "David Eduardo" wrote: "Eric F. Richards" wrote in message ... "David Eduardo" wrote: We are looking for listening in our home market. I am with a station that is #1 in LA, and is top 5 in Riverside. Riverside is a separate market, and we do not make a cent off it. I'm sure that if you cared to track it, you would find that you made quite a bit of money there. But you don't because your model tells you that the world ends at the edge of LA. We make no money and never have. The Inland Empire is bought as a separate market. I'm sure that your advertisers, if they measure where their customers come from, would find that the world doesn't end at LA. Most advertisers we have advertise on a plethora of media, so they can not tell which specific entity in which specific medium does what. Further, they don't care as they have metrics for evaluating the reach of a campaign. By the way, we have had at least 2 staitons in the top 3 25-54 (the sales demo) in LA for the last 11 years, and currently have three of the top 5. We get no money from fringe markets, never have, never will. Sure, if you don't sell to advertisers who ignore their customer base outside of LA. The fact that you are being obstinate shows you are unfamiliar with how media sales are conducted. If you knew, you would know that the medium (radi) and the station have no influence on buying patterns at all but the smallest advertisers. And those small advertisers can not afford a top LA station. Again, if a regional or naitonal account wants to buy a market outside LA, they buy the stations that are home to the local market, as the "from affar" stations can not not do the merchandising, promotion, remotes and things that are part of many if not most radio buys. All those ignorant yokels out in the boonies, though, they might want to buy things too, and if those ignorant yokels happen to have quite a bit of money, they might want the finer things that LA can offer but the local stores don't. But ad buyers reach them through local media. Since it takes hours to drive from central Riverside county to central LA County, and anyting available in one is available in the other, it is unlikely anyone drives 120 miles to shop in LA... or in Riverside. I guarantee you that within a 10 mile radius of where I live, the median and mean incomes are far, FAR above the Denver metro area, where advertisers following your model will target. The Denver radio market is made up of 7 counties. I am pretty sure your area is inside it. The only other separately bought markets nearby are Puebo, Colorado Springs and Ft. Collins - Greeley. Each is a separate marekt area. For that matter, I guarantee you that if you swept a ring 10 miles wide with its inner edge 50 miles outside of Denver around denver, that median and mean income collection would also be higher than the Metro area. I ran this in Mapquest and the more rural you get, the more incomes goe down. In any case, that data is irrelevant. Radio advertising, whether local, regional or national, is bought by market and the people who design campaigns know all this stuff. what they also realize is that the best way to reach listeners is on local stations as they have the ability to provide added value locally. In any case, we are discussing distant MW reception, and the main reason the Hallicrafters and Hammarlunds and Drakes and Galaxys of the US left the market is that there is low demand... partly because there is limited interest in distant MW reception compared with the 50's and 60's. Disagree. I think in fact your view is utterly inaccurate. The market for inexpensive MW reception will go on until you kill it, and you appear to be working very hard at it. The market in discussion is DX skywave reception of MW, which is so small as to be unmeasurable by Arbitron. Since skywave only occurs at night, and raido listening is very light at night and seldom bought by advertisers, there is a decline in interest in programming to this daypart by staitons and near zero interest by clients. If big numbers of listeners (relatively speaking) int he metros are not bought at night, tiny numbers in Numb Pluck, AR, are of no interest except to PI accounts... and many stations do not take PI. In any case, the stations with decent night coverage do so well in thier local metros they do not care about distant listeners. Local AM is very alive on staitons that have the few good-enough signals that cover the entire metro. In fact, one of ours, a 50 kw station in Miami, is typically in the top 5 in that market and has been for over a decade. This is because it gives local service to the Miami community it targets and does not worry about Key West or Palm Beach or Naples or Yeehaw Junction, all of which it covers (but gets no listeners in). The biggest fact you are ignoring, among many, is that radio listening in daytime is on average about 22% of all people at any given time. In evenings, after 7 PM, it drops by 11 PM to about 2%. Advertisers specifically exclude nights and overnights from ad buys. So out of market coverage is irrelevant. Most Ams do not have any our of market coverage, as they are daytimers or directional or lower powered and on congested channels. After 11 PM, yes, to 2%. What's your 7-9 PM numbers? Radio listening declines from about 11% in 7 PM to 8 to 2% from 11 to Midnight. And since these are the hours advertisers mostly buy on TV, they do NOT buy radio in the same daypart. Yet you still manage to sell ads at night. I've never heard a station that went consistently commercial-free from 11 PM to 6 AM. Most of what you hear are bonus spots, rotators and ROS buys. There are sledom any night-specific buys. Sometimes a station that is enormously strong in mornings can force advertisers to buy 1 AM to Midnight to be "allowed" to get on 6 to 10 AM, but nights are pretty much a wash. The few AMs that do have fairly borad night signals do not get listening in enough quantity out of market to make anything of. Again, if you don't sell to advertisers who can 1) utilize that market and 2) measure it, I think you'd find differently. There are no such advertisers. Any advertiser that buys multiple markets has an agency, and they buy by market and do not have the time to worry about 11 skywave listeners 500 miles away. The LA staiton I referred to has over 1.2 million weekly listeners in the LA market. Nothing it could get in fringe markets would enghance significantly the reach, and advertisers buying LA would not stand for rates based on out of market coverage, not to mention that this would blow the equal-geography standard for metrics they use. But, you'll never know if Arbitron throws away any numbers that don't fit the market. Arbitron does not throw away anything. If an out of market station gets the minimum amount of reporting to make the book, they are in it. Same as a local station. No different standards. What happens is that, except for peripheral markets, staitons do not make the book based on a) night listening alone and b) skywave. Hell, even the local NPR outlet knows better, based in Greeley, CO and pitching themselves from Wyoming to Denver. I wonder what their pledge numbers look like -- they certainly don't throw away pledges from outside of their coverage area. (As an aside, I wonder what Arbitron does with their numbers?) Pledges do not come through ad agencies and client marketing departments. NPR can beg wherever they want. Commercial radio has to adjust to the reality of how advertisers want to buy us. Advertisers do not buy at night, None? Never? I'll just ignore the ads I hear at night, then. Freebies, PI, bonus spots, forced ROS buys, rotators. Nights and overnights hardly contriute to station revenue. and stations generally have no ratings outside of the groundwave area. Hmmm. I'll have to go read up on the Minn. Twins debacle to see about that. It was covered in this thread... someone went by the numbers (and the dollars they believed they had) and killed off their market. That makes no sense. Again... AMs do not get ratings outside the groundwave coverage area, so they do not sell outside that area. In fact, most metro area AMs only get ratings inside the 10 mv/m contour (due to nooise levels in modern cities) so all tha tcounts is the primar daytime groundwave signal. Fine. Ignore your real customers. Insult them even and tell them they don't exist. It's *your* career path, not mine. Enjoy the ride all the way into the ground. My ride is just fine, based on localism. Having 3 of the top 5 in the largest ad market in America is hardly riding into the ground. And we are doing fine in our other 16 markets, too, with the same model. And we have a number of 50 kw AMs. They serve the local community, well, and only. There are really only a couple reasons to listen to AM radio today. 1) low cost of receivers. 