I don't mean satellite radio ... maybe an AM station ... leave FM to nonstop music ... a single frequency for people on the road to learn what's going on internationally, domestically, regionally and here in our own neck of the woods.
We spend more time in our cars than we would like to, so don't we need an escape from redundant talk radio and the hell and damnation preachers and sports analysts?
Yeah, I know, PBS is somewhat of a relief but is definitely not a spot on the dial for hardcore news or up to the minute scores on the DOW.
I just have a sense that if a UFO were to land anywhere in Florida (or in Jacksonville for that matter) listeners would have to wait until we got home to get the scoop from Fox or CNN. No kidding!
The Times Union, ::), ran 2 stories on radio in the Sunday paper, one was about the ratings system, the second, about which stations are improving ratings:
QuoteLast winter, Cox Radio Inc. converted WXXJ (102.9 FM) from 1980s classic rock to alternative rock, and Renda Broadcasting converted WMUV (100.7 FM) from rhythmic adult contemporary to classic country music. According to the summer ratings released last week by Arbitron, both moves have had an impact on the market.
WXXJ ranked 14th in the quarterly ratings in the fall of 2008 with a 1.6 average quarter-hour share of all listeners aged 12 and over. That measures the percentage of people in the market listening to the radio who listen to that station in an average 15-minute period.
But after the format change, WXXJ jumped to eighth in the market in the summer with a 5.6 share. And WXXJ has really bit into the ratings of Jacksonville's existing alternative music station, WPLA (107.3 FM). It's fallen from fourth place last fall with a 5.9 share to 12th place with a 2.5 share.
"We've been very pleased with the ratings results that we've seen," said David Isreal, general manager of WXXJ.
"We have some good validation that we made a good programming decision and a good business decision," he said.
Not only has WPLA fallen overall but its "Lex & Terry" morning show, which was the most popular morning show in Jacksonville a few years ago, has dropped along with the rest of the station. "Lex & Terry," which started in Jacksonville but is now syndicated from Dallas, ranked second with a 7.2 share as recently as the summer of 2008 but dropped to 11th in the summer of 2009 with a 3.2 share.
WQIK's "Big Show" morning team of Boomer, Robbie Rose and Toni Foxx was the top-rated show on weekdays from 6 to 10 a.m. with a 7.9 share in the summer of 2008. But like WXXJ taking away listeners from WPLA, new country station WMUV seems to be taking some listeners from WQIK (99.1 FM).
The "Big Show" fell to third place but remained strong with a 7.0 share in the summer of 2009, with the syndicated "Tom Joyner" show moving to the top of the morning ratings on WSOL (101.5 FM) with a 10.2 share. But WQIK fell from second overall with a 7.2 share in both the summer and fall of 2008 to fifth place with a 6.4 share in the summer of 2009.
Former radio industry executive Mark Schwartz, who is now president of advertising firm Mark Schwartz & Co., said it is not surprising that both WPLA and WQIK have fallen in the ratings.
"For the first time in a long time, in both cases, they're dealing with radio stations that came on the scene that are eroding some of their listeners," he said.
Renda already had one country station, WGNE (99.9 FM), which plays more contemporary country music, before it added the classic country WMUV last winter. WGNE and WMUV combined had a 6.4 share in the summer, the same as WQIK.
"We found a hole. There seemed to be a lot of talk that there's no classic country in Jacksonville - music that people grew up with," said Gary Spurgeon, general manager of Renda's Jacksonville stations.
"This has really hit a strong nerve with a lot of people," he said.
In the graphic, it showed WOKV as the top radio station in Jax, and I believe their format is talk-radio, correct?
With the full internet on your cell phone, Twitter, instant messaging, alerts from just about anywhere, email, etc. bombarding you all day, what news is left to get from over the air? It would be nice to have while driving but that's about it.
In college, I had access to an all news station and listened to little else. It was just as addictive as the internet can be. You never knew what the next breaking story would be and/or had no other timely alternative for the information. That's no longer true.
