from the: Minneapolis Star Tribune
Published Tuesday, May 4, 1999
WCCO-AM edged KQRS-FM for the total-listener crown in the latest Arbitron ratings, which cover January through March. WCCO averaged 10.4 percent of listeners age 12 and up, compared with KQ's 10.2.
But as usual, when Arbitron factored out listeners younger than 25 and older than 54 -- to isolate the age group preferred by many advertisers -- the competitive picture changed dramatically.
KQ stayed on top, averaging 14.3 percent of listeners aged 25 to 54, while WCCO dropped to eighth place. KEEY-FM and WLTE-FM came closest to KQRS with 7.5 and 7.0 percent respectively, followed by KSTP-AM with 6.3, KDWB-FM 6.0, KQQL-FM and KSTP-FM both 5.6, WCCO 5.5, KTCZ-FM 5.1, KXPT-FM 4.6.
WCCO, the perennial ratings leader before KQ's ascendance in the 1980s, had tied for the top spot in the "12-plus" category last fall. Rounding out the top 10 were KDWB at 7.5 percent, KEEY 6.9, KSTP-AM 6.6, WLTE 6.0, KQQL 4.7, KSTP-FM 4.7, WXPT 4.6, and KXXR-FM and KTCZ tied at 3.7.
KSTP-AM posted the biggest gains of any station. Its strong showing in both age categories derived in large part from its improved afternoon ratings. In the 3-to-7-p.m. slot that includes Joe Soucheray's "Garage Logic" talk show, KSTP leaped ahead of KQRS and KEEY to become No. 1 among listeners in the 25-to-54 age group.
The top morning-drive performer again was KQ, despite a nearly three-point drop from the year before. Tom Barnard's "Morning Show" commanded 25.4 percent of the 25-to-54 age group.
WCCO's morning show was a distant second with a 7.2 share, followed by KDWB with 6.7, KEEY 6.4, WLTE 5.5, KSTP-FM 4.6, KQQL 4.5 and WRQC-FM -- home of the still-declining "Howard Stern Show" -- 3.9.
© Copyright 1999 Star Tribune. All rights reserved.
from the: St. Paul Pioneer Press
Published: Tuesday, May 4, 1999
As I am often reminded, there are other people on this planet besides teen-age boys (and grown men who cling to their teen-age id). Other people also listen to radio. Like women, for example.
The persistent attention paid (by me and my kind -- I'm guilty) to the Howard Stern-Tom Barnard battle for crotch-clutching boys has obscured the competition for the hearts and ears of Twin Cities' women. But the release of the Winter 1999 Arbitron ratings last week offers insight into who has gained and lost, among women, in the aftermath of last fall's two major local radio events. Those were a, The appearance of "alternative" WXPT-FM (104.1, a.k.a. "The Point") and b, perennial market-leader KQRS-FM's (92.5) protracted battle with local minority activists over comments made by Barnard.
In the Twin Cities, KSTP-FM (94.5), WLTE-FM (102.9) and WXPT are regarded as the stations most directly targeted toward women, with KDWB (101.3) only a breath more broad in its appeal to both sexes. Nevertheless, for more than a decade, KQ has enjoyed tremendous success among women, as it has among all demographic groups, despite its male orientation.
Note dramatic gains for "The Point" over its previous incarnation as a "Smooth Jazz" outlet. Also, there is significant improvement for Dave Ryan and gang at KDWB and Steven John at KTCZ-FM (97.1, Cities 97), as well as notable declines for Barnard at KQRS and Stern at WRQC (100.3, Rock 100). Also, see how such male-skewing stations as KSTP-AM (1500) and KFAN-AM (1130) don't even register in the Top 10 among women.
The numbers, if you please:
First, morning drive, among women age 18-34, comparing Winter '99 to Winter '98:Rank / Station / '99 / '98 1. / KDWB-FM / 17.7 / 16.3 2. / KQRS-FM / 15.5 / 20.0 3. / KEEY-FM / 8.7 / 10.4 4. / KSTP-FM / 8.5 / 9.2 5. / WXPT-FM / 7.6 / 2.0 6. / WLTE-FM / 6.6 / 6.6 7. / WRQC-FM / 4.8 / 9.6 8. / KTCZ-FM / 4.4 / 1.9 9. / KZNR-FM / 2.1 / 2.2 10. / WCCO-AM / 2.1 / 2.5 Then, also in morning drive, slightly older -- Women 25-54: 1. / KQRS-FM / 20.1 / 21.8 2. / KDWB-FM / 16.5 / 13.7 3. / KEEY-FM / 9.0 / 10.0 4. / KSTP-FM / 8.2 / 8.7 5. / WLTE-FM / 7.2 / 6.7 6. / KTCZ-FM / 5.2 / 2.6 7. / WXPT-FM / 5.1 / 2.3 8. / WRQC-FM / 3.6 / 7.7 9. / KZNR-FM / 2.3 / 2.6 10. / WCCO-AM / 2.1 / 3.1 Finally, all listeners, 18-34, throughout the day. 6 a.m. to midnight, Monday through Sunday: 1. / KQRS-FM / 12.0 / 15.6 2. / KDWB-FM / 11.1 / 11.7 3. / WXPT-FM / 8.7 / 2.4 4. / KXXR-FM / 7.8 / 8.0 5. / KEEY-FM / 7.1 / 9.8 6. / KSTP-FM / 7.0 / 8.9 7. / WRQC-FM / 5.4 / 7.8 8. / WLTE-FM / 4.8 / 4.3 9. / KTCZ-FM / 4.5 / 3.4 10. KFAN-AM / 3.6 / 2.2© 1999 PioneerPlanet / St. Paul Pioneer Press - All Rights Reserved
Published: Sunday, April 11, 1999
It's over. Radio juggernaut Howard Stern has lost in the Twin Cities, one of his biggest failures ever. A band of Disney stations out-foxed "the king of all media," mimicking the potty-mouthed style and the music programming.
Tom Barnard's "Morning Show" on KQRS, a ABC/Disney property, along with the Zone stations (105.1, 105.3 and 105.7), and KXXR-FM (93X).
As quotes go, it may not be as infamous as "I did not have sexual relations with that woman" or "Read my lips. No . . . new . . . taxes." But Andy Bloom's boast in the spring of 1997 that "in 18 months Howard Stern will be the No. 1 radio show in the Twin Cities" is still uniquely memorable.
Especially now that Stern has so clearly tanked in St. Paul-Minneapolis, and Bloom, the 37-year-old former operations manager for WRQC-FM ("Rock 100"), is out of a job.
This week, Stern wraps two years in the Twin Cities market. His audience share is decreasing steadily. He has another year left on his contract with Rock 100 (owned by giant, Texas-based Chancellor Broadcasting).
Meanwhile, Bloom is polishing his resume. Lacking a dramatic improvement, Stern will be dropped by Rock 100 no later than next April. If Chancellor/Rock 100 decides to cut bait any earlier with Stern, they'll still have to pay him something close to $500,000 for 1999-2000. Bloom, on the other hand, says he's OK financially until Dec. 31.
So Bloom sits in the Lincoln Del out in St. Louis Park, where he used to work as a kid, and shakes his head. "If Howard Stern doesn't work against Tom Barnard, I don't know what will. We did everything to make him work here, and he might still, but it sure doesn't look like it."
While the decision to bring in Stern wasn't Bloom's to make, it was his job to make it work. To that end, he was given a huge TV and promotional budget. It was Bloom who blanketed the town with those eye-catching/appallingly sexist billboards you see hanging out over every freeway and major intersection. No expense was spared on behalf of the Stern-Barnard competition.