2) long-range reception for whatever reason that listener may have. 3) talk radio -- AM is never going to challenge FM on fidelity, IBOC or not. I wonder how many classical and jazz AMs there are out there? That's an answer I'd trust you to have. And the successful staitons today on AM are local, do talk or news or sports if they are in the first tier. The other group of enormously successful AMs do religion, gospel, and much ethnic programming. The Farsi staiton in LA is enormously profitable, as are several Korean, Chinese and Vietnamese langauge staitons. Since most markets only have a few full coverage AMs that blanket the market, just a couple of talkers and a sports station usually fills up the good facilities. But I think your ride is going into the ground. In fact, this thread has depressed me into thinking that XM and/or Sirius may just succeed, because they aren't foolish enough to accept an arbitrary boundary on their footprint. (okay, national boundaries, but things get really complicated on that one.) Their coverage area is the continental U.S. and they'll go ahead and sell their ads to anyone willing to put them on the air. (Commercial free? ha. I doubt one channel of the satellite services will be commercial free in 10 years.) Most satellite channels have no ads, and ads wil be at best a couple of percent of revenues. Satellite sells a service to the listener. radio sells advertising to advertisers. We do what advertisers want, not what you think is a good model in another business. Sorry, wrong argument. It would be very, very interesting to see the raw, unmassaged data that Arbitron (and the other one) There is no "other" one. collect and see what happens when they start putting together demographics and quantity (but NOT geography) of all the out-of-market listeners. Any subscriber has this data on thier desktop. I looked at 17 markets, from NY to Mc Allen and can not find any skywave listening being recorded. There are a lot of below the minimum mentions, but to stations on the fringes of the markets or to very poor performing locals. But no AM night skywave. FYI, Arbitron is audited every year by a committe of experts called the MRC which reporesents advertisers and agencies. The methodology treats all staitons equally... if Radio Moscow appeared in a minimum number of diaries, it would be ranked int he ratings along with all the other qualifying stations. Obviously that's closely held, but probably someone like you or Peter could have seen it in some job somewhere along the line. Every subscriber can see every station that had atleast one diary mention in every book. There is nothing closely held about this data. It just does not contain anything that contributes to your argument... quite the contrary, it blows it out of the water. |
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"Eric F. Richards" wrote in message ... [Snipped all] Don't get me wrong -- I *get* that you and Peter say, "that's the way things are done." I just think it's a hell of a way to run a railroad. Buyers dictate how and what they buy. radio stations do not dictate how they get bought. Simple as that. |
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"David Eduardo" wrote:
"Eric F. Richards" wrote in message ... I guarantee you that within a 10 mile radius of where I live, the median and mean incomes are far, FAR above the Denver metro area, where advertisers following your model will target. The Denver radio market is made up of 7 counties. I am pretty sure your area is inside it. The only other separately bought markets nearby are Puebo, Colorado Springs and Ft. Collins - Greeley. Each is a separate marekt area. I would be in the Ft. Collins - Greeley market. However, there are far more listeners to Denver stations in Ft. Collins than there are Ft. Collins listeners -- at least in my experience. I'm in Larimer County, BTW. In the area described above, I wouldn't be surprised if the median income is 80k (or higher). For that matter, I guarantee you that if you swept a ring 10 miles wide with its inner edge 50 miles outside of Denver around denver, that median and mean income collection would also be higher than the Metro area. I ran this in Mapquest and the more rural you get, the more incomes goe down. Mapquest tells incomes of the area being plotted? I would believe that in the eastern counties -- Adams, for example -- the income goes down. But coverage of The NW side -- Boulder, Grand, Broomfield, etc. it will be very high. I think Castle Rock is probably a wash. SW side is high-priced again. In any case, that data is irrelevant. Radio advertising, whether local, regional or national, is bought by market and the people who design campaigns know all this stuff. what they also realize is that the best way to reach listeners is on local stations as they have the ability to provide added value locally. ....and we all know from personal experience that marketing always reflects reality, right? It's still a helluva way to run a railroad, no matter what you say about it. -- Eric F. Richards "This book reads like a headache on paper." http://www.cnn.com/2001/CAREER/readi...one/index.html |
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"Eric F. Richards" wrote in message ... "David Eduardo" wrote: The Denver radio market is made up of 7 counties. I am pretty sure your area is inside it. The only other separately bought markets nearby are Puebo, Colorado Springs and Ft. Collins - Greeley. Each is a separate marekt area. I would be in the Ft. Collins - Greeley market. However, there are far more listeners to Denver stations in Ft. Collins than there are Ft. Collins listeners -- at least in my experience. But try to understasnd, whether that is true or not, advertisers buy each market separately. I'm in Larimer County, BTW. In the area described above, I wouldn't be surprised if the median income is 80k (or higher). Very few ad campaigns are income based, as most are for mass market products and services. Specific high income ZIPs or areas having other characteristics are usually targeted by direct mail or other more thightly focused medium. Mapquest tells incomes of the area being plotted? The Arbitron application based on it goes right down to listening habits and income and family size, ttc. I would believe that in the eastern counties -- Adams, for example -- the income goes down. But coverage of The NW side -- Boulder, Grand, Broomfield, etc. it will be very high. I think Castle Rock is probably a wash. SW side is high-priced again. Boulder, etc., are in the Denver MSA. And radio is NOT bought on the ZIP code level. It is mass media, and used for reach and frequency, not the sort of thing that direct mail, etc. do better. In any case, that data is irrelevant. Radio advertising, whether local, regional or national, is bought by market and the people who design campaigns know all this stuff. what they also realize is that the best way to reach listeners is on local stations as they have the ability to provide added value locally. ...and we all know from personal experience that marketing always reflects reality, right? Yeah, it usually does. The companies that advertise usually know a lot more about the user of the product and its marketing goals than a radios station does. In fact, the product was probably developed today by a company tha tis in marketing mode as opposed to the older production mode model. As such, the rpduct was designed with user input, and then marketed to the greatest potential users. It's still a helluva way to run a railroad, no matter what you say about it. Your misunderstanding of the way radio is listened to is monumental, and the basis for your failure to get the way advertising is bought. Radio is mostly listened to in the daytime. It is nearly 100% listened to in the very strongest signal contours of FM and AM stations. Advertisers only use local stations to reach local audiences, as they depend on more than on air advertising as part of an ad buy, and out of town stations do not do merchandising, promotion or remotes or shows or club appearances or taste testings or mystery shopper promotions or whatever outside their own market where 99.999999999999% of their listeners are anyway. |
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In article ,
"David Eduardo" wrote: Snip Your misunderstanding of the way radio is listened to is monumental, and the basis for your failure to get the way advertising is bought. Radio is mostly listened to in the daytime. It is nearly 100% listened to in the very strongest signal contours of FM and AM stations. Advertisers only use local stations to reach local audiences, as they depend on more than on air advertising as part of an ad buy, and out of town stations do not do merchandising, promotion or remotes or shows or club appearances or taste testings or mystery shopper promotions or whatever outside their own market where 99.999999999999% of their listeners are anyway. I have heard that a big portion of the AMBCB advertising market is rush hour traffic times in the local market. True? -- Telamon Ventura, California |
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"Telamon" wrote in message ... In article , "David Eduardo" wrote: Snip Your misunderstanding of the way radio is listened to is monumental, and the basis for your failure to get the way advertising is bought. Radio is mostly listened to in the daytime. It is nearly 100% listened to in the very strongest signal contours of FM and AM stations. Advertisers only use local stations to reach local audiences, as they depend on more than on air advertising as part of an ad buy, and out of town stations do not do merchandising, promotion or remotes or shows or club appearances or taste testings or mystery shopper promotions or whatever outside their own market where 99.999999999999% of their listeners are anyway. I have heard that a big portion of the AMBCB advertising market is rush hour traffic times in the local market. True? 6 Am to 7 PM is where nearly all the ad buys are placed. Listening levels are pretty similar throughout those 13 hours. Only 30% of radio listening is in cars, while the bulk is at work and in home. |