NPR and WOKV succeed because they deliver heavy doses of news analysis, original stories, and/or news commentary and discussion. News alone doesn't work. I would love to have it but I don't think it is economically sustainable all by itself in today's world.
Quote from: stjr on October 27, 2009, 02:02:58 PM
With the full internet on your cell phone, Twitter, instant messaging, alerts from just about anywhere, email, etc. bombarding you all day, what news is left to get from over the air? It would be nice to have while driving but that's about it.
NPR and WOKV succeed because they deliver heavy doses of news analysis, original stories, and/or news commentary and discussion. News alone doesn't work. I would love to have it but I don't think it is economically sustainable all by itself in today's world.
Radio is the only electronic medium that effectively targets people
en masse who happen to be stuck behind their wheels at any time, day or night. Remember, I was referring to people in their cars. Tell me that an all-news radio station is not sustainable on the First Coast either economically or due to a lack of intellectual curiousity about what is happening around us or around the world but don't suggest that cell phones and Twitter and the Internet and instant messaging are all equally effective means of reaching millions of people on the road.
I agree that news alone doesn't work, but our own enlightenment and awareness always start with a news event.][/i]
Cricket, I would love to have this as you suggest. But, per Wikipedia, it's apparently a struggle to survive in today's world as many players have come and gone and habits have changed. Some excerpts from the Wikipedia article:
QuoteAll-news radio is a radio format devoted entirely to discussion and broadcast of news.
All-news radio is available in both local and syndicated forms, and is carried in some form on both major US satellite radio networks. Some all-news stations, like KYW, WBBM and WCBS, carry sports, and all-news stations may occasionally carry public affairs programs, simulcasts of TV news magazine or political affairs shows like 60 Minutes and Face the Nation, and national radio shows revolving around news such as the CBS News Weekend Roundup. Some all news stations, like KNX and WBZ, run talk radio programs on weekends and during off peak hours, while WBBM also carries programming revolving around the NFL Chicago Bears, as that station airs the play-by-play for the team. Some CBS news radio stations also air When Radio Was in the overnight hours, a nightly program featuring rebroadcasts of old time radio. Most of these stations are owned by CBS Radio, and therefore are affiliated with the CBS Radio network.
Many stations brand themselves Newsradio but only run continuous news during the morning and afternoon drive times. These stations are properly labeled as "news/talk" talk radio stations. Also, some National Public Radio stations identify themselves as News and Information stations, which means that in addition to running the NPR news magazines like Morning Edition and All Things Considered, they run other information programs such as Day to Day, Talk of the Nation, and the BBC World Service...
In 1975, the NBC Radio Network shut down its profitable weekend music and information service NBC Monitor to launch the News & Information Service (NIS), the first all-news radio network. It was closed two years later in a cost-cutting move though it had strong ratings in some key markets.
In 1994 a similar effort to NIS was launched by the Associated Press. It was officially known as AP All-News Radio and had many affiliates from coast to coast. However, it was informally better known by its promotional title of "The News Station." The Associated Press discontinued the all-news format in July 2005.
The last national all-news radio service in the United States, the audio feed of CNN Headline News, is being phased out by Westwood One as of 2007. Headline News's audio feed was popular among all-news stations, particularly after the AP disbanded their format in 2005, until the TV station decided to abandon its all-news format and add talk show programming in prime time, when many smaller stations do not have air staff and rely on a network feed, in 2006. Only a limited number of affiliates remain as many have become talk radio stations. (There are, however, a number of daytime-only stations that continue to carry the audio simulcast, now known as HLN.)
While not a full-time NIS, the CBS Radio Network provides significant content for many, if not most, all-news radio stations in the United States, especially local stations in smaller markets.
...All-news has for years been a top-rated radio format in New York, Washington, D.C., and other cities, but as big city traffic worsens and people work longer hours that increase the urgency of planning their day ahead the focus of such stations has increasingly been on traffic and weather, often updated every 10 minutes. Attempts at long-form commercial all-news stations, such as Washington Post Radio, have been largely unsuccessful.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/All-news_radio
Just what I want to hear more bad news all the time, everywhere. (Sarcasm intended)