March PPM's

[Marcus]

WLLZ is still down at a 2.1
WDZH is up
WGPR is down to a 1.2

https://ratings.radio-online.com/content/arb011

[MWmetalhead]

That 9.1 share for WNIC is a PPM era record high for them (and for all music based stations) outside of Christmas music season. Extremely impressive stuff.

The 4.2 share for WDZH is also impressive considering how extremely low budget that station is! None of its programming staff is based in Detroit and is divided between multiple stations in multiple markets.

WDMK is at or near an all-time record low. Probably time to find program director #27 (hyperbole) for that struggling station.

WGPR would earn better ratings broadcasting a non-stop fart loop.

97.1 has a 9.0 share when adding streaming to FM listening. That's a phenomenal result given the fact the NFL season was over.

[edj]

Yikes, when’s the last time a commercial FM based in Detroit (not Windsor) rate that low? Was it when 105.1 did their disastrous sports format? It’s not a station I listen to- thoughts as to why they are so low? I don’t see a format change.

It was always thought Alt 98.7 would be the one to fall so much. They’ve hung around.

[Greg Buben]

Here's how many stations each company had in the top ten stations of the March Nielsen Ratings:
Company Amount of Stations Which stations and their ranking

Audacy 4 #2 The Ticket, #4 WYCD, #7 WOMC, and #9 WWJ

I-Heart 3 #1 WNIC, #3 WKQI, and #8 WMXD

Beasley 3 #4 WCSX, #5 WRIF, and #10 WMGC

Cumulus 0

others 0

[Willie108]

Let the non-stop WLLZ bashing continue!

[dial-it-in]

I'll give 97.1 some credit here. I thought for sure they would fall significantly after the Lions season ended.

[ChrisWL1980]

Hot 107.5 is targeting a demo that doesn't use radio much, if ever. That demo streams. Note that of the three hip-hop stations in the market, the highest-rated is the throwback station. Channel 955 plays a healthy dose of rhythmic throwbacks as well. Mix 92.3 has the Urban Adult heritage and Kiss has never been able to catch them.
107.5 might do better to adopt an older-skewing format such as Gospel or R&B Oldies. Even smooth jazz, as ancient as those demos are, would probably do better than what they have now.

[MWmetalhead]

WJLB simply does a better job serving the hip-hop and R&B audience than 107.5.

107.5 is basically a half-assed version of WJLB. No one listens to The Morning Hustle locally (a syndicated morning show from Urban One), and 107.5 in evenings airs a syndicated show from Atlanta. 107.5 seems to play a lot of songs with no staying power.

107.5 has a terrible dial position to boot.

[Majik]

WJLB simply does a better job serving the hip-hop and R&B audience than 107.5.

107.5 is basically a half-assed version of WJLB. No one listens to The Morning Hustle locally (a syndicated morning show from Urban One), and 107.5 in evenings airs a syndicated show from Atlanta. 107.5 seems to play a lot of songs with no staying power.

107.5 has a terrible dial position to boot.

What makes it a terrible dial position?

[Majik]

I'll give 97.1 some credit here. I thought for sure they would fall significantly after the Lions season ended.

97.1 is generally a top three position in most of the monthly listings. Lions football has always been discussed 365 days a year on the station. Even when the team sucked. Now that they are contenders offseason interest should be higher than ever. There are times when the other sports are not a topic, even in season.
Believe it or not, 97.1 is one of the most successful sports talk stations in the country. WBZ FM in Boston is the only station that constantly ranks higher. It usually is Bostons #1 station. What surprises me is that The Ticket does this good without a lot of quality talent behind the microphone. Too many unlistenable hosts for my liking. I guess the fact that people around here love their sports, no matter how bad the teams can be, is what drives the success of the station. Plus the fact that they have zero competition in the market.

[dial-it-in]

I have noticed this year that the "mock draft" crutch seems to have been trimmed down a bunch on 97.1 and the station is much better for it. I wonder if orders were given to actually be a creative host and not lazily rely on mock drafts every other day for content?

[MWmetalhead]

WJLB simply does a better job serving the hip-hop and R&B audience than 107.5.

