Re: Help me understand ratings/revenue relationships

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: The 25-54 demo is a key "demo" for advertisers. The problem I have is that you could have a 25 year old adult male with a 54 adult male father and they would have two very different radio pre-sets in their car, two very different sets of buying habits, two very different incomes, two very different lives.... 25-54 isn't a "demo" it's Adults that are working full-time jobs. : There are also ways to skew the 25-54... whether that be 25-54Men or 25-54Women, or you could have an advertiser buying heavily in the 25-35 group and placing their secondary dollars on the 35-54 stations, etc. : Stations like WBBM-AM and WGN are mega-billers in the market for a few reasons.... the AM stations reach many more people across a wider area than their FM counterparts. WBBM-AM could have advertisers from Wisconsin, Indiana, Iowa, Minnesota, southern Illinois, etc. buying ads on their terrestrial stopsets. How frequently does that happen? I don't know, but it can happen, and it has. : More importantly, WBBM-AM and WGN are the radio homes of the Bears and the Cubs, respectively. The dollars poured into these sports outlets all count to that year-end number. : WBBM-AM and WGN are also huge CUME stories - reaching hundreds of thousands of listeners an hour, reaching many different kinds of people, for different reasons. During the winter months, you may have advertisers that are looking to reach consumers stuck in their cars on I-290 during snowy weather... big news stories and terrible weather are great TSL times for the talk stations. : People 35 and younger are listening to radio.... whether the advertisers believe that or not, they are there. The highest cuming radio stations overall (6+) are Kiss, B96, and The Mix (source: Arbitron August Monthly 6+ MSU6a12m) with Kiss and B96 in the upper 1.9million weekly listeners. : The problem with the agencies buying 25-54 isn't within the stations themselves for the most part. The problem is that the ad agencies have fixed their clients to believe that 25-54 is the money demo, and only buying stations based on ranker position is OK. PPM has changed all that - the difference between the #1 ranked station and the #6 ranked station could be only 1/10th of a rating point. They can no longer write-off a station from a buy because of their rating point as easily. : Alternatively, the stations need to do a better job of telling their story.... sure a station has 1.9 million weekly listeners, but WHO are they? WHAT are they doing? WHY do they listen? WHERE do they shop? WHO influences their buying decisions? Many stations got used to singing "We're #1, everyone loves us, so buy us!" and the rest said "We're not #1, so you should use the less cluttered station!" Rather than talking about WHO the consumer is on the other end of the radio dial. I think thats the style these stations need to start using (and many have) in order to see revenues pick back up. : A little long winded, I know.... but thats just my two cents. : : : Would somebody please tell me... : : If 25-54 is so important in ratings, then why are the top billing stations WBBM and WGN? They are not the top stations in that demo. If agencies just buy 25-54, these stations wouldn't have a chance. Am I missing something? Maybe they are doing something right or do I have my facts all wrong? : : And does anyone under the age of 30 or 35 even listen to radio anymore?

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