"If you ask me, they fired the wrong guy," says Ed Levine, a man who has both programmed and programmed against Stern, and is now president of the Radio Group, a collection of nine stations in upstate New York.
"They should have fired Stern. Andy took the bullet, but it's Stern who hasn't done what they paid him to do."
What Stern was paid to do is beat, or at the very least beat down, KQRS-FM's Tom Barnard . . . in Barnard's home town.
He hasn't even come close.
Judged by audience share, Barnard is the most dominant morning-drive-time act in any major market in the country. Since Stern's arrival in April '97, Barnard has suffered marginal losses among several audience groups, most noticeably the younger males Stern was supposed to bring to Rock 100 in droves. But the disparity remains so large in Barnard's favor, three and four times Stern's numbers in some key categories, that the effect is negligible.
Meanwhile, after two years, the size of Stern's audience in the Twin Cities has peaked and is dwindling. Rock 100 General Manager Marc Kalman, a 30-year veteran of Twin Cities radio, insists he'll stay the course with Stern through next April. Beyond that, he's not promising anything.
"For now, we're going ahead with Howard," says Kalman.
Bottom line: Barnard won. Stern lost. And the "experts" are trying to figure out why.
"If Andy doesn't know how to beat Barnard, I doubt anybody knows," says Tom Taylor of the respected industry newsletter, the M Street Journal.
"Andy's a master. He knows Howard as well as anyone. He's the guy who brought Stern into Philadelphia in 1986 and L.A. in 1991. Two very successful moves. He knows Howard is Howard, and sometimes it takes a while for him to build up some traction in a market. But in Minneapolis and St. Paul, he's up against some very smart opposition, in (KQRS' program director) Dave Hamilton and a company (Disney) with a lot of assets to throw up in defense of the mothership (Barnard)." (Dave Hamilton did not return calls for this story.)
Here are the most popular theories for why Stern flopped in the Twin Cities.
One: "The playbook was out on Stern," also known as, "Chancellor waited too long."
Chancellor dithered a year and half or more before bringing Stern into this market. That long run-up and the inevitability of Stern's insertion into the Twin Cities radio landscape gave Hamilton, Barnard and KQ more than enough time to counter the move.
Their strategy was to tweak Barnard's act slightly but discernibly "bluer." Which is to say they rendered it even more like Stern than it was, with an even greater (for KQ) focus on adolescent sex and obsessions with penises, breasts and toilets to defuse any titillation factor attached to the new bad boy in town.
Says Levine, who programmed Stern for WJFK-FM in Washington, D.C., "Howard always has more trouble in markets where there's an established bad-boy act, even if it's derivative. Still, it's rare to see him get stomped as badly as he's getting stomped in (the Twin Cities)."
"They can deny it all they want," says Bloom, "but in the last three years, including the year before Stern came in here, Barnard got significantly bluer than he's ever been before. It's a long way from, 'Yo mama,' to 'penis.'
While Barnard and company clearly knew what a penis was before Stern's arrival, the perception is they started throwing it around a lot more just prior to it.
Two: Stern didn't spend enough time attacking Barnard directly.
Conversely, Barnard and KQ successfully avoided rising to a counter-attack.
Listeners to Stern's first few weeks here will recall the regular, if somewhat perfunctory, slashes Stern, via his national show, would make against Barnard way out in little old Minneapolis-St. Paul.
It was a strange thing to hear; Stern accusing Barnard of ripping off his act and being a cheap imitation. Why, you had to wonder, would anyone in New York or Los Angeles know or possibly care who Tom Barnard is?
But the highly personalized attack is a strategy that has served Stern well elsewhere. Most notably in Philadelphia, where he destroyed then-kingpin John DeBella in the late '80s. It worked again in Los Angeles in the early '90s, where he tore into "Mark & Brian."
But by the time Stern got to the Twin Cities in 1997, he was a major celebrity, wealthy beyond his fondest dreams. He was an established national act, playing in roughly 30 major markets. He attacked Barnard, but there wasn't much heat or fire to it. Stern's slashing sounded about as heartfelt as your average pro-wrestling taunt.
And then he stopped completely. The Twin Cities faded into the blur of markets carrying Stern's show. Why waste valuable air time on Barnard that he could vent on Don Imus? Or regional competitors like Mancow in Chicago? Or Brother Wease in Rochester, N.Y.?
"The No. 1 rule is `Don't respond. Ever. Don't take the bait. Don't take Howard on mano a mano,' " says M Street Journal's Taylor. "If you do, he's got you, and he's like a Husquvarna (chain saw) through your ratings."
KQRS adapted that strategy and stuck to it, even when it meant being snickered at by media writers chiding them for timidity in the face of the only real enemy they were ever going to face. To this day, Barnard has never mentioned Stern's name on the air. (Several KQ execs did not return phone calls from us.)
"Yeah," says Taylor, who is based in nearby southern New Jersey. "DeBella (the Philadelphia competitor) wrote the book on what not to do in a battle with Stern. He came back at him. Called Stern all sorts of names and promised to crush him in Philly. Stern's response was to personally attack him day after day after day.
"And in the end, Stern crushed him. The irony now is that DeBella sort of made himself over as a talk jock, and now he's on the same station as Stern."
Three: KQRS out-programmed Bloom's music on Rock 100.
Radio programmers sound like glazey-eyed herbalists when they talk about formulas for successful music formats. For "alternative," you add in a little Alanis Morissette or Shawn Colvin, and maybe drop some stale R.E.M. Three more cuts each afternoon of AC/DC, and suddenly you're "Active Rock." Two more cuts of the Rolling Stones, and you're "Classic Rock."
So went Rock 100. Headbanging "Active Rock" one day, "Classic Rock that really rocks" the next. Ninety-five percent of us couldn't tell the difference.
But Bloom's frustration was that Hamilton and ABC/Disney were prepared to counter him at every turn, tweaking and re-tweaking both the three low-powered "Zone" stations and KXXR-FM (a.k.a. "93X" -- formerly "The Edge") to block Rock 100 and protect Tom "The Mothership" Barnard.
For his constant shifting, Bloom was criticized by colleagues within Chancellor's Twin Cities' properties. "He f----- up the music," one said. "He was all over the map. It never made any sense."
Others, including Bloom, doubt the music makes all that much difference in the final analysis.
"The thing with Howard is that he is over-powering. He becomes the image of your radio station," Bloom says. "There is no perfect way to re-cycle him, and in retrospect, it didn't make a hell of a lot of difference." "Re-cycle" is industry jargon for transporting Stern's audience to the rest of the station's programming.
"There are Howard Stern classic-rock stations. Howard Stern active-rock stations. Howard Stern alternative stations and Howard Stern talk stations. Arguably, talk slightly does the best job of re-cycling him."
Slightly.
"My background is research, and I've programmed Howard Stern for 13 years," Bloom continues. "In any format that you choose to do, best-case scenario, 30 to 40 percent of the people who like that music hate Howard Stern. As soon as they get another radio station that'll play the kind of music, they, like, they don't need you, anymore.
"So by duplicating everything we did -- and man, they (93X) danced right in my footsteps -- they made damn sure we lost those people. It was pretty brilliant, really. But you have to be prepared to waste a radio station to do it, which Disney was prepared to do. It's an awesome thing to see, them blowing up a $20 million station like 'The Edge.'
"But the job was to protect Barnard," Bloom says, "even if it meant Disney's group of stations here lost market share, which is exactly what happened."
At the end of the winter quarter of 1997 (roughly January through March), the five-station, ABC-Disney FM-music group's combined share of Twin Cities 18-to-34-year-old men in morning drive was a stunning 54.4 percent.