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"Eric F. Richards" wrote in message ... "David Eduardo" wrote: ...and therein lies the problem. You aren't looking for listeners who buy -- you are looking for listeners who are densely packed. It ain't called "target-casting," it's "broadcasting." Radio and print and TV are mass media. They loolk for "people" and there is no way of knowing which ones are ready to buy. You are making assumptions about the ability to know the listener at the granular level, one by one. There is no economical way to do this. This is why ratings are a poll, not a census. Going into another medium, the direct mail response rate is seldome even 1% even with the most targeted mailing lists. Still, given cost, that is cost effective. the same is true with radio. Advertisers can narrow down choicdes by knowing the age appeal of thier product vs the appeal of stations, and select accordingly. Other than that, they really have little to deal with as to the desire to buy of the listeners of radio or one station as this may change from day to day or hour to hour. Boulder, etc., are in the Denver MSA. Now go to the FCC site and pull a coverage map for Denver based stations. Boulder is in a valley -- a signal hole, invisible to Lookout Mountain, where many Denver broadcasters live. They can't cover Boulder for crap. They can and do, however, cover all the way down to New Mexico. As I said before, each market only has a few, a very few, AMs that fully cover it. That goes for Denver, or Cleveland or LA. In fact, due to urban sprawl, Washington DC has not had a single viable AM in this respect for the last 30 years or so. 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. Since we are talking about AM, and there are no AMs up on a frikkin' mountain, your whole point is bvery confusing. And no Denver FM covers down to New Mexico. You do know that the ideal AM site is in salt water, right? Lacking that, it is in the lowest, flattest, wettest, most orgnic soil possible. FMs and TVs love mountains of the 2000 foot creations of Stainless, but not AMs. Again we are talking about AM out of market skywave coverage. Coverage which, in Denver, exists on only one station... KOA. ...and we all know from personal experience that marketing always reflects reality, right? Yeah, it usually does. Which is why New Coke did so well, the Ford Edsel was a rip-roaring success, the Chevy Miata is hailed as a great move by GM and Robert Macnamara will go down in history as the greatest market researcher ever. It is telling that you had to go back 50 years for one of your examples. There are always misses. The case study for consumer research and being driven by the marketing mode is Procter & Gamble... they create hundreds of new products a year, actually test market a significant percentage (that means they make the product and distribute it in isolated markets to see how it does) and roll out dozens. Yet as many as half do not last 3 years. Consumer tastes change, and sometimes initial impressions do not create long term usage. This is why companies try to have many products under development. Oh, and no one reads the comic strip Dilbert, because its descriptions of corporate life are pure fantasy. Some are real, some are exaggerations. And many of us work in companies where none of that is true. Mostly,comic strips are exaggerations of real life. Good thing, too, because I bet that a seller -- that is, a buyer of advertising time -- on WLW knows how many units they move in East Overshoe, that place that doesn't exist in your world. 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. You are trying to quantify on a grand scale something that does not matter: night DX AM lisatening. 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. So, statistically, it is not a factor even if in reality one or tow people listen occasionally. 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 eithe KFI or the people who hear ads on KFI. And, in most places in the Southwest, Mexican staiton interference has made the usefullness 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. In fact, the product was probably developed today by a company tha tis in marketing mode as opposed to the older production mode model. As such, the rpduct was designed with user input, and then marketed to the greatest potential users. That's true. But it doesn't affect how radio people intentionally misunderstand their audience. We do not misunderstand our daudiences We just have to, for economic reasons, ignore that portion that is not inside our own market metro. It's still a helluva way to run a railroad, no matter what you say about it. Your misunderstanding of the way radio is listened to is monumental, Um, no. *I* listen. Do you? Do you even know listeners, or do you only know the arbitron numbers, those that only reflect listeners "above a certain threshold" per ZIP code? I spend at least half my time in direct contact with listeners or supervising others who are. I travel between 17 US markets, and we see in person at least 10 thousand listeners a year, and talk to anoother 200,000 or more users of our "variety" of radio by phone, conducting interviews with all of them using a staff of about 50 an a budget that is about 6 times greater than the billing of the average radio station in the US. Yes, we know our listeners very well. Your methodology reminds me of an old joke about a physicist studying prime numbers: "1 doesn't count... 2 is prime, 3 is prime, 4 is... NOT prime, 5 is prime. 4 must be experimental error, therefore all integers are prime." Except that we do extensive field research on a monumental level. Your results remind me once again how detached marketing is from reality. Some years back, I got contacted by a telephone marketing survey, wanting to study people's opinions of US-West, now Qwest, the most wretched phone company I've ever had to deal with. Because they wanted hard, measurable data, they asked a series of yes-no questions about quest. Not a single question was asked about the quality or reliability of their service. Not one. After about 5 minutes of yes-no questions on total irrelevency, "In your opinion, have the operators at US-west been polite and friendly?" I said, nicely but in exasperation, "You haven't asked the right question yet." They never did. 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. Union members supposedly reject the labor policies, offshoring and health care policies of WalMarth. Yet 70% of labor union members recently surveyed shopped at walMart despite that. In other words, a survey based on feelings would say labor union menbers despise WalMart. And it would not show that nearly all of them shop there anyway. You have to pin down real behaviour, not guesses. Consumers can tell you what they have done a lot better than what they will do... this is why historians are respected and fortune tellers are not. And neither do you. We do all the time. You just will never see proprietary research. and the basis for your failure to get the way advertising is bought. I get it. I get it just fine. Just like I "get" The Flat Earth Society. Radio is mostly listened to in the daytime. Sure -- drive time. What your next biggest listening period outside of rush hour? Listening is pretty flat form 6 AM to 7 PM. there are small peaks in 6 to 10 and 3 to 7, but they are minor. Since 70% of listening is at home or at work, the short in-car intervals are overwhelmed by in home and at work listening, where more time is available. In fact, in some makrets, like New York, less than 25% of listening is in cars! It is nearly 100% listened to in the very strongest signal contours of FM and AM stations. By your massaged, filtered numbers, yes. But you are filtering a large number of people out of your survey. They, to you, are down in the noise, in the insignificant digits range. But that "noise," added up, makes a significant bloc of people. I am not filtering anyone out. If you look at any station, and look at where the diary returns come from by work and home location, you find that most listening is inside the very prime contours. in metros, where AM noise levels are high, about 80% to 85% comes from within the 10 mv/m contours. On FM, it is within the 64 dbu contour. Very little is left outside those contours. Then you can check if your station showed up in any market area that is not your home market area. In the whole US, only a few hundred out of 13,500 radio stations showed up outside the home market. Arbitron is very liberal on what it takes to "show" in a market. You only have to appear in 10 diaries and register a certain number of quarter hours of listening to "show" yet, except for contiguous markets on groundwave for AM, AMs do not show in distant markets because there is just not anyone listening. Again, radio