Friday, May 21, 2010

Dan Caesar is a much better writer ...

... than his subject matter allows.  It's too bad he's restricted to covering the subject of electronic sports media.  His latest column  at STLToday is an example of how Dan has to make much ado about two stations with penny-whistle signals and nearly-nonexistent 6+ ratings. 

1380/KSLG and 590/KFNS have a combined 1% of the 6+ PPM ratings just released.  And the stations employ a panoply of one-dimensional air talents who seem to think that bad taste talk is the way to success.

1% is just about 25000 listeners who came within hearing distance of the stations over the course of a week, split just about evenly between the two stations.  I have nothing but respect for any sales department that can make a profit on those numbers.

Consider that the FM sports station, WXOS has a 2.6 6+ (that's approximately 62,500 listeners in the week), and that fish-and-fowl 550/KTRS, blessed with Cardinals' baseball games, has about 110,000

WXOS is mostly syndicated and 550/KTRS (usually a two-share loser far back in the pack) is mostly non-sports, but their numbers are local sports-driven, no question.

And, yes, I know that a 6+ audience share is no way to judge the format success of any given radio station.  Target demos and all that blah, blah, blah. But 6+ are the numbers I'm contracted with Arbitron to use and which I'm allowed to share with you here.

Back to my original point:  I'd really like to see what Dan Caesar has to say about the state and business of commercial AM and FM radio stations overall in STL.

Free Dan Caesar!

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