By January 1999, that share had eroded to a still stupendous 40.6 percent. KQ had lost 25 percent of its 18-to-34-year-old male audience, while 93X lost slightly more than 20 percent of the same group that was listening in the last days of "The Edge."
Meanwhile, the six local Chancellor properties (Rock 100, KFAN, Cities97, K102, KDWB and KOOL 108) increased their market share among the same demographic group in morning drive, from 23.4 to 31.9 percent.
"But the thing with Stern," Ed Levine says, "is that the show is so expensive and so controversial, with so many advertisers refusing to be a part of it, you can't afford for it to be just a well-rated show. It has to be kick-a--.
"Fussing around with the music is like putting a Band-Aid on a head wound. The issue is Stern."
Finally, four: Stern isn't the act he once was.
Both Barnard and Stern are now in their late 40s. While they might talk the talk of rageful, tumescent adolescence, issues of age and financial security prevent them from walking the walk like they did in their younger days. In Minnesota, even if his private personality and lifestyle insulates him from his fans, Barnard has the enormous advantage of being from here. (Guys like John DeBella and Mark & Brian were transplants to their respective markets).
Then you factor in the matters of Disney's cannon-fodder stations and Barnard's willingness and ability to downshift into Stern-mode prior to Stern's arrival.
But Stern?
"Howard is still a brilliant satirist when he's talking about his family or his own experiences," Levine says. "But if I hear one more stripper, or one more woman with three breasts, or one more lesbian, I'm going to scream.
"The thing is, Howard is now 45 and he's worth tens of millions of dollars, and that changes a person. It really does, and we all know it. He can be brilliant, like I say. But his experiences these days don't have much in common with his audience.
"At times, he sounds like a caricature of himself. Too many of things he talks about used to be real to him. Now he's pretending this is his life."
©1999 PioneerPlanet/St. Paul (Minnesota) Pioneer Press - All Rights Reserved
"The ratings weren't where they needed to be, and they decided to make a coaching change," said Andy Bloom, who was let go this week as operations manager of WRQC-FM (Rock 100.3). "There's two kinds of people in radio -- those who've been fired and those who are about to be fired. I just got to join the elusive first club that I've managed to avoid my entire career." Stern's numbers plummeted nearly 50 percent in the fall Arbitron survey, and the latest interim trend reports show no improvement. "I can offer no explanation," said Bloom, who previously helped launch Stern's show to ratings glory in Philadelphia and Los Angeles. "I've never seen it behave like this in any other market."
Bloom's boss, Marc Kalman, said WRQC remains committed to Stern, whose contract with the station runs until May 2000, and to the station's hard-rock format. It will continue with the "Turn on Howard" billboard campaign and other promotions, he said: "I have hopes we can pull this thing off." Lauren McLeash, program director of Rock 100.3 and Cities 97 (KTCZ-FM), will take over Bloom's duties.
-- Noel Holston
from the: Minneapolis Star Tribune
Saturday, January 30, 1999
By: Noel Holston
Radio Columnist - Minneapolis Star-Tribune
In the first case: location, location, location.
In the second: Size matters.
The woman stretched languidly across Rock 100's billboards displays no more cleavage than the average cover of Cosmopolitan -- available at grocery checkouts everywhere -- and probably less than one is likely to see on an Oscar telecast or at a Lake Calhoun volleyball pit.
But the billboards are big and they seem to be everywhere, and that's what has some people in a boil even now, more than two months after the Stern signs went up.
WRQC has logged hundreds of complaint calls, some of which have been played on the air and mocked. There's been one instance of picketing outside the station's downtown Minneapolis offices. And there are people trying to start an advertiser boycott.
Ironically, the protesters seem more upset about the promotions than the show itself, which is far closer to X-rated than the billboard cheesecake. Jokes about breast enlargement and penile limitations are commonplace in morning-drive radio, but only Stern's show would make sex with a porn star a contest prize.
"I don't feel I have much of a choice about seeing [the billboard] or not seeing it," said Barb Lawrence of Minneapolis, who is active in a "Turn Off the Howard Stern Billboards" campaign. "It's much more 'in your face.' You can turn off the radio show. You can't easily turn off the signs. So in that way they're much more offensive -- and what we think is also assaulting."
The campaign was started by another Minneapolis resident, Terre Thomas, a marketing and planning consultant and a self-described "carpool mom" with two small children. She said she was rallied to action by TV pioneer Steve Allen, who has spoken up loudly of late about declining standards in the media.
"If a Cosmopolitan cover was up on a billboard that big, in my face, and I had to see it two to four times a day, I'd take issue with that, too," Thomas said.
She began distributing fliers in December, urging people who found the billboards vulgar and sexist to express their feelings to WRQC and to sponsors, a list of which she conveniently provided. So far, none of the advertisers has abandoned Stern. But Thomas says her group is preparing to step up its efforts.
She said the billboard was supposed to "represent Howard. But at the same time, we didn't put a cheap-looking girl up there. We weren't going after cheap and dirty. We were going after something classy."
The young woman who posed for the billboard photo, nicknamed "Sasha" at the station, declined to be interviewed for this article and asked that her real name not be used.
Complaints notwithstanding, Rock 100 has no plans to stop the "Turn on Howard" campaign. The only change will be to shift the 120 "Sasha" images to new locations, a process that will be complete Feb. 1, according to WRQC operations manager Andy Bloom.
Bloom said the station won't be able to gauge the billboards' effectiveness for another 60 days. They were up in full force for only the last three weeks or so of the fall 1998 Arbitron survey, which ended Dec. 16.
The results of that survey were not encouraging for Stern. He had only half as many listeners as he did in the fall of 1997 -- a stunning drop for a guy who was supposed to have the Twin Cities eating out of his hand by now.
When Stern's syndicated show debuted here in April 1997, some national radio "experts" predicted he would be No. 1 with age-25-54 listeners within a year. A year ago, he was third. Now, he's eighth, whacked back to 3.7 percent share.
"If Howard Stern were consistently only worth a 3.7, I think we'd have to reevaluate [buying his show]," Bloom said. But he insists Chancellor is not ready to bail out on Stern, who has taken as long as 3˝ years in some markets to dethrone local morning-radio champs.
There is little solace in this for the billboard protesters -- except, perhaps, that it could be worse: It could be Stern himself up there, spilling out of his clothes.
During last fall's sponsor boycott of KQRS Radio's "Morning Show," executives at other area radio stations predicted that the news coverage about racially sensitive comments made by the show's host would only launch ratings into the stratosphere. No such propulsion took place, according to the fall 1998 Arbitron report released Friday.
But KQ (92.5 FM) did remain the Twin Cities' top station, winning handily in the key demographic categories, listeners ages 18 to 34 and 25 to 54, and tying WCCO (830 AM) for first place in the broadest category, listeners 12 and older.
KQ's "Morning Show" with Tom Barnard was the big winner in those same age groupings, as usual. But the show slipped a little, compared with the previous three months and the previous fall. In the 18-to-34 category, KQ's fall 1998 audience share was 3 1/2 points lower than the previous year's.
Meanwhile, WRQC (100.3 FM) experienced a setback in its quest to dethrone KQ and Barnard with the syndicated "Howard Stern Show." Locally, that show's audience share was down by 50 percent among 18- to 34-year-olds and 25- to 54-year-olds*.
CBS Radio's controversial decision to transform KMJZ (104.1 FM) from a "smooth jazz" station into WXPT - an aggressively promoted alternative-rock station known as "The Point" - paid off immediately. WXPT's average weekly share of the 25-to-54 audience matched that of KMJZ the previous fall, at 3.5 percent. Its share of 18- to 34-year-olds jumped from 1.2 to 8.4 - fourth place in the category.