listening at night is about 4 times lower than daytime levels so the chances of finding listeners is much harder. Add to that the fact that there are very few stations on reasonably clear frequencies that can be reliably heard and listened to on skywave (the number is a few dozen out of 5000 AM stations) and all these staitons are programming to local audiences because that is where the big money comes from and you have no listeners of significance outside the groundwave coverage areas. Advertisers only use local stations to reach local audiences, Either because you won't sell them the time, or they are a local product (like a bar or a pizza joint), or, gawd help us all, they *believe* people like you. Buying is top down. Advertisers decide what ages, geographies, markets they will use. They tell their ad agency what to buy, and they determine the media mix. Radio simply provides the time. Radio will sell time to most anything legal. But I have never personally seen a single buy come down for skywave or out of market listeners in the last 45 years or so. Major advertisers advertise by the market. Their entire distribution system is generally regionalized by market and zone, and so are ad budgets. Even national media, like network TV and cable, is allocated by market based on population. as they depend on more than on air advertising as part of an ad buy, and out of town stations do not do merchandising, promotion or remotes or shows or club appearances or taste testings or mystery shopper promotions or whatever outside their own market where 99.999999999999% of their listeners are anyway. ...all of the above are irrelevent and gimmicery. I personally have never gone to see a remote. I certainly wouldn't, say, go buy a car based on a remote. But then, I consider myself to be above average intelligence -- maybe the below-average Joe or Jane *will* buy a car because KSUX is doing a remote at the local chevy outlet. The fact is, most ad buys include some type of merchandising or direct support services. It may be something you do not see, like letters to all retailers in a market area saying that Client So and So is advertising on my station, so you had better stock up and give the product good facings to satisfy increased demand... or a contest to give away samples... or cupons done at van hits... or an endorsement by talent... or something that enhances the ad buy and is purely localized. I can not send talent or vans or whatever to Moreno Valley. Doing so would take 8 hours, including travel time. I could do 4 hits in LA metro in the same time, and that benefits me. It is about logistics, signal and listening patterns. Oh, and, "99.999999999999%"? Are you sure? You referred to The LA staiton I referred to has over 1.2 million weekly listeners ...so a single listener not recorded by your beloved Arbitrons would be far more than the 0.000000000001% needed to break your percentage. I was engaging in the same hyperbole you are using. But you know that. Your station is a top 5 in a market it refuses to sell to. Because they don't exist, according to your beloved numbers. LA ad rates on major staitons are in the $1000 to $2000 per spot range. In Riverside / San Bernardino, the Inland Empire separate market, the local staitons 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 staiton 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. Once again, because I need to spell these things out for you, I'm not suggesting you sell bar X outside of your home market. But if you can place ads for companies that do mail order work, or are a chain, or otherwise aren't tied to a geographic element, why not do so? "Because we don't work that way," is a ****-poor answer. Almost all Mail Order is PI. We do not talke PI, as the returns are miserable and it is better to play more music or do more talk than to fill the staiton up with non-productive ads that detract fromt he entertainment value. Chain stores or national products buy ads through agencies. They buy by the market. If you are an LA station and mention Riverside ratings, they say, "but I am buying you for LA, not Riverside. When I buy Riverside, and you want to sell me more spots for $60, give us a ring." I reiterate: Thinking inside your tiny little box will probably doom traditional broadcast-band radio. Don't feel too bad, though, you have company: Clear Channel thinks that selling the most bland mush will keep radio going because it fits into their market surveys of what people want. 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. |
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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? 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. 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. |
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"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. |
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"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. 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. your whole point is bvery confusing. And no Denver FM covers down to New Mexico. Raton Pass. Look it up. I know my state, sir. You do know that the ideal AM site is in salt water, right? Lacking that, it is in the lowest, flattest, wettest, most orgnic 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. But FM, last time I checked, outperformed AM. (No doubt, measuring the local market only...) Again we are talking about AM out of market skywave coverage. Coverage which, in Denver, exists on only one station... KOA. ...and we all know from personal experience that marketing always reflects reality, right? Yeah, it usually does. Which is why New Coke did so well, the Ford Edsel was a rip-roaring success, the Chevy Miata is hailed as a great move by GM and Robert Macnamara will go down in history as the greatest market researcher ever. It is telling that you had to go back 50 years for one of your examples. 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. Yet marketing-driven items can, do and will fail. New Coke is the perfect example of everything being done "right" by marketing principles and it all went wrong. 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 "listner or tow [sic]" is probably more like 10 here, 20 here, 5 there, adding up to the hundreds to thousands. You are trying to quantify on a grand scale something that does not matter: night DX AM lisatening. 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. 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 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. 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. 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 eithe 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. The only "material change" that your advertisers care about is someone who makes a sale. The guy who owns a Porche 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 Porche dealer advertising there might get his interest piqued. And, in most places in the Southwest, Mexican staiton interference has made the usefullness 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, targetting the American audience, had to contend with PJB being a flamethrower on that same frequency ALSO targetting an american audience. Usually CKLW won out in the northern states, but I recall one evening of freak atmospherics where CKLW was overwhelmed by PJB in Cleveland. Your methodology reminds me of an old joke about a physicist studying prime numbers: "1 doesn't count... 2 is prime, 3 is prime, 4 is... NOT prime, 5 is prime. 4 must be experimental error, therefore all integers are prime." 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. Your results remind me once again how detached marketing is from reality. Some years back, I got contacted by a telephone marketing survey, wanting to study people's opinions of US-West, now Qwest, the most wretched phone company I've ever had to deal with. Because they wanted hard, measurable data, they asked a series of yes-no questions about quest. Not a single question was asked about the quality or reliability of their service. Not one. After about 5 minutes of yes-no questions on total irrelevency, "In your opinion, have the operators at US-west been polite and friendly?" I said, nicely but in exasperation, "You haven't asked the right question yet." They never did. 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. LA ad rates on major staitons are in the $1000 to $2000 per spot range. In Riverside / San Bernardino, the Inland Empire separate market, the local staitons 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 staiton 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 Bernadino 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.) Don't feel too bad, though, you have company: Clear Channel thinks that selling the most bland mush will keep radio going because it fits into their market surveys of what people want. 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. 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. -- Eric F. Richards "This book reads like a headache on paper." http://www.cnn.com/2001/CAREER/readi...one/index.html |
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iboc SUCKS!!!! Everybody in U.S.fed govt SUCKS!!!! TOO!
