Competition

Each time a station I've worked with over the years has been directly attacked I have publicly said:  "Competition makes us better."

For the listeners and the air staff, that's true.

But, generally, from a business point of view I have to privately admit it's simply not, especially in markets where media buyers generally refuse to buy two country stations at good rates.

Doubly so in PPM measurment markets where direct format competition has often driven down shares, making point levels shrink.

This was reinforced for me in September 1999 when longtime Detroit incumbant W4 Country typically had higher ratings with country than did WYCD, lack of advertiser revenue led W4 Country to switch to a classic rock format and WYCD never looked back from a revenue viewpoint.

The same thing played out a decade ago in San Diego.  Local observers claimed that neither Lincoln Financial nor the company formerly known as Clear Channel made any money during a costly fight, but when it ended KSON rose back to the top of the audience and revenue rankings, where they remain today.

iHeart's K-102 and CBS' Buz'n have been going at it in a virtual tie after three years in the Twin Cities in what has been a costly battle for both companies.  The last time KEEY had an attacker in this position they purchased it, leading to two decades of revenue and audience dominance.  This time, BUZ'N came out just as Taylor Swift was on the upswing.

Back before PPM measured Boston a very competitive fight went on between WKLB and WBCS (Boston's Country Station) from 1993 to 1995.  The victor in that battle was Greater Media. They have been extremely powerful from a revenue and ratings perspective for the 20 years since then.  Fighting for format ownership in country can be lucrative, long term.

It's been almost 20 years since the last competitive assault in Orlando for country, which even included Cox's K-92 buying the attacker just before it went country.  Three years later they took it out of the format, leading the market for much of the intervening time with just one country station, part of a solid cluster with broad reach.

Until now, as JVC closed on WHKQ Monday and then quickly launched 103.1 The Wolf on Friday. 

Things to watch:

• Is this the beginning of a new post-consolidation age in competitive format battles?
• In the past, new stations launched as formats were on the upswing.  Is this a good time to launch a new radio station in the country format against a strong competitor?

This I know:  the listeners are going to love having a choice.  The air staffs and street teams are going to have fun going at it.

The accountants, not so much.

Can You Spot The One Who "Get's It"?

Some people have a way of making themselves the center of events and others seem more comfortable playing the background.

Take a fast look at this photo from Country Aircheck weekly. Where do your eyes go?  Which personalities do you want to identify?

Small wonder the ACM judges liked Bobby Bones' entry in spite of how new the team is to country radio.  Clearly what they learned doing CHR in Austin is paying off in their new format home.

Some people stand in front of the remote booth engaging listeners directly, while others prefer to hide behind the station banner.

Most of us try to hide from the camera when a lens is pointed our way.

That's not the business we're in.

These are learned skills and if your team doesn't seem to understand that appearances, stunts and awards are an opportunity to be maximized, it's time ot teach them.

We are in a very competitive business.

Do your personalities act like they don't realize this?

If you need help with teaching the facts of show biz, we can help.

How Big Do Samples Need To Be?

The best way to be sure that a survey sample is reliable:  do repeated measurements consistently produce the same results?

For example, in Arbitron market #67 Fresno - where thankfully both owners still subscribe to ARB so we can at least get some idea from the real world - the top country station (Peak's KSKS) has gone from #3 in 12+ monthly trend cume rank in May 2011 to #5 to #2 to #3 to #3 to #8 to #7 to #4 to #3 to #5 to #6 to #8 to #3 in May 2012.

The second tier country station (Clear Channel's KHGE) wobbled even more over the same period, from #21 to #11 to #7, then #16, #14, #21, #16, #10, #15, #18, #12, #17, #9.

I chose 12+ cume rankers to trend, since those should be the largest, most-stable numbers to track, less susceptible to weighting-driven TSL/AQH wobbles and yet it's still quite obvious that something is unstable about even those numbers.

•  Which are the outliers in the stats and which are reality? 
•  Is a year enough time to allow to see?  
•  How many years' averages will it take to know for certain?

Pity the poor media buyer and radio seller trying to make sense of them.

My conclusion, though I am not sure Arbitron (or BBM) would agree:  the Fresno sample isn't large enough, given the complexities of ethnic/non-ethnic sample balance, let alone Spanish only/bilingual/English only language and cell phone/land line home phone preference trends.

Nielsen just announced that it plans to double its TV diary and quadruple it's metered panel samples.

You'd think that would make a huge difference, and yet it may not since the TV ratings company in the USA did the same thing only five years ago with the goal of tripling it by 2011 and yet they seem to "need" to do it again now and state that they plan to move as fast to do so as their clients want.

Nielsen has competition which is clearly driving the changes; Arbitron does not. 

Same in Canada, where BBM is the only option for broadcasters, since they "own" it.

If North American radio wants to know how big samples must be to be consistent and credible in our markets + how fast our ratings supplier can get there, we're going to have to keep the pressure on ARB and BBM, with high hopes they care as much as their clients do, to make changes in spite that.

Send This Message To Your Team Now

"Today would be a good day to listen to competitors, listen to their music (pull Media Monitors, BDS or Mediabase for last week), listen to their imaging, contesting, commercials and how their clocks are set up.

"Take a look at their websites and take a listen to their streaming product as well.

"Are you winning in all aspects?

"The Spring ARB starts in 14 days."

-- An email sent by one of the sharpest market managers I work with to his proramming and marketing people yesterday.