Zone 105 (105.1 FM, 105.3 FM and 105.7 FM*), whose format most closely resembles WXPT's, didn't appear to lose any ground. But pop stations KSTP (94.5 FM) and KDWB (101.3 FM) lost share points.
What were the most listened-to stations? The top 10, sign-on to sign-off, in Arbitron's 12-plus count, were: KQRS and WCCO, each with a 10.7 percent share; KEEY (102.1 FM), 8.1; KDWB, 8.0; WLTE (102.9 FM)6.2; KSTP (1500 AM), 5.1; KSTP-FM4.6; WXPT, 4.5; KQQL (107.9 FM),4.1, and KTCZ (97.1 FM), 3.5.
from: the Minneapolis Star Tribune
Friday, December 18, 1998
I had to look up the word "ubiquitous," and while I agree that the "Turn on Howard" billboards are everywhere, "pleasantly" is not the descriptive I'd use. Rather, I'd go for the mundane "offensively" or even "enragingly." It's one of the few billboards that starts me wondering, "Exactly how would one go about defacing that monstrosity?"
And why would I want to "Turn on Howard" anyway?
Agreed. It's not as if he needs any help. A more accurate representation of that show would be a half-naked Mr. Stern himself reposing in tousled sheets, nose cleaving a cascade of Vaseline-saturated hair, grinning like a 13-year-old who just found Dad's Playboys.
I don't feel so well now.
As for the offensiveness of the current billboards, I can say only this: Many a right-thinking, decent man has found himself idling in the car beneath one of those humid tableaus, and thought: That is a deplorable objectification of women, and if I try really, really hard I will be offended. But the light changes before they can work up the proper indignation. That's why men don't complain.
--snips--
from: Minneapolis Star-Tribune
Thursday, October 22, 1998
Several advertisers have abandoned KQRS Radio (92.5 FM) as a result of its dispute with members of the Twin Cities' Hmong community over comments by morning-drive personality Tom Barnard -- but his listeners have sat tight.
The summer 1998 Arbitron ratings, delivered to local radio stations Wednesday, showed KQ's "Morning Show" averaging a 26.2-percent share of radio listeners age 25 to 54, and a 26.4-percent share of listeners age 18 to 34.
In both instances, the "Morning Show" improved on its showing in Arbitron's spring 1998 survey but fell short of its performance the previous summer.
The latest Arbitron ratings cover July 2 through Sept. 23. The first public protest by Community Action Against Racism (CAAR), which has urged advertisers to boycott KQ until Barnard offers a "sincere" apology, took place Aug. 20.
Over the subsequent four weeks, every news outlet in the Twin Cities acknowledged the KQ-CAAR imbroglio in stories and/or commentaries. But the advertiser defections -- and the intensified news coverage -- didn't begin until Arbitron's summer survey period was over. The true impact of the controversy on KQ's ratings won't be discernable until Arbitron's fall survey, which covers October to December, is completed.
KQ's nearest rival for the allegiance of listeners 25 to 54 in the morning was WCCO (830 AM), which had a 7.3-percent share. KEEY (102.1 FM) and WRQC (100.3 FM), which is home to Howard Stern's syndicated show, tied for third with 6.6-percent share.
In the morning competition for listeners age 18 to 34, KQRS was trailed by WRQC (12.8-percent share) and KDWB (101.3 FM), which had a 10.9-percent share.
KQRS was the most listened-to station, period. Its Monday to Sunday, 6 a.m. to midnight share of listeners age 12 and older was 11.3 percent. WCCO was second (10.3 percent). Then came KDWB (7.9) and KEEY (6.7).
Readers call. Not as often as when they need to vent about Chris Conangla. But they call, to ask for a closer look at the radio ratings.
The most recent Arbitron "book," a.k.a. Spring '98, arrived a couple of weeks ago. We dutifully reported the most basic numbers. Here's a bit more:
The most widely discussed face-off is still the Tom Barnard/KQRS vs. Howard Stern/WRQC fight over morning drive time. Certainly more dollars are being spent/wasted on this skirmish than on any other competition in town.
I hesitate to describe Barnard vs. Stern as a battle, because, frankly, there's not much action here. Let's look at the ratings (percentage of listeners) for 18-34-year-olds.
Rank Station Spg '98 '97 1 KQRS-FM 24.3 27.5 2 KDWB-FM 11.4 9.6 3 WRQC-FM 11.0 11.5 4 KEEY-FM 8.4 7.2 5 KSTP-FM 6.6 6.8As you can see, both Barnard and Stern are off among this key, younger group of listeners. (WRQC argues that 18-to-34-year-old men are the group it is most interested in. But presumably both will take a few gals where they can get them.)
While Barnard and KQ are down from a 30.7 in the winter ratings book (roughly January to April '98), Stern has slid as well, from a 12.7 this past winter. That's not good momentum.
By now, 16 months into the prohibitively expensive Stern experiment, it is nearly impossible to see how Stern ever beats Barnard in the Twin Cities, short of Barnard being hit by a bus ... or a golf cart, whichever seems more probable.
Within the Chancellor Broadcasting's monolithic holdings, resentment is building over the way resources continue to flow toward WRQC's Stern experiment, when morning-drive acts on other properties, such as John Hines et al on KEEY-FM (K102), are showing so much better growth, at least among younger listeners. (Hines and friends also are up among listeners 25-54, to an 8.3 this past spring as compared to a 6.6 a year ago.)
Sharp-eyed readers will, of course, recognize that Chancellor's best story is Dave Ryan at KDWB-FM (101.3). While not a heavyweight among older listeners, Ryan's job is to nail down the 18-34 (and younger) crowd, a task he is accomplishing on considerably less compensation than Stern. (Ryan did a 9.6 among 18-34s in Spring '97. A jump to 11.4 this spring is, by any estimation, very good business.)
In afternoon drive, among adults 25-54, another fight readers seem interested in, the numbers look like this:
Rank Station Spg '98 '97 1 KQRS-FM 9.1 9.8 2 KEEY-FM 9.0 7.5 3 KSTP-AM 7.6 6.3 4 KSTP-FM 7.4 6.4 5 KQQL-FM 6.9 6.6You'll note that with the exception of my esteemed colleague, Smilin' Joe Soucheray, billboard darling of Twin Cities freeways, all the rest of the Top Five are music formats.
Clearly, Soucheray is doing quite well in his day job. And now that KSTP-AM's syndicated acts have settled into respectable but static audience numbers, he is indisputably the station's franchise act. (Rush Limbaugh is holding within a couple points of a 6.6 for most of the past year, and Laura Schlessinger's numbers are also steady in the 3-to-4 range. It's too early to make any sense of ``The New'' Barbara Carlson ratings.)
Among other talkers in afternoon drive, WCCO-AM's Mike "Moose" Miller is running pretty much dead even with KFAN's Chad Hartman and Dan Barreiro. Each pulled a 4.2 among 25-54s this past book.
The difference is that Miller is down from Steve Cannon's 5.6 a year ago, and the "Chad or Barreiro Show" (as it's known around The Fan due to the hosts' demanding travel schedules) is on its way up from a 3.6 in spring 1997.
from Roger and the St. Paul Pioneer Press...
In the battle for 18-to-34-year-olds between KQRS' Morning Crew and Howard Stern WRQC-FM (100.1) in morning drive, both stations lost audience share from spring '97 to spring '98.
KQ slumped from a 27.5 share to a 24.3, while Stern dipped from an 11.5 to an 11.0.