cuhulin |
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"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. |
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"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. |
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"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 |
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"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. |
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"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 |
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"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 |
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"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. |
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"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. |
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"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 |
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"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 |
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"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. |
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"David Eduardo" wrote: "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. Thanks for responding to this I'm learning a lot about broadcast marketing. This radio station that called was one of these 40 or so rotating hits FM stations and they wanted people at work to listen to them all day long in the background. That's the idea anyway. Even if it was music I wanted to listen to that is not a long enough list of songs for me. Rotating 40 tunes of a few minutes of each means you go through the list something like every couple of hours so during the workday you would hearing the whole list several times a day. Since this list changes slowly over time it would be way to repetitive for me. I can't fathom why people would want to listen to such a short list day after day. This would be torture for me to listen to after a few days even if I liked all the tunes to begin with. Are broadcasting stations going to longer lists of tunes now that people have appliances like IPOD's that can store many albums of music? -- Telamon Ventura, California |
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"Telamon" wrote in message ... Are broadcasting stations going to longer lists of tunes now that people have appliances like IPOD's that can store many albums of music? Good question. This is not a simple issue. An iPod has "my favorite songs" on it. A radio station tries to have "everyone's favorite songs" on it. So, to get consensus songs, the list is shorter because I may love what you hate! The younger the listener, the shorter the list. I do see stations appealing to adults trying to add variety, but nothing like 1000 song iPod collections. |
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I got my HD radio this evening. A few thoughts:
- I can't tell the difference between HD and regular FM. They both sound good but I can't tell one from the other. - There are four HD stations in Nashville: WLAC-AM 1510: WPLN-FM 90.3: WVNS-FM 102.5: WNRQ 105.9: - Couldn't test AM, as UPS didn't deliver the radio until 6:15. "FCC sunset" for Nashville in March is 6:00 so WLAC-HD was off the air. - WVNS' analog audio sounds *better* than the HD -- the HD was "hissing its F's" which the analog doesn't do. No other station has this problem, so I suspect it's a processing issue at the station. WVNS has a translator on 102.1 which is *not* relaying the HD. (not that I expected it would) - At my location (18 miles from the nearest HD station and about 27 miles from two of the three) the provided 18" wire antenna is not adequate for any HD reception. I hooked the set to my TV antenna. I suspect the built-in AM antenna wouldn't provide any reception either but the set comes with an external loop which probably will. I'll find out tomorrow! - WNRQ-HD drops out for about 5 seconds about every 30-60 seconds. Neither WPLN nor WVNS does this. WVNS is a lot closer, but WPLN is on the same tower as WNRQ - and runs about 20% *less* power. Tested only on HD2 though I'd be surprised if this problem doesn't affect both channels. - At least in theory, the HD exciter is supposed to contain a delay line that delays the analog audio to match the delay through the digital coding process. It appears that no station around here has got it completely right. (but they're all pretty close) It is possible this is due to varying delays in *receivers* though; the Receptor HD appears to delay the audio of *analog* stations. (might it have DSP for analog signals??) - It takes roughly 5 seconds for the radio to lock in to a HD signal. If you've tuned to a HD simulcast of an analog signal, you'll hear the analog audio during the lockin period. -- Doug Smith W9WI Pleasant View (Nashville), TN EM66 http://www.w9wi.com |
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"David Eduardo" wrote:
Interstates are elevated, ....if you mean "by 15 feet above the original grade," then maybe. That's as stupid a generalization as I've *ever* heard. But I've come to expect that out of this thread. 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. This. Is. Not. DX. 50 miles is not DX. 100 miles is not DX. Get out of your box and breathe some fresh air, fergawdsakes. You have an overly simplified model of the world and it doesn't fit reality. From what you say in this thread I would suggest you do substantial harm to those stations unlucky enough to hire you. But then, consultants are known for doing that in my field, too. 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. These are steady, strong, clean signals. If you were really concerned about clean signals, you'd be screaming at receiver manufacturers to clean up capture ratios so that the multipath doesn't garble them to hell and gone. Oh, you work with running AM into the ground... never mind... 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. I'm talking about the 70s. WHK was country in the senventies. I can't remember a time when it wasn't -- not that there wasn't such a time, but it was before my time. There is no adjustment. Arbitron must, to keep its accreditation, use accepted statistical practices. Accepted and accredited by whom? If you are measuring listener density by zip code, of *course* you aren't going to see an impact outside of the local area. But you cover an enormous amount of territory broadly. All those ones and twos add up. ...and you throw them out by setting the initial conditions so poorly. You want to know the listener density by zip code, and so you get numbers that are utterly misleading about the overall listener community. 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. Who cares? You aren't selling to Phoenix. You're selling to your listening community. LA first and foremost, everyone second. If you can sell to someone who can use LA companies for something -- by mail order, by phone order, by web page, by whatever -- you still *sell*. 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. But you. Shouldn't. Target. Phoenix. I don't give a crap what Phoenix thinks. I *do* give a crap about what my listening demographic thinks, be they in Phoenix or at some desert intersection. If they buy what you advertise, then you are making money. You know, I trust, that advertisers only buy the very top stations in their target demographics? But you are measuring geographics, not demographics. By that standard, the dense high-rises are better targets than suburbia. You already stated you are inside the Denver metro. You have dozens and dozens of local stations. Including KFI. No, I'm not, and I didn't state that. I'm outside of Denver Metro. I'm in Ft. Collins -- Greeley by your numbers. Yet anything beyond grocery shopping I do in Denver and Boulder because the selection and quality is better. I think I've stopped in Greeley maybe twice. I made my first purchase of substance in Ft. Collins two weeks ago. But... whatever. I'm sitting herre arguing with a calculator, for gawdssake. You just keep pretending the world fits your model -- you can't even get it out of your head long enough to *think* for a second. You will be the doom of over the air broadcasting. Check back in 10 years; we'll see how the health of the industry has changed in the last decade. -- Eric F. Richards "This book reads like a headache on paper." http://www.cnn.com/2001/CAREER/readi...one/index.html |
IBOC Article
In article ,
