Age: ageless
Occupation: supposedly the entertainers and informers of the world
Last Seen: everywhere
Bee-otched For: ratings? Huh?
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Ratings time, Chuckamaniacs!
Here in Grand Rapids, Nielsen released their monthly ratings last week and WOOD-AM/FM ruled the roost with an 8.1. Considering that Rush was on his death bed, it didn't shock me that their ratings went up.
WCSG, B93, U of M Radio and GRD rounded the top five.
So, what did we learn from the book? Well, for starters, iHeartMedia is not very good at wondering what people want in radio. The good news is that 101.3 The Brew is long gone, Rover and all. The bad news? Its replacement, oldies 101.3 Big FM is not an improvement. Since November, the station has sunk from a 2 share to a 1.4.
Cumulus has got to be kicking themselves in the ass, too, because several of their stations are sucking balls in the ratings, especially The Ticket. True, that station has rebounded since their .1 share a few months ago. However, they are at a.... .6. Will somebody please tell the assholes at Cumulus that nobody in Grand Rapids - or west Michigan - likes Bill Simonson? Oh, yeah. The reason why he's still on the air is because he's butt buddies with the DeVoses. It all makes sense.
Regarding Townsquare, I am a little worried about Magic 104.9. Their ratings have been WAY DOWN since flipping to urban last year. However, I do give them a lot of credit for helping to kill WSNX, which has been extremely stale as of late thanks to iHeart's corporate BS. iHeart has done a wonderful job sucking the life out of that once-popular station. 105.3 Hot FM would be more formidable, however, if its playlist wasn't stale, too. Meanwhile, I did see that Hot FM has added a Saturday night mix show. I'll have to see if it's local or not.
And then there's northern Michigan, where I'm originally from. One thing that has royally pissed me off these past few weeks is how the local media up north has been ignorant towards the deaths of local media legends Lin McNitt - aka Michael O'Shea - and Bill "The Captain" Vogel. Neither 9&10 nor 7&4 have stories on their passing, nor did the Record-Eagle on their websites. But, when a hardware store owner in the tiny burg of Falmouth died of COVID, it was the top story.
To me, it's fucking disrespectful when someone works in radio for over 40 years and is a friend to more people gets less attention than the owner of a hardware store in a town of 800 souls. Granted, the Ebels family has done quite well and has the advertising budget to prove it. But, guess how many times I've ever walked into any of the Ebels businesses? ZERO. Guess when I PLAN to go to Ebels? PROBABLY NEVER.
I know. The folks who work at 7&4 and 9&10 are mostly newbies, save for people like Mark Scholett at 7&4 and Adam Bartlemay at 9&10. Many of the folks at both stations either A) weren't alive when O'Shea and The Captain were popular and on the air, B) didn't grow up in northern Michigan or C) A & B. But, when people start talking about how they grew up with both and most TV and radio stations sweep them off, it's embarrassing. At least I'll give KHQ a ton of credit for paying tribute to The Captain on the Monday after his death.
But, on a nationwide scale, I think I'm kinda happy that GR doesn't have stations owned by Entercom in this market - er, I mean, Audacy. Last week, the media giant, which bought up CBS's radio unit a few years back changed its name to Audacy, which rhymes with "odyssey". Too bad "Audacity" is already the name of audio editing software because the dictionary defines the term as "rude or disrespectful behavior". Kinda like what they did to 98.7 in Detroit by flipping it from a well-received soft AC station to a POS "alternative" format that has few listeners.
And yes, I put "alternative" in quotation marks because most of the alt-rock that's out there today is lame and too poppy. It reminds me of a now-defunct station in northern Michigan called The Zone. It debuted in 1998 and it was only good if you got tired of hearing classic rock on every other station. The Zone was similar to every other alt-rock station these days with a lack of hard rock in the playlist. It was simply a soccer mom station that labeled itself as "Modern Rock". Well, in 2000, the programming director quit and a new one was installed. Knowing how lame northern Michigan rock radio was, she added the nu-metal bands of the day (Disturbed, Limp Bizkit, Nine Inch Nails, Slipknot, etc.) and BOOM! The ratings grew.
Since then, The Zone has morphed into Rock 105 and 95-5 with a full-blown active rock format. It's hard to tell how they're doing in the ratings because their parent company, Black Diamond Broadcasting is the only broadcaster that subscribes to Nielsen. Although it's sad that since the pandemic began, their ratings have faltered somewhat. Personally, I think they would have done a lot better if the station existed 20 years ago.
Back in the day, if a radio company wanted to reformat a failing station, they would have hit the streets and surveyed the public. Now, they pull shit out of their ass and call it good. Up north 20-odd years ago, Northern Broadcast, Inc. killed top-rated CHR 106.7 The Peak and replaced it with an AC format that bombed. Why did it bomb? Because NBI didn't want "kids music" on any of their stations. At the end of the day, The Peak's replacement, WSRT - which stood for soft rock and "great" talk (they carried the horrid Bob and Sheri and Delilah shows) - couldn't even get a one share and flipped to talk and then ESPN before falling silent when NBI decided to sell off all six of their stations. Today, only one of their former stations, 97.5 WKLT is still maintaining their format of old butt rock while the five other stations now have new owners. Interestingly enough, two of the stations have been sold to people who spent time behind bars for drunk driving. One of those stations is 106.7, which is still silent.
As many of you long-time readers know, I started this site over two decades ago because I feel that the media is more about what the owners and shareholders want instead of the people. Today, iHeartMedia's stock ended at 18.24, Cumulus 9.36, Entercom 5.30 and Townsquare 10.60. But guess where Spotify landed at today? 273.30.
The point is, is that radio is on the way out because it's a business run by backstabbers who think their listeners will listen to anything. Try saying that to those who used to love WSNX or long before that, WKLQ. Same with The Peak or 95.5 the first time around when it flipped to shitty elevator music in 2004 when Del Reynolds thought that EZ 95-5 would do well up north. It only got a .5 share. Not to be controversial, his wife having a stroke saved rock radio in northern Michigan. He had to sell off his stations to Black Diamond, who flipped 95.5 back to rock and the rest is history.
When it comes to local radio, let the people decide, not the bean counters.
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