A share point is a percentage of all people listening to radio.
from the Minneapolis.-St. Paul Star Tribune
Friday, July 24, 1998
During the "morning drive" period, when radio listening is heaviest, KQRS was the unquestioned top dog. Tom Barnard's KQ morning show attracted 19.1 percent of all listeners over age 12; 25.5 percent of the 25-to-54 audience, and 24.3 percent of the 18-to-34-year-olds.
In the first and second of those categories, Barnard improved on his spring 1997 Arbitron performance by a point or more.
His show slipped three points in the battle for the hearts and minds of 18-to-34 listeners, the primary demographic target of Howard Stern's syndicated morning show, which is broadcast by WRQC Radio (100.3 FM). But Barnard's loss wasn't necessarily Stern's gain. WRQC's morning numbers were slightly lower than those of a year ago in all three categories.
KQRS and WLTE Radio (102.9 FM) dominated the 10 a.m. to 3 p.m. Arbitron measures. It's not possible to gauge precisely how much of WCCO's slippage in that five-hour stretch was the result of its abrupt dismissal of talk-show host Ruth Koscielak, but the dip is undeniable: WCCO's 12-and-older share was 9.2 percent in Arbitron's winter count, then dropped to 6.4 in the spring survey.
Although music-oriented radio generally reigns in the 3 to 7 p.m. period, the talk-show lineup on KSTP Radio (1500 AM) finished third (7.6-percent share) behind KQ and KEEY among listeners 25 to 54. And with older listeners factored into the 12-plus category, WCCO took third place in the "afternoon drive" derby.
Spring 1998 Arbitron shares
The Twin Cities most popular radio stations among listeners age 25-54
Station Spring '98 Winter '98 Spring '97 KQRS-FM 13.8% 15.6% 13.3% KEEY-FM 8.3 8.4 7.1 WLTE-FM 7.2 6.7 7.9 KQQL-FM 6.8 6.6 6.8 KSTP-FM 6.8 5.9 6.2 KDWB-FM 5.8 5.8 5.4 KTCZ-FM 5.3 5.1 6.4 WCCO-AM 4.9 6.6 6.6 KSTP-AM 4.9 5.2 4.9 KXXR-FM 4.1 3.3 3.1 KMJZ-FM 3.8 3.6 3.7 WRQC-FM 3.5 4.0 5.0 <--- Howard ZONE 105 2.9 3.1 2.7 (KZNR (105.1 FM), KZNT (105.3), KZNZ (105.7) KFAN-AM 2.7 3.1 2.3Source: Arbitrends Trend Report
May 11, 1998
There would be gnashing teeth and terrible bellowing as the two titans of tastelessness clashed. Red ink would flow like blood in the streets. In the end, one ratings monster would slink away into the night and the other would roar triumphantly.
But a year after the debut of Stern's syndicated morning show on Rock 100 (WRQC-100.3 FM), it's clear that we have front-row seats at a long-term siege, not a heavyweight bout.
This is not a case of station vs. station, much less mano a mano. It's two giant media companies manipulating their radio properties in the pursuit of market dominance -- a scene playing out across the country now that there's virtually no restriction on how many broadcasting outlets a single company can own in one city.
"Companies align their stations and their formats to take the greatest market share," said Paul Heine, executive director of Friday Morning Quarterback, a weekly trade publication that tracks rock stations. "Stations are used as pawns in a competitive chess game. They're not always programmed to be the highest-rated radio station. Sometimes they're programmed to protect the mother ship."
In the Twin Cities, the big mother ship is classic-rock station KQRS, particularly its fabulously successful morning show. Its corporate parent, ABC/Disney, also owns KXXR (93.7 FM) -- formatted expressly to compete with Rock 100's hard-rock playlist -- and Zone 105 (105.1, 105.3, 105.7 FM), a trio of frequencies that simulcast alternative rock and pop.
ABC/Disney has been in repel mode ever since Stern started on Rock 100, one of seven Twin Cities stations owned by Dallas-based Chancellor Broadcasting. Chancellor has attacked with tactics ranging from TV ads (plastering Stern's face over Barnard's) to spending more than $100,000 to bankroll a free Rock 100-sponsored concert by Smashing Pumpkins at the Hennepin Avenue Block Party July 17.
"It's a scorched-earth mentality with those two companies right now," said Todd Fischer, program director of KSTP (94.5 FM), which is locally owned by Hubbard Broadcasting. "They're going to beat on each other until something happens. Chancellor is not going to hit the kind of numbers they need to hit in this market unless they pull revenue away from KQRS."
Although Stern's market share slipped in the recent winter 1998 Arbitron survey (see accompanying charts), he has quadrupled Rock 100's morning-drive share of his bedrock constituency: men in the 18-to-34 age group. But Stern's young male audience appears to have come from stations other than KQRS or from the ranks of nonlisteners, because KQ hasn't suffered appreciably. Barnard's show commands nearly 40 percent of men 18-34, only a few tenths of a point less than it did before Stern's debut.
According to Andy Bloom, Rock 100's operations manager and tireless spin doctor, KQ's minimal slippage doesn't tell the whole story. He points to the smaller audience ABC/Disney is getting with KXXR, compared with the station's previous incarnation as the alternative-rock "Edge."
"They went from a radio station with $8 million in [ad] billing and $3.5 million in profit to a radio station that's going to be lucky to bill $5 million and will probably lose close to $2 million," Bloom said. "It's costing them a ton to stay where they were with KQ."
ABC/Disney executives declined to respond to Bloom's claim. Indeed, they wouldn't comment on any aspect of Chancellor's strategy. They have maintained silence on the subject from the outset, as have KQ's on-air personalities -- a response that industry experts say is smart, given Stern's legendary knack for derision.
Chancellor has sacrificed, too. To create a compatible home for Stern, it retooled WBOB, one of two country stations it owned here, into Rock 100. WBOB didn't have nearly as many young men listening in the mornings. But it attracted more 25-54 listeners -- which "sell" in the advertising market for about three times the price of 18-34s -- and more women.
"BOB was probably billing about $5.5 million a year, and they were probably running it for $4 million," said John Soucheray, general sales manager of KSTP (1500 AM). "Now they're paying more [for Stern] and billing nowhere near what they were."
Chancellor has recouped some of that through its remaining country station, KEEY (102.1 FM), which gets a bigger share of the audience now. But it's impossible to say exactly how much without getting a look at Chancellor's books.
Locally, the company also owns the KQ-like KTCZ (97.1 FM), oldies station KQQL (107.9 FM), pop station KDWB (101.3 FM) and sports-talk station KFAN (1130 AM). Combined, Chancellor's seven stations have increased their share of the Twin Cities listening audience to 31 percent (compared with 28 percent a year ago) while ABC/Disney's overall share has shrunk slightly (from 19 percent to 18).
Bloom won't confirm or deny the price tag, but he insists that Stern is worth whatever Chancellor is paying him.
"Stern is not going anywhere," Bloom said. "And the speculation from sideline competitors is kind of silly. Give me a break, guys! You think he costs more here than he does in the other 44 markets [where his show is syndicated]? This is a good business investment for Chancellor in this market."
An important thing to remember, according to Jim Duncan of Radio Market Report, is that Stern "is not an overnight sensation, even though you might think he is because of all the noise that's made before he goes on the air. It takes about a year for him to establish himself."
And Stern has established himself in market after market since his show went national in 1986. Only a few outlets have dumped his show, and then usually because the station eventually disapproved of his act.
"It takes a while to build that cadre of loyalists," said Tom Taylor, news editor of M Street Journal, a national radio trade publication. "It tends to start in the 18-34 core, it tends to be male, and it kind of spreads from there."