Doug Smith W9WI wrote: I got my HD radio this evening. A few thoughts: - I can't tell the difference between HD and regular FM. They both sound good but I can't tell one from the other. - There are four HD stations in Nashville: WLAC-AM 1510: WPLN-FM 90.3: WVNS-FM 102.5: WNRQ 105.9: - Couldn't test AM, as UPS didn't deliver the radio until 6:15. "FCC sunset" for Nashville in March is 6:00 so WLAC-HD was off the air. - WVNS' analog audio sounds *better* than the HD -- the HD was "hissing its F's" which the analog doesn't do. No other station has this problem, so I suspect it's a processing issue at the station. WVNS has a translator on 102.1 which is *not* relaying the HD. (not that I expected it would) - At my location (18 miles from the nearest HD station and about 27 miles from two of the three) the provided 18" wire antenna is not adequate for any HD reception. I hooked the set to my TV antenna. I suspect the built-in AM antenna wouldn't provide any reception either but the set comes with an external loop which probably will. I'll find out tomorrow! - WNRQ-HD drops out for about 5 seconds about every 30-60 seconds. Neither WPLN nor WVNS does this. WVNS is a lot closer, but WPLN is on the same tower as WNRQ - and runs about 20% *less* power. Tested only on HD2 though I'd be surprised if this problem doesn't affect both channels. - At least in theory, the HD exciter is supposed to contain a delay line that delays the analog audio to match the delay through the digital coding process. It appears that no station around here has got it completely right. (but they're all pretty close) It is possible this is due to varying delays in *receivers* though; the Receptor HD appears to delay the audio of *analog* stations. (might it have DSP for analog signals??) - It takes roughly 5 seconds for the radio to lock in to a HD signal. If you've tuned to a HD simulcast of an analog signal, you'll hear the analog audio during the lockin period. Sounds like a long lock time. Maybe it is a 5 second buffer time? -- Telamon Ventura, California |
IBOC Article
"Eric F. Richards" wrote in message ... "David Eduardo" wrote: Interstates are elevated, ...if you mean "by 15 feet above the original grade," then maybe. That's as stupid a generalization as I've *ever* heard. But I've come to expect that out of this thread. Interstates are elevated, and that is why the FCC will not allow field strength to be measured there. In fact, reception on perfectly tuned FM antennas in cars on interstates is totally atypical. Ask any broadcast engineer. 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. This. Is. Not. DX. 50 miles is not DX. For many FMs, it is. For a Class IV AM it is. 100 miles is not DX. For an FM,, it is. For most AMs it is. Get out of your box and breathe some fresh air, fergawdsakes. You have an overly simplified model of the world and it doesn't fit reality. From what you say in this thread I would suggest you do substantial harm to those stations unlucky enough to hire you. Yeah, I make them tops in ratings and billing. But then, consultants are known for doing that in my field, too. Last station I consulted went #1 in less than a month in a market of 17 million, where there are over 100 other radio staitons. It is #1 today, after 6 years. Another, in US market 13, was #1 for the entire 20 years I advised it, an Arbitron record for a Top 50 market FM. 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. These are steady, strong, clean signals. I have run Langley Rice maps on the main Denver FMs, like KBCO, and there is no reliable signal capable of being heard on all kinds of radios south of Monument. Period. there may be small places where reflections occur, but that is not listenable for the average person. For this reason, the Denver staitons do not show up in the ratings at that distance, and the FCC can duplicate the main channel or the adjacents in such areas. If you were really concerned about clean signals, you'd be screaming at receiver manufacturers to clean up capture ratios so that the multipath doesn't garble them to hell and gone. If this was possible, it would be done. HD solves this, anyway. Oh, you work with running AM into the ground... never mind... Yeah, right. the AM I did in that same market 13 went form a 1.8 share to #2 in the market in a little under 2 years. 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. I'm talking about the 70s. WHK was country in the senventies. I can't remember a time when it wasn't -- not that there wasn't such a time, but it was before my time. WHK, after being sold by the Vails (Plain Dealer) to John Kluge, ws one of the more famous Top 40's in the USA. "Color Channel 14" was #1 in Cleveland until the mid-60's when WIXY captured the crown. WHK did not go country until FM had killed AM for Top 40... it was driven out by FMs. There is no adjustment. Arbitron must, to keep its accreditation, use accepted statistical practices. Accepted and accredited by whom? Media Ratings Council, set up as an aftermath of a congressional investigation in the 60's into media ratings. It consists of noted statisticians and representatives of national advertisers and agencies with credentials in media research. The audit, done by a team, takes over a month every year. If you are measuring listener density by zip code, of *course* you aren't going to see an impact outside of the local area. Each person counts once, whereever they live. This is a proportional sample at the population and discreet demographic level. But you cover an enormous amount of territory broadly. All those ones and twos add up. ...and you throw them out by setting the initial conditions so poorly. In the entire Southwest, the skywave listeners of KFI do not reach 10% of the local, LA and Orange County listening at night, and are less than 2% of total listening. Since a poll like Arbitron has greater margin of error than 2%, that data is meaningless and no advertiser cares. Please try to get it: advertisers dictate. They have zero interest in out of market Am night signals as they do not advertise at night and do not buy markets from afar anyway. You want to know the listener density by zip code, and so you get numbers that are utterly misleading about the overall listener community. No, we look at listeners by MSA. Metro LA. Metro Las Vegas, Metro Phoenix, etc. 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. Who cares? You aren't selling to Phoenix. You're selling to your listening community. LA first and foremost, everyone second. If you can sell to someone who can use LA companies for something -- by mail order, by phone order, by web page, by whatever -- you still *sell*. But if the advertiser does not care, it is valueless. It can not be monetized, so it is ignored. 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. But you. Shouldn't. Target. Phoenix. I don't give a crap what Phoenix thinks. I *do* give a crap about what my listening demographic thinks, be they in Phoenix or at some desert intersection. If they buy what you advertise, then you are making money. No, we make money from selling ads to advertisers. Advertisers do not advertise for out of LA on LA staitons, or out of Phoenix on Phoenix stations. They buy each market locally, andonly the high rated stations. You know, I trust, that advertisers only buy the very top stations in their target demographics? But you are measuring geographics, not demographics. By that standard, the dense high-rises are better targets than suburbia. No, markets are measured by a proportional sample inside the counties that make up the market. An effort is made to sample within the market in proportion to population by zone, too, in many markets. You already stated you are inside the Denver metro. You have dozens and dozens of local stations. Including KFI. No, I'm not, and I didn't state that. I'm outside of Denver Metro. I'm in Ft. Collins -- Greeley by your numbers. Yet anything beyond grocery shopping I do in Denver and Boulder because the selection and quality is better. I think I've stopped in Greeley maybe twice. I made my first purchase of substance in Ft. Collins two weeks ago. You are so unique no advertiser will care about you as you do not behave in a predictable way. Advertising on mass media is bought against masses of listeners or viewers or readers. All advertisers know that reach is never 100% and they don't care as buys become inefficient when a reach of over about 70% to 75% is attempted. But... whatever. I'm sitting herre arguing with a calculator, for gawdssake. You just keep pretending the world fits your model -- you can't even get it out of your head long enough to *think* for a second. I KNOW how advertisers buy, and know how to keep buyers happy, which is by providing large, local audiences all over the USA. You will be the doom of over the air broadcasting. Check back in 10 years; we'll see how the health of the industry has changed in the last decade. Well, I doubt it. In fact, last year I was given an award for putting the first FM in northern South America on the air when no stations were on the band for 1000 miles in any direction. The award calls me a "pioneer" and "visionary." What have you done except snipe? |
IBOC Article
"David Eduardo" wrote:
