News and Talk on FM: Pt. 3

And now in what appears to be the final chapter of Ratings Providence Style...

As reported on competitor WHJJ's website:

WPRO Comes Clean in Ratings Scandal

In a shocking turn of events, WPRO blames their morning host's wife for trying to "fix" the ratings.

The TV stations in town were all over this as well.

And long time Providence morning guys Paul and Al over at WHJY doing what they do best...listen in right here:




And that appears to be that. Scandal revealed, mystery solved, and everyone lived to tell about it. We now return you to your regularly scheduled programming.

News and Talk on FM: An Update

A couple of weeks ago I blogged about how news/talk stations would continue their successful migration to FM and highlighted WPRO's (Providence) spring ratings success as a shining example. Then the news came out regarding 6 questionable diaries that Arbitron was looking into.

Despite the fact that the premise of the post remains strong and intact, I was concerned that I still might have an erroneous post on my hands. I decided I would wait until Arbitron reissued the Providence ratings before I would change or amend my original post. If you missed it you can read the original here.

According to Radio and Records, Arbitron has re-issued the spring book and here are the detail of the adjustments:

Spring Revised: Arbitron released revised spring numbers for Providence after discovering six diaries from "media-affiliated households." Citadel talk WPRO-AM goes from third to tied for second 12+, not to first as originally shown. The revised numbers heavily affected WPRO's morning show in adults 25-54 but didn't stop the show from going 6.4-7.4 ranking No. 1 12+, says PD Paul Giammarco. The show fell from fourth to ninth place among adults 25-54. Adults 35-64 showed no change in the reissue.

While embarrassing for the station; still a decent book overall as well as for the morning show.

What's still unknown--or not reported thus far-- what was the origin of those 6 renegade diaries. [Arbitron is so hungry for willing participants, this type of "error" does not surprise me. Not to mention stations equally hungry for higher ratings. I may have to write about that at another time.]

As anyone who deals with Arbitron ratings knows, the impact that 6 diaries can have on a ratings period is mind-numbing--even though Providence is a decent sized market with a metro population of 1,376,500 (ranked #39th) and presumably an adequate number of diaries to appropriately measure the market. Imagine the impact in a smaller market!

Based on today's re-issue I will let the original post stand. Like it or not, spoken word formats are FM's future. Got something interesting to say?

AM on FM - More Evidence

As the spring 12+ ratings roll out I tend to glance over the numbers in the trades. I seem to gravitate to the markets that I have been involved with--which over the years has been more than sixty. So when the Providence, RI numbers rolled out I was taken aback to see WHJJ-AM so far behind WPRO-AM. PRO-AM was at the top of the ratings, #1, and 'HJJ down at 14th.

History: WHJJ-AM was a station that Bill Hess (now VP Programming at Air America) and I resurrected some years ago from mostly paid programming to respectability with compelling local shows and a top notch news department. [I think even the PRO-AM guys would admit that WHJJ was a strong competitor back then.] Success came 25-54, besting PRO more than a few times. Never could overcome the power of the Red Sox, however!

So what's driving Pro to the top of the ratings? --Something that has not happened since Salty Brine was the morning man. F-M baby!!! It should be the next big thing...for AM News-Talk stations. And in some markets in might be the only thing to save them.

Markets like Washington, Phoenix, Salt Lake City, Indianapolis and others have had success migrating their heritage AM stations to FM, sometimes as in the case of Providence--an AM/FM simulcast, or simply launching the format on FM like has been done in Boston and here in Minneapolis. Of course, public radio has been broadcasting, news, talk and information for years on FM. And in many markets very successfully.

Over the next number of years we will see every market with a N/T station on FM. I think there's room for more spoken word formats on FM--lots more. And it will happen. Maybe not out of desire, but necessity. In most markets the AM band is a road less traveled and much older than FM (and that's aging too). This trend is not likely to change.

There will be more hybrids--music and talk formats mashed up together. Talk shows that play music and music shows that talk. In many ways this philosophy flies in the face of current thinking and is opposite of what a research tool such as a format finder might indicate. Remember, people can only adequately react to what they know and it's simply unrealistic to expect an average person to be able to imagine, "what if" when it comes to something they have never heard. Additionally, how people say they behave isn't always a mirror image of what they actually do when nobody is watching.

If you are operating a station that is the fifth or sixth station "hyper-focused" on targeting women 35-44 or men 30-39 and achieving so-so results the day will come when your best option might just be to reinvent, create and succeed with something you never imagined could be. It takes guts and vision. That is for sure.

There in no hugely successful business person I know of that has not has his/her share of failures. I like to say, "if you haven't failed you wouldn't recognize success."