January 30th, 2010 
joel The twice yearly ratings horse race between Star 104 and Classy 100 has turned into a yawner.
The Fall 2009 Arbitron ratings released Friday afternoon confirms the amazingly strong hold that the Connoisseur Media cluster has over Erie radio listeners. Although it’s lead 12+ has softened, WRTS/Star 104 continues as Erie’s most listened to broadcast radio station. Meanwhile the flagship station for the Citadel group in Erie, WXKC/Classy 100 has continued its slide in share of audience over at least five books to be ranked fourth.
The big winner of the Fall was WTWF/93.9 The Wolf who garnered their best book ever, good for second place. Rounding out Connie Media’s top stations was WXBB/Bob FM, who scored their best book since they debuted in 2007.
Been a long time since we rock and rolled the ratings. WRKT/Rocket 101 and WQHZ/Z-102.3 have taken what was 17 shares of listenership two years ago and grinded it down to 11. It looks like Rocket especially hasn’t put the jets onto expanding its base.
As far as AM goes…simply, nothing to see here. While AM stations crush their competition in the markets surrounding us in ratings and billing, our offerings have received no investment from their owner companies and so they got what they paid for.
Finally, the third biggest jump up came from my alma mater WCTL, who scored their best book in memory and is knocking on the door of once-prominent WXTA/Country 98.
You can see all the hard numbers at AllAccess.com (registration required).
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its all over facebook about the radio station stuff. what did these stations do to you all.
It would appear the total number of listeners is diminishing over the years. I think this shoud be of concern to both radio groups. When the top station is only showing a 13, that’s not good. Where are those listeners going…and how do you bring them back? CAN you even bring them back?
I think the listeners are going to their ipods, or at the very least to satellite or internet radio. Listeners can hear a more concentrated flow of the music that they like, without having to hear all the stuff they don’t like. Why put up with 5 or 6 songs you don’t like in oreder to hear 1 that you do like? My car doesn’t have Sirius (yet), so when I’m in the car I listen to either WERG, WQLN or ESPN Radio 1260. When I’m at home, I listen to one of several Sirius channels I get on DISH, depending on my mood, or to The Alternate Side from WFUV on the internet. That way I don’t have to hear Miley Cyrus twice an hour, or Michael Bolton, or Alan Jackson, as the majority of Erie terrestrial stations would provide for me.
You say:
“I can listen to whatever I want, whenever I want”
“I can listen to previously unknown radio stations and not be limited to what is in my own market”
I Say:
First, point 1. We can categorize radio programming in to three types: background entertainment, real-time importance, and specialty programming. Radio is, for the most part, background entertainment; it’s something that people turn on and have on in the background while they do other things, such as getting ready for work in the morning, driving, cooking or working in an office. The time that a certain hit song plays is of no relevance; what is relevant is that the listener hears songs he likes. There’s no compelling reason, then, to be able to hear it when you want to hear it, because for the most part, it’s always available anyway.
Much of radio programming has immediate relevance, with fast spoilage. The perfect example is of course, weather and traffic reporting. Weather changes fast, but traffic changes even faster. Soon after traffic issues are reported, they’re forgotten about. Radio talk shows are much the same way, because the topics are generally very timely, and therefore become irrelevant days (if not hours) after they are broadcast. Sporting events carried on the radio are very much the same: There’s no point in listening to a game after the fact when you already know how it turns out in the end. So there again, there’s little compelling reason to be able to have this type of programming on an on-demand basis.
The specialty type of programming is more akin to television programs. “A Prairie Home Companion” (to name one) would be a good example of a show that has little real-time relevance, no spoilage, and is more of a foreground entertainment. The ability for listeners to have it available in an on-demand fashion via streaming media, or via a file download, is obviously important, and represents a valuable resource to listeners.
I will assert that most people, though they may claim to want to be able to listen to whatever they want whenever they want will not, in practice, do it that often. It is easier than ever before, to be sure; however, most people just want to be entertained in some fashion, without putting a lot of work in to it. The on-demand aspect of listening to music has been around as long as radio: from lacquer 78s, to 45 RPM singles, to 33-1/3 RPM albums, to CDs and now file downloads, music users have had that capability. That’s nothing new. The ability to use a thumb-drive — to plug it in to the dashboard of your vehicle — is a fairly new capability. It really is no different, though, than burning your own CDs — which people have been doing for years — or making your own cassette tapes, which people did 20 years ago.
Although the on-demand aspect is very important with respect to specialty programming in radio, it has little if any importance with respect to much radio programming.