"Eric F. Richards" wrote in message ... "David Eduardo" wrote: Interstates are elevated, ...if you mean "by 15 feet above the original grade," then maybe. That's as stupid a generalization as I've *ever* heard. But I've come to expect that out of this thread. Interstates are elevated, and that is why the FCC will not allow field strength to be measured there. In fact, reception on perfectly tuned FM antennas in cars on interstates is totally atypical. Ask any broadcast engineer. Elevated above grade. Drive I-70 from Denver to Grand Junction and tell me how "elevated" it is. Or drive I-25 from Wyoming to New Mexico and tell me how "elevated" it is. 15 feet above grade, fine. But down in valleys wherever possible to avoid climbing mountains. Those "atypical" receivers are your biggest market, because that's where people would be listening. I have run Langley Rice maps on the main Denver FMs, like KBCO, and there is no reliable signal capable of being heard on all kinds of radios south of Monument. Period. My radio says differently. When push comes to shove, I'll believe the car radio over a coverage map. If you were really concerned about clean signals, you'd be screaming at receiver manufacturers to clean up capture ratios so that the multipath doesn't garble them to hell and gone. If this was possible, it would be done. HD solves this, anyway. HD solves nothing. HD will make signals unlistenable while analog will continue to be listenable. And fixing the capture ratio is not only possible, it was done. My 30 year old low-end Rotel has a capture ratio of 1.0 dB. But receiver manufacturerers would rather save $0.15 per unit because they listen to people like you who say that such things don't matter in a local market... and on and on and on it goes. This is why DXers -- real DXers, not someone driving the interstate -- like 60's vintage car radios. The problems were solved, but some consultant told them they didn't have to worry about quality because the radios would be used only for local market. In the entire Southwest, the skywave listeners of KFI do not reach 10% of the local, LA and Orange County listening at night, Did I not suggest that they might make between 5 and 10% of the total at night somewhere up there? I'm sure I did. and are less than 2% of total listening. Since a poll like Arbitron has greater margin of error than 2%, that data is meaningless and no advertiser cares. That's true. Please try to get it: advertisers dictate. Yes. They dictate based on a loaded methodology. If I was locked in a windowless box my whole life and everyone told me the sky was green, I would believe the sky was green, too. But whatever I believe, whatever assumptions I operate under, doen't change the fact that the sky is blue. No, we look at listeners by MSA. Metro LA. Metro Las Vegas, Metro Phoenix, etc. "Consider the true picture. Think of myriads of tiny bubbles, very sparsely scattered, rising through a vast black sea. We [sell to] some of the bubbles. Of the waters we know nothing. . ." (butchered from the prologue to "The Mote In God's Eye." and very fitting here...) You already stated you are inside the Denver metro. You have dozens and dozens of local stations. Including KFI. No, I'm not, and I didn't state that. I'm outside of Denver Metro. I'm in Ft. Collins -- Greeley by your numbers. Yet anything beyond grocery shopping I do in Denver and Boulder because the selection and quality is better. I think I've stopped in Greeley maybe twice. I made my first purchase of substance in Ft. Collins two weeks ago. You are so unique no advertiser will care about you as you do not behave in a predictable way. Not really. I'm pretty typical of my community in that way. There is very little selection and/or quality in any of the nearby "cities," so people go to real cities like Denver and Boulder to get what they need. If they buy groceries, it isn't a big deal, generally, although our selection is poor. Washing machines can be bought. Audio equipment, a good meal, quality furniture, auto repair and service, entertainment -- music, sports, stage performances -- all require you to go to Denver to get it. So we go. All of us. There is no "Ft. Collins Avalance" hocky team, or "Ft. Collins Rockies" baseball team. Nor should there be. They draw plenty of people from this nowhere place in your world, and they are smart enough to know it. I KNOW how advertisers buy, and know how to keep buyers happy, which is by providing large, local audiences all over the USA. They buy based on the best information they can get. I am suggesting that your information is fundamentally flawed, and you are insisting it is not only good enough, it is perfect. It is not. You will be the doom of over the air broadcasting. Check back in 10 years; we'll see how the health of the industry has changed in the last decade. Well, I doubt it. In fact, last year I was given an award for putting the first FM in northern South America on the air when no stations were on the band for 1000 miles in any direction. The award calls me a "pioneer" and "visionary." What have you done except snipe? Congratulations. What you did in South America had nothing to do with your advertising models in the U.S. -- Eric F. Richards "The weird part is that I can feel productive even when I'm doomed." - Dilbert |
IBOC Article
Doug Smith W9WI wrote:
I am however noticing compression artifacts. I'm generally fairly immune to artifacts. (I have no problems with MP3 files; on digital TV, people can point out artifacts and I still can't see them!) So I suspect those who *are* sensitive to these are going to find HD AM rather difficult to listen to. That would drive me nuts. I am very aware of artifacts, especially from aliasing. The digital NPR feed sometimes drives me nuts with all the aliasing artifacts in some of the programs. -- Eric F. Richards "Nature abhors a vacuum tube." -- Myron Glass, often attributed to J. R. Pierce, Bell Labs, c. 1940 |
Know your listener/market
....so I spent some time here arguing with a rock, er, an, um, "radio
consultant," who is convinced that by the flawed methodology used by his clients and the ratings service that all radio listening is local, and he uses those same flawed methodologies to show that his stations are now number 1. The phrase that is important here is "flawed methodology." I was listing to American Public Media's "Marketplace" last Friday and they had a piece on AmEx's new "clear" AmEx, that they tested in Boston (and are advertising in Boston only, but is available anywhere) using a "survey," with questions like: o Would you like more clarity in your finances? o What is a bigger source of stress in your life? a) personal relationships b) money and finance They found the survey laughable. So they went out and asked the exact same survey questions with one mo "Would you want to get a credit card that would help clear up your finances?" People, of course, said, no, the last thing they need is another credit card. AmEx, of course, said that was the wrong question to ask. ....and so it goes with radio. As long as the methodology is skewed to deliver the wanted results, it is as meaningless as AmEx's absurd "market research." So they will go on, with IBOC and so-called "HD" radio with all its artifacts and dropouts, to the detriment of people who actually listen. -- Eric F. Richards "This book reads like a headache on paper." http://www.cnn.com/2001/CAREER/readi...one/index.html |
Know your listener/market
Eric F. Richards wrote:
...so I spent some time here arguing with a rock, er, an, um, "radio consultant," who is convinced that by the flawed methodology used by his clients and the ratings service that all radio listening is local, and he uses those same flawed methodologies to show that his stations are now number 1. The phrase that is important here is "flawed methodology." I was listing to American Public Media's "Marketplace" last Friday and they had a piece on AmEx's new "clear" AmEx, that they tested in Boston (and are advertising in Boston only, but is available anywhere) using a "survey," with questions like: o Would you like more clarity in your finances? o What is a bigger source of stress in your life? a) personal relationships b) money and finance They found the survey laughable. So they went out and asked the exact same survey questions with one mo "Would you want to get a credit card that would help clear up your finances?" People, of course, said, no, the last thing they need is another credit card. AmEx, of course, said that was the wrong question to ask. ...and so it goes with radio. As long as the methodology is skewed to deliver the wanted results, it is as meaningless as AmEx's absurd "market research." So they will go on, with IBOC and so-called "HD" radio with all its artifacts and dropouts, to the detriment of people who actually listen. Yes, they will. Why? Two reasons....one is that Powell's FCC mandated that any future modulation schemes for broadcast must be digital. But the other is that there's believed to be money in it. And, again, in the US Radio is ALWAYS about the money. It may surprise you to know that I agree with you about a lot of research. Most political polls are constructed to produce a desired result in precisely the same way as the survey you describe. And I've been involved with stations that conducted surveys that asked highly constructed questions that gave the GM precisely the answer he wanted. While some rather extensive naive listening, produced dramatically different results. Care to guess how long those GM's last? But the issue, and this is true of most marketing, but especially Broadcast, is a matter of cost