Holiday 2013 Ratings

[moundofsound]

As a wrap up....KSFI gaining almost 10 share points for the "Holiday" rating period shows that the all Christmas thing still seems to be working. Next year? Who knows. Find it interesting that in markets where group owners chose to flip their Classic Hits stations and not their AC's, the Classic Hit station gained significanlty while the AC languished (Pheonix was an exception, where one group flipped a classic hits, and another group flipped the AC. The AC won, but the classic hits was also up). I think that may be the future of where Christmas programming may be going.

[CAwasinNJ]

Classic Hits/oldies stations going all-Christmas isn't new. Markets like Boston & New York have been doing it off and on for years. It's an interesting concept though. As oldies have evolved into classic hits and A/C has been going hotter than it's traditionally been, the demos are changing. During normal programming on FM100, would you hear Bing Crosby or even The Carpenters? Not much if at all. That skews much older than where they normally aim. On the other hand, oldies/classic hits normally does aim at closer to that demo. It makes a lot of sense as an industry trend. I think this market is a bit different since the clearly established Christmas station is FM100. It's going to take something major to change that. The Eagle tried to shake things up a bit this year going Christmas, and that really didn't help or hurt them. Same with B98.7.

In other ratings news, the Cumulus cluster is in big trouble. The only station doing reasonably well is K-Bull and that's in danger of getting screwed up by the national rebranding of their country stations to Nash. The B is on the low end of tolerable, though we'll see when the regular format returns where that goes. K-Bear is about the same and pretty steady. The classic hits on 101.9 isn't going anywhere. Alt 94.9 is also doing lousy, so no the frequency/branding change isn't helping there at all. K-Fan is sports and nobody expects that to do gangbusters. Don't worry about that. Likewise with talk on 860, which is just there to say they have clearance in the market and is in no danger of cracking a whole number share any time soon.

If I were the market manager at Cumulus I would be pleading with Corporate to leave K-Bull alone. They really can't afford to screw it up. You don't mess with something that's working ok right now when you have several other stations that need fixing first. Once you get those other problems worked out, THEN you should worry about whether to rebrand 93.3. But that's not the usual corporate thinking.

Oh, and KLO still needs to be put out of its misery.

[David]

Suggestion for KLO AM/FM: put adult standards on the AM side and a format similar to the "smooth jazz" programming that used to be on 97.9 The Breeze on the FM. I'd be willing to bet their ratings would nearly double in the first year. Both formats have a loyal following, even though the demos skew heavily towards the 40+ plus age group. But to have a successful radio station in 2014, programmers need to recognize that the audience for terrestrial radio will probably continue to age as the younger crowd ditches AM/FM for iPods and satellite radio.

Adult standards on AM makes sense because most of the listeners for music on AM radio are older people who listened to AM music stations in top 40's heyday during the '60's and early '70's. And a big portion of the audience for new age/smooth jazz are probably those who grew up listening to free form FM stations during the Drake era. Of course, if KLO really wanted to kill off their stations, they could flip to a Spanish language or sports format. That's what we really need in the Salt/Ogden/Provo market, right--more Spanish language and sports stations!

[CAwasinNJ]

I don't see either of those things happening. The talk format for all its faults at least has decent demos. Adult standards wouldn't, and on an AM it's going to have a problem. Plus they've stuck with the talk format for many years now, so I think they're committed to it. I don't see a problem with leaving the talk format on the AM side, but the simulcast is the problem. Wasting an FM signal (even if it is a rimshot) makes no sense. It's not improving the ratings. Likewise, they dumped "smooth jazz" on a full market signal because it wasn't getting the job done. Trying to bring that back on a rimshot will be even worse. I could see putting adult standards on the FM though. In today's market, music pretty much has to be on FM. It sucks, but that's what the manufacturers and the public have left us with.