Thursday, May 03, 2007

Ratings Roundup Winter 2007: Part 3

And now we come to part three.

Today, Arbitron released ratings books for more markets, including five that have liberal talk radio stations.

In Minneapolis/St. Paul (#16), 1000 watt independently-owned suburban blaster KTNF drops a bit, from its highest-ever 1.7 to 1.1 for the Winter book. This is a tenth of a point higher than their position a year ago. They are clustered in a pack with three other talk stations: Conservotalk FM'er KTLK-FM, which rises just over a full point, Salem's WWTC and female-oriented FM talker WFMP, which they are tied with. Last fall, the station actually bested KTLK in several daypart and demographic breakdowns, particularly with Ed Schultz' show. Since then, the station moved Schultz to his new time slot, three hours earlier.

There's some interesting stuff going on in Buffalo (#52), as WWKB almost triples its ratings in one book, leaping from 0.6 to 1.7, good for 16th place in the market. They are helped somewhat by a change of formats at WHLD, which previously carried Air America Radio programming, prior to their current gospel music format (which has thus far failed to chart). Since the flip, WWKB has picked up Randi Rhodes and reorganized their schedule, to what appears to be greater success. They are also up nearly half a point from a year ago.

WPTT in Pittsburgh (#24), which carries Air America's Thom Hartmann, local talker Lynn Cullen and even FOX Noise suck-up Alan Colmes drops only a tenth of a point, from 1.2 to 1.1, the same point where they were a year ago.

Market #22 Denver's KKZN slides as well, from 1.9 to 1.3, close to where they were last winter and spring. They are still neck-and-neck with Salem conservotalker KNUS.

And finally, in the Queen City of Cincinnati (#28), WSAI, which ditched liberal talk around the beginning of the year for some weird form of Neal Boortz-anchored 'lifestyle talk' has dropped off the ratings charts. They are non-existent. Hope the Clear Channel braintrusts there who were adamant about wiping progressive talk off the local airwaves are satisfied with this little account executive throw-in special they've created.

Coming up on Friday, books for Miami, Seattle, Columbus and others will be released. Portland and Phoenix are set for Monday. I'll likely combine both days into one report, on Monday afternoon.

4 comments:

Unknown said...

When is Nova or AA for that matter going to give Jay Marvin his own syndicated show? He deserves it and has the experience to show. Hes done a wonderful job on 760.

Anonymous said...

I like Jay, too, but every time host does well locally various fans want him/her to go into national syndication.
This is the mind-set that has killed local radio.
Radio is a local medium. Part of the reason (in addition to lousy signals) libtalk doesn't get a sizable audience compared to right-wing talk is the lack of local programming. Everybody wants to start a network, nobody wants to develop local hosts.
The national field is already getting crowded. Four libtalk contenders and one ends up not carried or bumped to evenings.
In addition to bringing back the fairness doctrine and limits on ownership, let's bring back requirements for local-live programming.

raccoonradio said...

Meanwhile the GM of WTWK in Burlington VT (take this for what it's worth) explained on the station's forum page that the decision to drop Air America was a hard one; they were getting zero ratings and as far a sales went,
while local advertisers in the left-
leaning city did like the prog talk
programming...

..they did not want to be associated with "Bush bashing"
fearing it would turn potential
customers off. He said that. (In years gone by VT was heavily Republican but these days Burl itself seems pretty liberal, from when I've visited...

Whether or not a conservative talk station bashing a Democratic president (we could have one in
Jan. of 2009) would turn off
advertisers...remains to be seen.

raccoonradio said...

I'll add btw that WTWK has a weak
signal and was daytime only and basically they just dropped one
all-satellite service for another.

They could have just as easily gone
all satellite sports, all satellite
oldies, all satellite classic country...But apparently in the land of Howard Dean, they feel more
lifestyle-ish talk focusing on women would get better results than progressive talk.


  © Blogger template Columnus by Ourblogtemplates.com 2008

Back to TOP