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105.3 Snot FM has sunk to a 1.3 share, by far the worst performance since the station changed its COL to Coopersville and launched as "Hot FM" roughly 20 years ago.
Not to be outdone, underachieving sister station Blunder 107.3 grabbed a 0.8 share.
I am fairly confident that is the worst result in the history of 107.3 since relocating to Grattan Twp and upgrading to 50,000 watts in the late 1980s. Even WBBL never sunk quite that low, if memory serves.
It takes real skill to program two radio stations so poorly. Flip one of them to Urban AC, sell the other one, and call it a day.
One thing I'm curious about is how many other markets have a non-commercial station that is usually in the top three and often ranks first in listenership. I'm sure them being live and local most of the day helps greatly as they don't feed off a bird from New York.
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Scripps Community News: Take Away the Anchors and People Will Tune to Another Station
They should of had urban AC on one of those stations 20 years ago with Steve Harvey in the morning. Grand Rapids has the same population of African Americans as Flint. Ever see the radio ratings in Flint? WDZZ is in first place at a 10.9 share.
dwp49423 wrote: ↑Sat Apr 05, 2025 5:09 am
One thing I'm curious about is how many other markets have a non-commercial station that is usually in the top three and often ranks first in listenership. I'm sure them being live and local most of the day helps greatly as they don't feed off a bird from New York.
NPR is usually if not always #1 in markets like Washington and San Francisco.
Among Christian non-comms, I know WPOZ in Orlando is very successful. They don't subscribe to the public numbers though.
Where's MsWarmth to tell us all about how WSNX and B93 better look out because 105.3 and 107.3 will have them in the rear-view mirror next report?
I imagine the only other markets that have religious stations at #1 is probably somewhere in the south.
How stupid can Cumuless be to have a 20kw and 50k blowtorches have such shitty ratings when their competitor has a 250 watt peashooter playing gangsta rap from a closet with higher ratings
and what is the point of having 1340 and 106.1 on the air?
I'd be willing to bet 106.5 Jack FM has more listeners in Kent and Ottawa counties than 105.3/107.3 combined.
I can certainly agree with your second paragraph wholeheartedly. Hot FM a decade ago used to be a ~4 share earning station quite regularly. It's very sad to see how far they've fallen.
As to your third paragraph, WVFM when it's been listed has usually grabbed a 1 share or less.
dwp49423 wrote: ↑Sat Apr 05, 2025 5:09 am
One thing I'm curious about is how many other markets have a non-commercial station that is usually in the top three and often ranks first in listenership. I'm sure them being live and local most of the day helps greatly as they don't feed off a bird from New York.
Don't forget that they're commercial free. That's a big tune out and it shows with CSG and the NPR stations seeing very high TSL.
Good morning guys! I know I throw some weird ideas every once in a while on here but most the time I’m just lurking because I don’t know enough about the ins and outs of the business that you guys do but I’ve always been interested.
Several years ago, I was curious as to how a station like KDRB in Des Moines would do in the Grand Rapids market and then a couple years later we get one and it doesn’t seem to be doing too bad. I guess my question would be since 105.3 is not doing well in the ratings, what would it look like to just simulcast Jack FM on 105.3? There would be a slight overlap of the city grade signal in Grand Rapids but 105.3 would cover the rest of Ottawa County and then pick up some listeners out of Muskegon? Don’t rake me over the coals, my brain functions randomly at times.
Cumulus for some reason dislikes the Variety Hits format. Extremely few stations they own program such a format.
Jack FM is a good listen-while-you-work format. The problem with 105.3 is its signal strength sucks in the valley (I.e. downtown GR, the lower west side, and Riverside Park areas). It gets crushed by multipath and terrain shadowing. So, probably not the best stick to place such a format.
Urban AC, Country or Rock would be the most sensible format options for 105.3, in my opinion. Urban AC on 105.3 would open the door for 100.1 in Muskegon to flip to something else (Adult Contemporary, as AC makes more sense on that signal than on 92.5). Country on 105.3 would open the door for 107.3 to flip to something more productive, or perhaps the two could simulcast.
Thanks for the reply.
Do you think the main problem that thunder country has with their ratings is stick location? You’ve mentioned before that they don’t get the penetration and too much of Ottawa county that they need and therefore they struggle with market share. Or, does B 93 command such respect that Grand Rapids can’t support a second country station.
I thought maybe the reason why they put WMUS on 107.9 was to not cannibalize B 93 in the Grand Rapids area, but I could be wrong.
I was just throwing out the idea that iHeart could simulcast Jack FM out of Kalamazoo on 105.3 and I think they would get more bang for their buck, then putting a simulcast of thunder country, since they already have WMUS in Muskegon. Just a thought. Thank you.
WMUS was downgraded from 106.9 to 107.9 because it had become a non-factor in the GR market and because Newsradio WOOD needed an FM signal. When the downgrade occurred, Thunder 94.5 had already been on the air for 5 or 6 years.
107.3's issues are multi-fold:
-Mediocre Ottawa County signal. It also has so-so commercial building penetration in parts of Wyoming and Byron Twp.
-Inexcusably terrible marketing. Listeners were given zero direct instruction to "reset their preset" from 94.5 to 107.3. The GM and OM should've both been fired for this transgression alone. If radio cannot market itself effectively, why would any business owner want to use radio as a marketing / advertising venue?
-Revolving door of air talent: around the time the move from 94.5 to 107.3 occurred, the station's PD / afternoon host (John Crenshaw) left to take a job in Ohio. The Nashville-based morning show has changed hosts numerous times as well.
-Few target listeners already had a preset for 107.3: the Sports format was a low cume station that appealed to a very male audience. Country's audience on the other hand is about 55 percent female.
If they sold to Midwest, 107.3 becoming Duke FM would be a great option, it would cover the places 94.1 fades out in. 100.5 reminds me of W blight in its last years.