effectiveness. Why do more work when less will produce the same profit? Simple example. When Wapner was on The People's Court, and the program popularity was at it's zenith, the syndicator announced that production of new programs would cease, and that all future programs distributed would be reruns. You should have heard the screaming in my neighborhood when THAT one went public. It got picked up by the local broadcasting columnists in the papers and some questions got asked. The matter was explained by the syndicators: They had enough shows in the can to keep the program running for several more years. Why spend the money to produce more shows, when the shows already on the shelf would produce the same revenue/profit? Of course there were those like you and me who said things like "To serve the fans?" Truth is that the syndicator didn't care. He wasn't in the caring business. He was in the business to make money for himself, his company and his stockholders. Cutting expenses to maximize profits is only smart business. And the show, like any show on TV would eventually burn out, anyway. Any run of more than 4 years is profitable. Anything more than that is gravy, but gravy with diminishing returns over time, as distribution costs begin to become a significant fraction of revenue when the program goes into decline. Cost/Benefits, Eric. It's all about cost/benefits. And when there can be revenue generated, without costly methodology, the simpler methodology will win every time. It's not about monster signals, anymore. And beyond the 40's it never really was. There was a certain cache in having a monster signal, but that was more to dispirit the competition's staff, and do a little chest puffing. But as far as a practical business strategy...monster signals beyond the local contours were a waste of energy. No matter who was listening. Because there was no cost effective (and the key phrase is "Cost Effective") way of measuring them and making them meaningful to the sales department. In fact, I've worked for stations that voluntarily reduced power and reshaped their directional array because the extra reach was a waste of power. The pennies saved on electricity were more important and more visible on the books than the extra listeners beyond the fringe. The truth is, that the image of public service, huge reach and super service to the wider area presented by stations in the 60's and 70's like WLS, WABC, CKLW, KAAY, KNX, WLW and others were more show biz than substance. In fact, in the late 70's and early 80's when WLS was snapping up teenagers in ST Louis, it could barely crack the top 10 in Chicago where it's revenue base was located. Changes in staff, format and target resulted. Monster signal, and perceived monster reach, but revenue producing listenership was off. King Kong was finally revealed to be 3' 6". But the truth is, he always was. WLS, in Chicago, was just another big signal. And it enjoyed a huge local share for a time. Huge. But it was still a local station. That you could hear it from the Rockies to Bermuda was only show biz. King Kong was still only 3' 6". The public service commitment for Radio has been mostly lip service for years, anyway. There simply is no profit in it. Hell, I worked for one GM who SOLD PSA's. Nobody buys, none air. He had lawyers on speed dial to protect his license. But he never actually did meet his commitments. He was certainly not alone. In the late 70's Jesus was kicked off the air at many stations. Church services broadcast for decades disappeared in a stroke, to make room for profit producing syndicated programming. Good for business, but it orphaned smalls groups of loyal listeners for stations nationwide. Ultimately a large population of listeners if taken as a class, but a trivial number on the local stations Sales pitch. No station failed because of them. It's always about the money. And it's always about Sales. And all stations are bought for their local reach. David and I have gotten into some pretty tense disagreements over the state and nature of Radio. But his business is not in creating King Kong stations of catholic interest and reach, his business is in turning stations into more of a Mighty Joe Young. Still a lot of strength, but strength where the money is. And that's locally. Without the wasted effort into so called national reach. Why? Because he can make more money for his stations by keeping the effort local. Where the advertisers buy. David touched on this but there wasn't a lot of amplification on it. This is the crux of the matter: Advertisers call the shots. They always have. Everywhere. Since the first broadcast station hit the air in the US. The Advertiser calls the shots. Because without the advertiser, stations do not survive. And if you think Public Radio is devoid of advertiser pressures, guess again. Corporate underwriting is the backbone of Public Radio, and corporate underwriters provide more funding than public donations. Make no mistake, when a corporate sponsor doesn't like a program....public or commercial radio...it is made clear that revenue is threatened. And this has been the case since the birth of the business. Murrow wept openly in the hallowed halls of CBS when Chairman Paley killed a story Murrow had been working on for months, bowing to advertiser pressures. W.C. Fields sponsored by Lucky Strike make frequent on-air references to his nephew 'Chester' to the horror and eventual withdrawal of Lucky Strike. Fields often enraged sponsors. Don't think there weren't heated conversations about his content. Advertisers were responsible for the abrupt cancellation of a consumer advocacy program on KRMD some years ago. In the middle of the broadcast, Gene Dickerson walked into the control room and pulled the talent out of the chair by his shirt collar under direct pressure from an offended advertiser. NPR, locally, has also killed or modified stories to protect funding. And there are tens of thousands of such stories every year. Should it happen? No. I don't think so. And there's a lot of evidence to suggest that in many cases, the impact to advertisers' sales by the offending content are, at best, minimal. But most GM's, most Chairmen, most Sales ducks don't have the backbone to stand up to advertisers writing checks that keep them in their lifestyles. So advertisers rule. And they always have. In fact, the purpose of programming in the US has always been to hold the attention of listeners between commercials. An old joke, but it's always been true. Radio in the US has always been about the money. Early stations in rural areas began as ham stations owned by grain elevator operators. The owners used to report grain prices to the farmers, a commercial interest. When the grain elevator up the road also became radio equipped, they began simple programming to fill the gaps between price reports. This is how WDZ, Tuscola (later Decatur) began. It's how WLS began. Live programming to fill time between commercial messages. The commerical content ALWAYS being the more important issue. And over time, the commercial content evolved, and rules regarding it evolved, but it's importance and it's position in the scheme of things has not diminished, but only gotten stronger. So the methodology, whether it's flawed or not (and that can be debated until the Second Coming), is the reality by which advertisers live and die in broadcast media. They like the methodology. It's simple, it's easily digested, and it produces hundreds of millions of dollars a year in Sales. It's not going to change, until the revenue stream is threatened by the external forces on the market. Advertisers call the shots. They always have, and they always will. This is the way they like it. It is what it is. And despite what you hear, have heard, or will hear on the radio, King Kong is still only 3' 6". And so he will remain, because the people with the money don't care to spend a dime to see him larger. David is in the business of keeping radio profitable for his clients. He does this by showing his clients how to meet the needs of advertisers. Advertisers who call all the shots. Sometimes you can get control of an advertiser to do something that's more service oriented. And for me, that's what keeps me even allied with Broadcast. It's worth the effort and the heartache for that payoff. But, in the main....it's just about doing what advertisers want. And the bulk of them do NOT care about anything but what they see in the books. And the books were created to meet their needs. I don't like it. Anymore than you do. But it is what it is. Unless you can get the advertisers to see a need for change, either by convincing them, or through a market induced threat to revenue, it's not going to change. Certainly not revert to the kind of Radio that you and I enjoyed so many years ago. Radio was in its adolescence, then. Still learning its way. It's not now. Today, Radio is a mature product and to survive, it must concentrate its efforts on to keep it's revenue stream intact. That's the one thing that's never changed, over the years. It is, and always has been about the money. |
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