Company News · January 22, 2009

Is The People Meter The Enemy Of New Music?

By Edison Research

When KDLE Los Angeles changed format to Regional Mexican last week, relegating its Indie 103.1 programming to the Web, it left a note behind. On its site, the station announced, “Because of changes in the radio industry and the way radio audiences are measured, stations in this market are being forced to play too much Britney, Puffy and alternative music that is neither new nor cutting-edge. Due to these challenges, Indie 103.1 was recently faced with only one option – to play the corporate radio game . . . We have decided not to play that game.”
Indie’s many consumer press fans cheerfully took up the cry, most notably an Idolator.com story headlined, “The Indie 103.1 Shutdown: Was It Eaten by the People Meter?” It fell to Univision’s David Gleason to point out on the New York Radio Message Board that Indie had already fallen to a 0.6 in the diary world – not so much better than its final months in the 0.3-0.4 range. Gleason also correctly noted that Indie was a simulcast of two small signals in a geographically sprawling market. To which one can also add that Indie lasted five years – not bad for a station that peaked around a 1-share. “To blame the PPM is simply an attempt at an exorcism by those involved. It didn’t work in any ratings system,” Gleason writes.
It wasn’t long ago that PPM was being hailed as a boon for Rock radio. The first format change prompted by PPM wasn’t a Rock station going Spanish, it was Clear Channel’s Spanish WUBA Philadelphia becoming Alternative WRFF (Radio 104.5). And in that initial period where Philly and Houston spoke for the world, Radio 104.5 did very well in PPM. Radio 104.5’s more gold-based version of Adult Modern wouldn’t cut it with all of Indie’s fans, but they’ve managed to play enough rock critic favorites like Airborne Toxic Event and Band of Horses in the last 18 months that one can’t categorically declare a defeat for the cutting edge. WRFF has been up and down a few times now, but it was at a 3.2 in December – more than respectable for a boutique format.
So is PPM the enemy of radio stations that play new music? Depends what new music you’re talking about and how much of it you need to be happy. To anybody who has lived through three separate occasions when Top 40 looked like it might disappear entirely, any vital young-end format is not a bad thing – even if some MGMT would sound good between Britney and T.I. While PPM has propelled a number of gold-based stations back into prominence (KOLA San Bernardino, Calif., WDRV and WLS-FM Chicago), a check of who was winning in the top 10 PPM markets in December shows a more even balance between current-driven formats and gold based stations than you might think, specifically:
* New York: Three current (Top 40 WHTZ, Spanish WSKQ, Urban AC WBLS); four gold (AC WLTW, Oldies WCBS-FM, Classic Rock WAXQ, Rhythmic AC WKTU); three non-music (WINS, WCBS, WABC);
* Los Angeles: Five current (Top 40 KIIS, Spanish KLAX and KSCA, Hip-Hop KPWR, and Alternative KROQ–which will bear further discussion below); four gold (AC KOST, Oldies KRTH, Spanish Oldies KRCD and Spanish AC KLVE), one non-music (KFI);
* Chicago: Three current (Country WUSN, Spanish WOJO, Adult Top 40 WTMX); four gold (AC WLIT, Classic Rock WDRV, Oldies WLS-FM, Urban AC WVAZ); three non-music (WGN, WLS, WBBM);
* San Francisco: Five current (Hip-Hop KMEL, Rhythmic KYLD, Hot AC KIOI, Spanish KSOL, and Triple-A KFOG); one gold (AC KOIT), four non-music (KGO, KQED, KCBS, KNBR);
* Dallas: Six current (Top 40 KHKS, Country KPLX and KSCS, Hip-Hop KKDA-FM and KBFB, and Christian AC KLTY), four gold (AC KVIL, Oldies KLUV, Classic Rock KZPS, Spanish Oldies KLNO);
* Houston: Five current (Hip-Hop KBXX, Alternative KTBZ, Christian KSBJ, Spanish KLOL, Country KKBQ), four gold (Urban AC KMJQ, AC KODA, Classic Rock KKRW, Spanish KLTN), one non-music (KTRH);
* Philadelphia: One current (Active Rock WMMR), seven gold (ACs WBEB and WNUW, Oldies WOGL, Rhythmic AC WISX, Classic Rock WMGK, Adult Hits WBEN, and Urban AC WDAS), two non-music (KYW, WHYY);
* Atlanta: Six current (Urban WVEE, Country WKHX, Rhythmic WBTS, Top 40s WWWQ and WSTR, and Gospel WPZE); three gold (Urban AC WALR, Classic Hits WSRV, and AC WSB-FM), one non-music (WSB);