Taylor calls Stern's "a pretty universal act," and he believes it's still too early to judge his show's impact on KQ and its parent company. "If this were a Twins game, we'd be in the third or fourth inning," he said.
Minneapolis St. Paul Star Tribune
Friday, May 1, 1998
Twin Cities radio's winter '98 quarter was nothing if not eventful, what with WCCO-AM firing Ruth Koscielak, KSTP-FM introducing a new morning duo and KQRS-FM weathering a brouhaha over morning host Tom Barnard's remarks about Somali immigrants.
But you would never know it from the winter Arbitron ratings released Thursday: Most of the radio stations simply danced in place, their latest numbers only fractionally different from those in the fall survey.
The most significant exception was WRQC-FM, which saw Howard Stern's syndicated show lose listeners in the two key demographic areas.
In the morning-drive competition, second-ranked WRQC dropped to a 12.7 percent share of listeners ages 18 to 34 (down from 14.5 last fall). Top-rated KQRS also dipped slightly, to a 30.7 share (down from 32.0). KDWB-FM was third (10.0) and KEEY-FM fourth (8.2 share, up from 5.8 in fall).
Among 25-to 54-year-olds, Barnard's KQ Morning Crew gained listeners, raising its share to 28.3 (up from 26.6). Then came WCCO (9.0), KEEY (7.8) and WRQC (5.6, down from 8.4 in the fall survey).
Overall, WCCO was first in Arbitron's broadest category -- listeners age 12 and up -- with an average weekly share of 11.8 percent, followed by KQRS (11.2), KEEY (8.1) and KDWB (8.0).
KQRS was top with listeners ages 18 to 34 with an average weekly share of 15.6 percent. Next came KDWB (11.7), KEEY (9.8) and KSTP-FM (8.9).
KQ also ranked first with listeners ages 25 to 54, averaging 15.6 percent for its broadcast week. KEEY was second (8.4), WLTE-FM third (6.7) and KQQL-FM and WCCO tied for fourth (6.6).
WCCO enlarged its age 25-54 audience during the midday hours, when Koscielak's show aired. WCCO's 10 a.m.-3 p.m. share was 4.6 percent, up from 3.6 in the fall, good for a ninth-place tie with KFAN-AM. KQRS was first with 12.8 percent.
April 20, 1998
When Howard Stern brought his act to the Twin Cities, some predicted a blitzkrieg, with Stern taking just one year to topple morning drive-time king Tom Barnard.
A year later, it appears that it could be more a war of attrition.
"He had a long time to build up and develop his audience and no one is going to beat him, including Howard Stern, in a snapshot. It's going to take a period of time," says Andy Bloom, operations manager at WRQC-FM, Minneapolis, who has overseen Stern victories in Philadelphia and Los Angeles. "But if ever there was a sure thing in this world, it's Howard Stern."
There hasn't been a full year's rating period on Stern's show, but so far his numbers have been impressive. He quickly launched hard-rocking WRQC -- formerly country station WBOB-FM -- into the No. 2 morning drive-time spot among males ages 18 to 34, bumping its share from 3.7 percent in winter 1997 to 20.7 in the fall, according to New York-based Arbitron. Barnard dropped from a 40.6 share to a 34 share in the same demograph and time period.
However, KQRS station execs say that the drop isn't an overwhelming concern, and point out that Barnard hasn't seen much slippage in other demos, holding steady, even increasing, in males and adults ages 25 to 54. "We feel we're doing very well," said Amy Waggoner, station manager of ABC/Capital Cities stations KXXR-FM (93X), KQRS-FM and Zone 105.
She adds that Stern hasn't affected Barnard's older listeners, and that Stern's gains in the younger demos could be attributed to the profligate media reports when he came to town; Stern's gains, she said, might not necessarily be KQRS's loss, because they might be new listeners. "We feel we're on the right track."
But if Barnard remains strong, the ratings results suggest that Stern's toughest demo might be advertisers.
"Most of them are having a No-Howard dictate," says Amy Westerman, a senior broadcast buyer at Minneapolis-based agency Martin/Williams, of her accounts. Westerman said that at least one client aiming for a Stern-like demo declined to buy time on the show.
Bloom confidently replies that he's seen all this before. The Twin Cities native joined WRQC, one of seven local stations owned by Dallas-based Chancellor Broadcasting, last July. Though he said he's not a Stern mercenary brought in to slay Tom Barnard and then move on to other markets, his zeal to topple Barnard sparks an almost audible crackle in his voice.
Stern, No. 1 in most of the 50 markets where he has a presence, is not a respectful newcomer: He regularly taunts his rivals, saying that inevitably he'll be dominant even if the local population insists that its city is different. This kind of bluster sparks constant assessments of his progress -- and questions of whether he can do it.
But with few exceptions, Stern has been right.
"He's a master showman. He hooks 'em in," says Thom Moon, director of operations at Cincinnati-based tracking firm Duncan's American Radio, who notes that in the beginning Stern is easier to take in small doses. "Finally, they get more acclimated to his act, and they keep listening longer and longer and it hits critical mass and he takes off. My guess is that that day is probably not that far off."
Stern has already made significant inroads. Among males 18 to 34, his time slot held a 20.7 share in fall 1997 (the most recent ratings will be released later this month), up from 3.7 percent prior to his arrival at WRQC. Among males 25 to 54, according to Arbitron, he's taken the station from a 2.6 percent share in winter 1997 to 12.4 percent in fall 1997; among males 18 to 44, he's gone from 3.3 percent to 18 percent.
"In a year, he's found a core audience, and it's an audience that's very loyal. What we're waiting for now is the audience to become bigger, obviously, and that's what's taken more time here than in L.A., for example," Bloom said. "There's a much bigger head start to make up [here]."
Indeed, the dominance of Tom Barnard, who commands double the market share over his closest rival in most demos, is imposing.
Looking over Stern's numbers, Moon says that, while not doing badly, Stern's Twin Cities entree has not been as dramatic as in other markets. "Tom Barnard's shares are so high that it's going to take longer to make a dent in them," he said. "In a lot of markets, the thing with Stern is either he catches on really quickly, or it takes him a long time to catch on."
Bloom has seen both sides.
In Los Angeles, it took a year to a year and a half for Stern to attain the No. 1 spot; in Philadelphia, it took four years.
Bloom said he still believes that Stern is on track to be No. 1, but he won't speculate as to when that will happen, especially after just one year of on-air time and two full ratings periods (there are four per year).
"I can tell you what's happening here is what's exactly happened in most other places."
He said that it's not unusual to see the incumbent radio king's ratings rise when Stern comes to a new market. "It's a rising tide, there's more awareness of radio wars," he said. "It looks like it defies gravity. In the beginning it works that way; it just doesn't in the end."
Among males 18 to 44, Barnard has lost little, and in other, older demos, adults and men 25 to 54, he's actually slightly gained.
Bloom allows Barnard's dominance in the market -- and his talent.
"I think Tom Barnard probably does a better show than L.A. and Philly," he said.
However, Bloom already takes it as a victory that, in his opinion, 93X copies WRQC in its playlist and specials. He says that 93X has been decimated financially just to protect KQRS. "That radio station is designed to do nothing more than try to make it impossible for this radio station to cultivate its own following."
Waggoner denies that 93X is being sacrificed to save KQRS, saying they're confident in the station's performance. The conversion to hard rock was "part of a strategy for all three of our radio stations to maintain a wall of rock in the market," she said. "We're programming them together to deliver the largest base audience we possibly can ... it's one prong of a three-pronged attack."