Point 2 — the ability to listen to a much greater selection of radio stations. While I think this capability is interesting — and novel — I don’t see it having much effect on radio as we know it. My arguments are very much like those I posed with respect to point 1. Yes, you can listen to 10,000 radio stations. However, much of them are playing the same music — they’re hardly unique. And, their unique aspects may be completely irrelevant to a far-away listener: local traffic, weather and events come to mind. A distant station’s specialty programs provide the only compelling reason to listen to it over the Internet, or to otherwise download them for play later on.
Say what you want about radio programming. TV never killed the radio star and the ipod will never kill radio. Read it again if you must, radio is very alive!
The numbers that Joel posted that came from All Access were Shares Of The Audience Estimates (Shares). Shares are defined as: An estimate of station listenership expressed as a percentage of Persons Using Radio (PUR) at the time. The way to read the shares that Joel posted is: “At any given time during the week (Mon-Sun 6A-Midnight) 13.8% of total persons 12+ who were listening to radio at the time were listening to Star 104.”
Shares always add up to 100%, since they’re percentages of actual listeners. So, they’re a zero sum game: if Star drops a couple shares the some other station picks them up.
The estimates that Joel quoted are usually thought of by broadcasters and advertisers as just the “bragging rights” numbers since they cover too long a time period and too broad a demographic to mean much. Most advertisers target much tighter demographics (like Women 25-49) and specific time periods (like Morning Drive Time). The shares that were quoted were only for “reportable” commercial stations. The “missing shares” belong to WQLN-FM, WERG-FM, WFSE-FM, WMCE-FM, and other stations with listeners in our area.
In any case, the Share numbers don’t really address the question of whether radio use is up or down. I’ll have access to other estimates sometime next week and I’ll provide Joel with some data. However, the last time I looked, radio usage wasn’t down as much as we’d expect. But I’ll check the numbers to see if there’s a trend.
Finally, it is interesting to look at the Shares by Format. Here’s how they break down based on the All Access numbers that Joel posted:
FORMAT COMBINED SHARE NUMBER OF
STATIONS
Top 40/CHR 13.8 1
Country 15.5 3
AC/Adult Variety 17.7 2
Rock/Classic Rock 11.5 2
Christian 3.9 1
N/T 3.0 1
Sports 1.6 1
Standards/EZ/Oldies 2.4 3
Lemme try the Format Shares again (I didn’t realize that formatting would not carry over).
FORMAT / COMBINED SHARE / NUMBER OF STATIONS
Top 40-CHR / 13.8 / 1
Country / 15.5 / 3
AC-Adult Variety / 17.7 / 2
Rock/Classic Rock / 11.5 / 2
Christian / 3.9 / 1
N-T / 3.0 / 1
Sports / 1.6 / 1
Standards-EZ-Oldies / 2.4 / 3
More readable??
Erie is like every other market when it comes to radio with watered down formats that are too repetitive. (The exception is WYNE.) Yes people are looking at options for what they want to hear and traditional stations are going to be left out. You have variety on Sirius / XM, MP3s or Internet Radio and do not have to settle for what the suits want you to hear.
Does anyone know what happened to Kyle on The Wolf?
Kyle is still doing his usual great job on the Wolf. He is now doing noon to 3, just before Chuck the Promo Guy hits the air.
Kyle still works for The Wolf. According to 939thewolf.com, he is on the air from noon to 3 PM weekdays.
Wow. You beat me to it, Dan.
The No-Spin Zone
Kyle is really not there anymore. His hours were reduced to a handful per week. And if you hear him middays or probably at all, he’s voicetracked. No surprise right? Kyle was initially supposed to be on the morning show in some full-time capacity but got the shaft. They thought he was too young and couldn’t relate to the target audience. Go figure huh? Just look at the ratings
Dan Sheldon who initially applied for the Wolf morning position along with Amy Clemson in 08 (only to become part-time in the end) is now one of the ONLY remaining on air part-timers within the Boston Store, and most of that is on Rocket.
The Wolf has basically turned into a station utilizing all Rocket 101 people
And that’s, the real deal
Thanks Dan and Doug. I didn’t realize he was on in the afternoon. I really miss him in the morning my boyfriend and I would listen every morning and we could never stop laughing. I think it is a shame he isn’t on anymore. My friends and coworkers miss him too it made the work day go faster because we would always talk about things he said in the morning. It was just nice to listen to someone so lively and new. I would really like to know who I can contact about getting Kyle back on in the mornings. There has to be someone I can call or email. Does anyone know who I would need to contact?