"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.

"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

"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.

"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

[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.

--
Eric F. Richards

"Nature abhors a vacuum tube." -- Myron Glass,
often attributed to J. R. Pierce, Bell Labs, c. 1940

"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.

"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.

"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

"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.