* Washington, D.C., Five current (Top 40 WITH, Urban AC WHUR, Hot AC WRQX, Hip-Hop WKYS, Alternative WWDC); three gold (AC WASH, Christian AC WGTS, Classical WETA); two non-music (WTOP, WAMU)
* Detroit: Four current (Top 40 WKQI, Hot AC WDVD, Urban WJLB, Active Rock WRIF), four gold (AC WNIC, Classic Rock WCSX, Oldies WOMC, Urban AC WMXD), and two non-music (WWJ and WJR).
These numbers are not without footnotes. They’re from December, the holiday format’s best month, which only strengthens the argument that current-based formats need not fall off the face of the earth. There are also a lot of Rock, Urban AC, and Spanish stations with a “yesterday and today” mix that could have gone in either column. KFOG has only a few heavily-played currents, but many more getting at least a handful of spins every week. KROQ has its own WRFF aspects these days. It has only 14 songs that Mediabase calls current getting 10 spins or more. But those include import buzz act Iglu & Hartly and Canadian rapper K’naan. It’s hard to quite put them in the same pile with KRTH.
So are there no cutting-edge stations here? Other formats don’t as readily provide the same test cases that Alternative does – there’s no Top 40 or AC equivalent of Indie. But within the Top 40 world, WHTZ (Z100) is very aggressive in terms of starting its own hits. Across town, WBLS, despite its own much publicized PPM travails, remains aggressive on current Urban AC music. KSCS and WKHX are both more current driven than the average Country station, while KPLX has three “Texas Country” titles in its top 10. But if only Santogold and Delta Spirit count as new music to you, you’re unlikely to take solace in any of this.
What we’re then left with is a debate about the more-adult, more library-driven format that Alternative has become. And that template was set at least five years ago, long before we knew what PPM held for any format, when KBZT (FM94.9) San Diego signed on and GMs decided to protect their upper demos (and their beer money). The Clear Channel modern rockers that could keep a two-year-old record in power as long as the research dictated go back even further. And long before PPM, it was clear that little new Rock music was as galvanizing, or at least as unifying, as ’90s Alternative. Right now, it’s hard to say how a station that was more current-based than KROQ, but less eclectic than KDLE would fare in PPM, because the test cases don’t really exist.
What is clear is that in the diary or in PPM, it’s hard to be a boutique format. When WRFF, WMMR and KTBZ had their initial strong PPM showings, broadcasters hoped that it would be good news for all things Rock. So far, more eclectic rockers like KSWD Los Angeles and WRXP New York haven’t received their PPM bonus. But even in a diary market, low ratings finally caught up with WHTG Monmouth/Ocean County, N.J., a heritage Alternative that was about halfway between WRFF and KDLE in terms of depth. What changed for boutique stations is as likely the ad climate – a flanker station like KDLE that was never geared for boxcar ratings numbers was always going to be a harder qualitative sell. And that kind of sell just got harder. How do you monetize your audience’s buying power when even those who can still spend are choosing not to?
The best of the music that powered Indie still has the opportunity to drive a successful radio station somewhere. And much of it is music that might be more at home at AC, Top 40, or a format that doesn’t yet exist. (It wasn’t typical of the rest of the playlist, but one can’t help but see some irony in Indie’s final most-played song: 30-year-hitmaker Prince singing “Crimson & Clover” – first a hit 40 years ago today.) It’s disconcerting to lose Indie, WHTG, and Bonneville’s iChannel within a few days of each other; then again, Top 40 was still losing radio stations in 1996, even as its last resurgence was picking up steam. There will be a package for today’s cutting-edge music that works in PPM, the bigger scare is whether the current slowdown on format experimentation will allow broadcasters to find it.

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