107.5 is basically a half-assed version of WJLB. No one listens to The Morning Hustle locally (a syndicated morning show from Urban One), and 107.5 in evenings airs a syndicated show from Atlanta. 107.5 seems to play a lot of songs with no staying power.

107.5 has a terrible dial position to boot.

What makes it a terrible dial position?

Very end of the dial, making the station less likely to be landed upon by channel surfers. The two stations that come before it (not counting 106.3) in 105.9 and 106.7 are also low cume stations.

Don't get me wrong - the programming is clearly the biggest issue. Patronage of hip hop stations on the FM dial is shrinking in many markets nationwide.

[BFSEsq]

I agree that I'm really, really surprised at how incredibly well Alt 98.7 is doing, for them. I mean, I doubt anyone could have imagined a better result for that station in this market. You know what they're doing? And this is significant, in my mind. Playing almost entirely throwbacks. It's essentially a "retro" or "classic" alt station. They don't CALL it that. Though they come pretty close. They don't mind drawing attention to the fact that they play almost no recent tracks. You know the standard station promos that every station does where they play snippets of 3 songs to show what music defines them? (These probably have a name in the business.) I've never in my life heard one of those on an alternative station where all three songs are old, library songs. And that's what they do, all the time. It's fascinating. They basically never figured out what this market wanted with newer tracks, and so they just gave up. They were like, "hell with it, what if we don't play new music at all?" and they just started watching their ratings go up. They are, basically, an oldies station for people that grew up with 89X. And they do really well that way! They still don't lean into active rock like 89X used to. They refuse to do it. They're not playing Metallica. But the songs they do keep in rotation tend to have been big 89X tracks back in the day.

How do you think this works? I mean, in the business, what does a clueless corporate parent do to try to tailor themselves to the local market? Do they hire someone for this? Do they try to get a local PD? I'm skeptical of the corporate culture. I like to think they just blindly stumbled into this by turning down the dial on the standard Audacy alt playlist to almost zero and playing entirely gold, but who knows, maybe they do have SOMEONE there who's familiar with what 89X used to play and is essentially trying to tailor the sound accordingly.

[MWmetalhead]

98.7 plays none of the CanCon 89X played, plays no Eminem, has zero street presence, and plays the same number of currents and recurrents hourly as most Alternative reporters in the PPM markets.

Is the formula working right now? Absolutely.

98.7 still plays currents. About two or three an hour.

The PD and MD for 98.7 are not based in Michigan. 98.7's PD programs similar stations in Richmond and Seattle, I believe. She also programs an HD2 that has maybe 50 listeners at any given time in New York.

98.7 is a very low budget station. The one and only local voice heard on the station tracks air shifts (mostly CHR) for numerous Audacy stations. Every other jock on the station tracks his or her shift from hundreds or thousands of miles away. The creative work (station imaging) is done in some hub out of state.

Virtually all of the gold 98.7 plays is very safe. Most of the golds had crossover success when the songs were new.

In view of the above, I guess I'm not noticing the similarities to 89X to the same extent you are. If you compare 98.7's playlist to most of Audacy's other alternative stations, you will see they are highly similar. KNRK in Portland is more eclectic than the others.

The gold selection on 98.7 leaves a LOT to be desired for me personally. Only one Beck song (that plays constantly), no 311, no Toad the Wet Sprocket, only a few RATM songs, no Tool, no Soul Asylum, no Bloodhound Gang, no Filter, no Sponge, the same few Offspring songs over and over, the same few Pumpkins songs over and over, etc.

I find 98.7 to be a pretty boring station. Their playlist only contains about 350 songs.

If you find 98.7's gold intriguing, you should check out a station or streamer that actually does Alt Gold justice such as Sirius XM Lithium, 91X in San Diego or 99X in Atlanta.

I even find 107.3 in Cleveland to be a better all around sounding station than Alt 98.7.

107.3's playlist: https://wnwv.tunegenie.com/

[craig11152]

I'll give 97.1 some credit here. I thought for sure they would fall significantly after the Lions season ended.

I thought the same. With the Wings out of the playoffs and once the NFL draft is over next week can the Tigers keep the numbers up?

Personally I am not much for music so I toggle between 97.1 and 91.7 during the 10-15 minutes a day I listen.
But lately neither one of those is working for me so my 3rd choice is 107.1 out of Ann Arbor .