Ratings out

[seattlefollower]

What's going on at KSFI?

KRSP came in at #3.

The "rise" in conservative talk listening appeared to help KNRS.

There's two more diaries to go here (Spring/Summer) and then it's PPM.

[CAwasinNJ]

To be fair, FM100 is pretty much in line with their norm. The fall book includes a large amount of time when they were all Christmas and is an anomaly both for that reason and because it wasn't in line in general with everything around it. That being said, I don't think the folks at Bonneville are thrilled that the once mighty 100.3 has fallen so far. On the other hand, individual stations really don't matter than much in the world of cluster radio. Bonneville has 3 of the top 6 stations in the market. That's fantastic. If they can maintain that, they're in good shape.

KNRS' jump is weird. Offhand I can't think of what might have happened in the first quarter to cause their listenership to go up so dramatically. It wasn't at the expense of KSL or KLO. It could just be diary placement. We'll have to wait and see.

I'm wondering if X96 and The End keep swapping listeners.

KTMY is still getting going, but after such a dramatic flip to be doing that well is fine. We'll know better over the next book or two whether the plan will work.

KSOP is still MIA.

The only other one that really sticks out to me is KBZN. After officially kicking NAC ("smooth jazz") to the curb, the ratings tanked. I'm sorry Capital but AC is a two horse race in SLC and those slots are being filled by FM100 and KOSY. If you've got something dramatic up your sleeve I'd suggest letting it loose. Oh, and fix your underwriting on KUED. They were still promoting you as smooth jazz and chill this weekend. Whoops.

[Terry]

Seeing KLO get higher ratings than KBZN brings to mind and old wish. I'm still hoping one day to hear KLO-FM 97.9. Despite reports to the contrary, I still contend that KLO-AM has a very weak signal in the southeast quadrant of the SL Valley. I would assume that it's weak in Utah County too, I don't know. Simulcasting the AM on FM would of course be inexpensive and more people would be able to hear them clearly. I'd love to hear their programming with a decent signal. And I would dare to predict that talk on radio will only gain in popularity as music listeners move to MP3 and satellite.

The previous FM talk experiment on 97.5 was interesting, but they had a weak signal too.

[smooth]

None of the Humpy stations will ever amount to anything because they have no building penetration. You need people to listen in their homes and at work, not just in their car.

[CAwasinNJ]

I agree, but I get the Humpy's ok at home even on some crappy radios. Not everyone is so lucky of course, and the Farnsworth stations are going to be stronger no doubt. Saying that they won't amount to anything is a bit strong though, don't you think?

I think a bigger issue than just raw signal strength is getting people to notice them. How many people when they're just randomly surfing for something to listen to just use the seek button? In general, probably a lot. The station might be perfectly listenable, but if the seek never stops on it then you're going to have a problem. The answer to that is promotion, which we don't see much of with the notable exception of 104.7's efforts. Just something for the promo people to think about.


Something else I just noticed. Arbitron is listing that they'll actually be publishing Spring Phase 1's in early June. Let's see if that lasts.

[seattlefollower]

This data always takes a little longer to be released. KCPW continues strong without Blair Feulner. Again, some of the strongest ratings I've seen for the station, despite a slimmer local midday component. Not sure why KBYU is missing, perhaps they no longer pay RRC for data.

[CAwasinNJ]

Sorry, I had to remove the actual data. We can't republish the data or we'll get shut down. The full numbers are at www.rrconline.org/arbitron/

It's really interesting that KCPW with a much smaller signal gets almost twice the ratings that KRCL does. I'm not trying to compare formats of course, but I can't help but wonder KCPW could do with a full class C signal. I guess that's what they were trying to do with AM1010, but that never really went anywhere.