The State of TC - Petoskey Radio

[Deleted User 12047]

Let me see if I can sum up the market in 2020 -

Midwestern/Biederman have the dominant country, talk and rock stations and use their ratings lead to drain as much transactional business as possible away from the competition.

Black Diamond (not known for any sort of rate integrity) takes its country and rock stations and attempts to low ball anyone else’s spot costs.

With these two stations battling each other with numbers, costs per listener continue to spiral down.

MacDonald Garber has the pop and lite pop franchises (one without a viable TC signal) and doesn’t spend the money on Nielsen doing its best to create relationships with local and regional sponsors on long term agreements, while trying to keep rates reasonable (but still higher than the other stations.)

NBI’s sales efforts go away, leaving some ad money up for grabs.
Nielsen loses a customer in the market (rates for Bierderman will go up a little but not enough to cover the losses.)

Blarney Stone will continue to patch together this crazy quilt of formats, frequencies and personalities, using their existing client relationships and clearly staying “The Low Cost Leader” in rates. How can they continue to afford Nielsen based on guesses of their revenue? And with the legal fights and possible settlement of the dispute with Henderson (I’d use his company name here, but he has SO MANY) they have to have some fairly large legal bills (but I did hear a spot for an attorney on North FM, so maybe it’s a barter deal.).

Two major signals, 106.7 and 101.9 remain off the air for at least the first part of the year. 106.7 probably goes non-com in some way.

CMU attempts to cash in on the NPR crowd in TC, which might put that station at NMC in play.

Your thoughts?

[In the biz]

Blarney Stone is a nonentity. The whole North FM thing is a joke, and so is Q100. Seriously when this experiment flops there is no place else to go.

[ftballfan]

Some predictions:

1. At least one station doesn't renew its license in this coming license cycle.

2. At least one commercial station changes frequency.

3. As a result of CMU buying 94.3, IPR shells out $$$ to buy 101.9 and moves IPR News there. IPR then spins off 91.5 to the Promise FM, giving them a signal in TC proper.

4. Relevant Radio expands in the market.

5. At least one noncommercial operator currently operating stations outside the market enters the market (likely EMF or WRVM).

[TC Talks]

Mostly correct, you are over estimating CMU's impact on the local stations. IPR (ranked #5&#6) is absolutely not threatened by their marginal product.

You're take on MacGarb is a compliment to the consulting I did for them many many moons ago.

[BigFreq]

Quite the mess, isn't it? Now we can just hope Nielsen walks away from the market because it eventually won't have enough subscribers (as I don't know how Blarney could possibly justify spending any form of currency to get the result they are likely to get from their current array of stations, and I don't believe they'll be able to convince the non-comms to shell out that kind of money for ratings that mean little). Actually, all it will take is one of the groups listed above to commission Eastlan to do either a Traverse City or Petoskey survey (not the two together) and the rest of the dominos may fall as everyone scrambles for a cheaper, potentially more accurate, form of ratings.

[ftballfan]

Quite the mess, isn't it? Now we can just hope Nielsen walks away from the market because it eventually won't have enough subscribers (as I don't know how Blarney could possibly justify spending any form of currency to get the result they are likely to get from their current array of stations, and I don't believe they'll be able to convince the non-comms to shell out that kind of money for ratings that mean little). Actually, all it will take is one of the groups listed above to commission Eastlan to do either a Traverse City or Petoskey survey (not the two together) and the rest of the dominos may fall as everyone scrambles for a cheaper, potentially more accurate, form of ratings.

Didn't Nielsen walk away from the market previously, only to return a couple of years ago?

[BigFreq]

Quite the mess, isn't it? Now we can just hope Nielsen walks away from the market because it eventually won't have enough subscribers (as I don't know how Blarney could possibly justify spending any form of currency to get the result they are likely to get from their current array of stations, and I don't believe they'll be able to convince the non-comms to shell out that kind of money for ratings that mean little). Actually, all it will take is one of the groups listed above to commission Eastlan to do either a Traverse City or Petoskey survey (not the two together) and the rest of the dominos may fall as everyone scrambles for a cheaper, potentially more accurate, form of ratings.

Didn't Nielsen walk away from the market previously, only to return a couple of years ago?

It's all about the number of subscribers. Nielsen is too focused on margins to carry a market that isn't going to be profitable for them; even if it is only two books. If more people are willing to pay for false hope, they are happy to oblige. However, if they get down to where it costs as much, or more, to continue a market, they cut bait in a hurry.

[BigFreq]

Quite the mess, isn't it? Now we can just hope Nielsen walks away from the market because it eventually won't have enough subscribers (as I don't know how Blarney could possibly justify spending any form of currency to get the result they are likely to get from their current array of stations, and I don't believe they'll be able to convince the non-comms to shell out that kind of money for ratings that mean little). Actually, all it will take is one of the groups listed above to commission Eastlan to do either a Traverse City or Petoskey survey (not the two together) and the rest of the dominos may fall as everyone scrambles for a cheaper, potentially more accurate, form of ratings.

Didn't Nielsen walk away from the market previously, only to return a couple of years ago?

It's all about the number of subscribers. Nielsen is too focused on margins to carry a market that isn't going to be profitable for them; even if it is only two books. If more people are willing to pay for false hope, they are happy to oblige. However, if they get down to where it costs as much, or more, to continue a market, they cut bait in a hurry.