She dismisses Bloom's claims that 93X regularly mimics WRQC.
As far the verbal jousting, Waggoner won't play along. "We just view that there is nothing to be gained by trying to go to battle with him in a verbal war. That's what he does," she said. "We choose to let the various news media go at it: They're the ones who created the war."
Verbal jousting aside, the most significant battle will be waged financially.
Though advertising support generally follows good ratings, Martin/Williams' Westerman suggests that Stern could be different. "If you don't believe in that sort of programming, you're not going to buy it no matter what," she said.
Others also suggest that advertiser antipathy has a long life. Paula Adams, a media buyer at Minneapolis-based Periscope Marketing Communications, said that some advertisers still balk at "NYPD Blue," the raunchy prime-time TV show that's been on the air for several years.
Not all local advertisers are leery to advertise on Stern. "Our feeling is that we look at advertising as a business and nothing else," said Dean Nasifoglu, co-owner of Wedding Day Jewelers, with four Twin Cities area locations. "His demographics are perfect for my business."
And business has been good. He's received a "few hundred" positive comments about his advertising on Stern's show, and just one negative. "A lot of people know Wedding Day Jewelers from Howard Stern."
"We were apprehensive," he says about his Stern advertising. "It's [the show's content] not something we would condone, but it boils down to we're in a tough market. It's just one more edge ... He is very popular, whether people like it or not."
Like some observers, Bloom said Barnard has been resorting to Stern-like radio tactics -- but without the Stern-like backlash. "It drives me crazy that there are no No-Tom Barnard dictates from the same people who have No-Howard Stern dictates."
Waggoner denies the claim that Barnard has turned to a more blue style of radio. "I don't really think he is. People are putting him under a microscope more," she said.
It's clear that both stations have dedicated major bucks to wage this battle. Stern's asking price is an estimated $625,000 to $1 million a year, and Chancellor's decision to change formats sparked at least a short-term revenue tumble: Duncan's Radio estimates 1997 revenues at WRQC at $3.8 million, down from $6.3 million in 1996 when the signal carried country music. The switch to country came in April 1997.
In the ABC/Capital Cities camp, KXXR saw its market share take a dramatic drop over the course of the year. In winter 1997, it had a 5.6 share among all listeners 12 and up throughout the day; the fall book showed a 2.8 percent share.
As the Edge, an alternative-rock station, it recorded $8 million in revenue in 1996. In 1997, that revenue dropped to $6.4 million, according to Duncan's. The station switched from alternative to hard rock in September 1997, suggesting that the revenue drop attributed to the switch was even more pronounced.
Waggoner said the alternative-rock format was already tracking downward in the ratings before the station changed formats, and then fell further after the conversion, a normal event. "The hit in ratings is really not as big as you think," she said. "We feel confident with that station."
Bloom said the Stern show isn't at full profit potential. The Stern show operates on a one-hour tape delay from New York, and while he tries to keep it at the same length, Bloom devotes fewer minutes to commercials than New York. "In the end, we'll run about the same number."
Those minutes also contain heavy promo spots, both promoting the music format at WRQC, and featuring Stern himself urging listeners to support his sponsors and urging other advertisers to join in.
Bloom said the promos are necessary to cultivate an audience. "We can sell more commercials on the Howard Stern show here in Minneapolis," he said. "We're not selling as many as they sell in New York or Los Angeles, for example. But again, after having been through this in Philadelphia and Los Angeles, I know that overcoming the initial Howard Stern objections takes a little bit of time," he said.
Marc Kalman, general manager at WRQC, said the promos are a sound business move. "Every station in the market puts on promotional spots for something. We just choose to try and support ourselves better by doing a good job of reminding people to buy time on Howard Stern. We're trying to say subliminally, `You're listening and you're an advertiser; try us, you'll like us.'"
In the final determination, however, it may come to be that this same "Howard vs. Tom" story could be written every two years, because the war may never go away. "It doesn't have to put other shows out of business," said Walter Sabo, a New York-based radio consultant who believes that Stern will ultimately prevail in Minneapolis. "It kind of levels the field."
Chancellor radio officials won't discuss contracts, but reports have Stern in the Twin Cities at least through the year 2000, and Bloom said the station is already profitable with Stern leading it off in the morning.
Even if he doesn't topple the KQ morning show, most observers say there's room enough for both.
"Good radio is good radio," says Kalman.
from the St. Paul Pioneer Planet
April 16, 1998
KQRS hasn't been hurt by potty-mouther New Yorker Stern. But Rock 100's ratings are up nearly five-fold.
A year has past. The sun has risen and set another 365 times. The Antichrist has not appeared on "Jerry Springer."
No outraged-mothers group has tried to set fire to Rock 100, site of the satellite-reception of Howard Stern. And Tom Barnard is still living the life of a country baron.
One year ago today, Howard Stern arrived in the Twin Cities market. Electronically. The man has yet to set foot in the Twin Cities to personally hype his show and heap abuse on rival Barnard and KQRS-FM (92.5). Several hundred thousand dollars have, however, left the market on their way back to Stern's pocket in New York City.
After years of threats, Chancellor Broadcasting -- the creation of a surreally well-financed investment partnership known as Hix, Muse, Tate and Furst, and now the nation's largest radio group with close to 500 stations -- wrote the check that brought Stern to town last April 16. (Estimated cost: $650,000 a year, plus ratings-based bonuses.)
The primary objective was to substantially erode Barnard's phenomenal share of the Twin Cities radio market. For more than a decade, Barnard has dominated a slice of the local-market pie that is larger among key demographic groups, men 18-49 in particular, than any other show in the country.
With Stern's arrival, WBOB-FM (100.3), a bland, corporate cowboy station, transformed itself overnight into WRQC, or "Rock 100," and began assaulting Twin Cities air waves with its own heavily researched play list. Instead of interchangeable cowpokes in big hats and tight T-shirts, Rock 100 began pumping head-banging rock 'n' roll. Guns n' Roses. AC/DC. Metallica (the thought being that everyone is now so old even monosyllabic headbangers have real jobs and enough money to buy cars and vinyl windows).
Rock 100's somewhat hyperactive operations manager, Andy Bloom, who spent a few years of his adolescence in St. Louis Park, boldly declared that Stern would defeat Barnard in the Twin Cities among such key demographic groups as adults 25-54 and men 18-34, "within a year to 18 months."
The year thing didn't happen among 25- to 54-year-olds. But something is happening at the younger end.
While Stern has done great things (at great cost) for Rock 100's ratings, especially among young men, he's done little if any discernible harm to Barnard and KQRS among older listeners.
In the last ratings period prior to Stern's arrival, WBOB showed a 4.3 share (percentage of listeners) during morning drive among adults 25-54, and a 3.7 among men 18-34. Meanwhile, KQRS showed a 22.7 (adults 25-54), and a 40.6 among men 18-34.
By the fall of 1997 (ending Dec. 10, 1997), Stern had nearly doubled Rock 100's 25-54 adult share in morning drive to an 8.4, while Barnard held constant, with the same huge 26.6 share he had the previous fall.
But among men 18-34, the crowd most easily titillated by discussions of midget lesbian sex, penis size (or lack thereof), Pamela Lee Anderson's silicon monopoly and Stern's claim to be "King of All Media," Rock 100's Twin Cities audience had jumped almost five-fold to a 20.7 share. (It was nearly seven times greater than WBOB's Fall '96 performance.)
Radio ratings are absurdly unreliable, subject to all manner of manipulation, distortion and reinterpretation by shameless executives. But we're not talking a percentage point or two, a minor blip that could be attributed to the proverbial drunken ratings-diary keeper. Increases of 500 percent and 700 percent among targeted listeners mean something.
KQRS General Manager Amy Waggoner looks at the situation and says, "We've gone from a 40 share to a 33 share. That's a drop, yes. But it's not a devastating drop. Particularly since we've shown growth in other areas."
She suggests Stern's 20.7 among young men "probably represents some men who weren't listening to radio before, and some who switched over." (Morning-drive acts at Cities 97, KSTP-AM and KFAN-AM also showed declines among young men during the same period.)
Asked if Barnard's slump suggested a WCCO-like graying of his audience, boding ill for KQ five to 10 years down the road, Waggoner shot back, "I'm not buying that. (Barnard) is still sitting there with a 33 share. What you're doing is emphasizing the negative. I'm saying the glass is a lot more than half full."
Across town and outside the Stern-Barnard fray, KSTP-FM and AM General Manager Ginny Morris looks at a year of Stern and says, "It's clear he's not diminished Tom's strength. And you'd have to say that any young men available for that kind of radio are being served."
"My God," says Dan Seaman, general manager of female-targeted "Smooth Jazz" KMJZ-FM. "If nothing else, Stern has reordered the local radio universe. We've now got five stations -- KQRS; Rock 100; 93X (formerly The Edge); The Zone, which is really three stations; and Cities 97 -- all chasing pretty much the same male demo. Stern's presence has focused a disproportionate share of radio signals on a single demo. That's left a lot of women up for grabs. And that's good news for us.
"The impact of Stern on the market is bigger than anything he's done to Barnard. The resources these companies are throwing around is amazing. Look at TV. Practically every other spot is for radio. That's a consequence of the competition between Chancellor and everybody else, if not Stern and Barnard. I'd like to be selling TV time about now."
"But," Seaman adds, "I feel like a guy watching two giants fight. I just don't want to be in the way when one of them falls."
"From 40 to 33 maybe not be cause for great concern," says Rock 100's Andy Bloom. "But from 30 to 23 will raise some eyebrows, and 20 to 15 will create absolute panic.
"I stand by my prediction. In another nine months, we'll be No. 1 men 18-34. And not long after that, we'll take 25-54 and then 12-plus."
Waggoner refused to speculate how much lower Barnard's young-male demos would drop or how much higher Stern's would go. But Morris doubted Andy Bloom's claim that Stern would overtake Barnard within 18 months, or ever, much less by January 1999.
"Tom's too good," she says. "He's an extraordinary talent. What's more, no one (at KQRS) is taking success for granted. Everyone works very hard. They're very strategic and they're very smart.
"And I'm very jealous," she laughs. "But all this has taken place in a strong economy. What happens, I wonder, if there's a recession? Do you still have the luxury of underutilizing all those stations? I don't think so."
Brian Lambert is the staff broadcast critic.
Thanks to Roger for sending these stories.
People continue to wonder if the Twin Cities area is big enough for Tom Barnard and Howard Stern.
The answer so far is: Quite possibly. As the newly released fall 1997 Arbitron ratings demonstrate, the audience for Stern's syndicated morning show, broadcast by WRQC (100.3 FM), continues to grow in the Twin Cities. But the only area in which Stern's gain is demonstrably Barnard's loss is in among listeners ages 18 to 34.
Among 18-34s, Stern has nearly quadrupled WRQC's share of the morning drive-time audience, from 3.9 percent in the fall of 1996 to a 15.0 last fall. Meanwhile, Barnard's morning show on KQRS (92.5 FM) slipped from a 36.5 percent share to a 29.0.
But in Arbitron's most crucial demographic measurement, Barnard is holding steady. In fall 1996, KQ's morning crew had a 26.6 share of the age-25-to-54 audience. They matched that number exactly this past fall. WRQC's share among that demographic grew from 4.4 to 8.4 percent. However, that seems to have come at the expense of other stations, and from bringing in new listeners.
At other hours, however, it seems clear that WRQC is not hanging on to all the listeners that Stern attracts. Its full-day average (Monday through Sunday, 6 a.m. to midnight) among 18-34-year-olds was up -- 8.2 percent compared with 5.0 the previous fall. But its 4.5 share of 25-to 54-year-olds was smaller than the 5.5 percent it got in the fall of 1996, before it made the switch from country music to hard rock (and Stern).
For those who think everybody who listens to the radio should count -- even those who fall outside the advertiser-preferred demographic groupings -- here's how the stations stacked up last fall in Arbitron's most inclusive headcount: listeners 12 and older.
WCCO-AM was first with 12.3 percent, followed by KQRS (11.2), KEEY (8.0), KDWB (7.8), WLTE (6.3), KSTP-FM (5.3), KSTP-AM (5.0), KQQL (4.5), KTCZ (4.0) and WRQC (3.8). Next came KMJZ-FM (2.9 percent), KXXR-FM (2.8), KFAN-AM (2.6), KLBB-AM (1.5).
The trio of Zone 105 stations together pulled a 1.7 share, the same as last year. Among listeners 18-34, they had a 3.3 share, down from 3.6.
Published Friday, January 23, 1998
Howard Stern's enormously high-priced impact on the Twin Cities radio market continues to grow among certain key demographic groups, according to the Fall 1997 Arbitron survey released Tuesday.
While he has yet to show that he's directly damaging the long-standing popularity of Tom Barnard and the Morning Crew on Disney-owned KQRS-FM (92.5), Stern, on WRQC-FM (100.3), has built an audience fully three times the size the station had for the morning drive in its previous incarnation as WBOB-FM, the slick cowboy crooner.
Some numbers for morning drive time among listeners 18-34 years of age:
RANK STATION SUMMER '97 FALL '97 1. KQRS-FM 30.7 29.0 2. WRQC-FM 10.5 15.0 3. KDWB-FM 9.7 9.9 4. KEEY-FM 6.5 8.1 5. KSTP-FM 6.7 6.4 6. KXXR-FM 5.9 3.8 7. KTCZ-FM 4.8 3.3 8. WLTE-FM 4.0 3.3 9. WCCO-AM 2.2 2.3 10. KFAN-AM 0.8 1.4
Among persons 25-54, the morning drive situation looks like this:
RANK STATION SUMMER '97 FALL '97 1. KQRS-FM 26.6 26.6 2. WCCO-AM 8.4 8.8 3. WRQC-FM 6.1 8.4 4. KEEY-FM 6.6 7.5 5. WLTE-FM 5.8 5.8 6. KDWB-FM 5.2 5.4 7. KSTP-FM 5.9 4.6 8. KQQL-FM 5.3 4.4 9. KTCZ-FM 4.9 4.2 10. KSTP-AM 2.8 2.7
Unfortunately for WRQC, Stern's impact, while positive, doesn't seem to carry quite as much weight over the course of the entire day.
Looking at the audience for 25-54 year olds from 6 a.m. to midnight:
RANK STATION SUMMER '97 FALL '97 1. KQRS-FM 14.1 15.8 2. KEEY-FM 7.5 8.6 3. WLTE-FM 7.2 7.7 4. WCCO-AM 6.9 7.1 5. KSTP-FM 7.7 7.0 6. KQQL-FM 6.8 5.7 7. KTCZ-FM 6.3 5.7 8. KDWB-FM 5.9 5.2 9. KSTP-AM 5.0 4.8 10. WRQC-FM 3.9 4.5
(Ed: local tv stuff snipped...)
Brian Lambert is the staff broadcast critic of the St. Paul Pioneer Press.
Published Thursday, January 22, 1998, in the St. Paul Pioneer Press.
Published Wednesday, February 4, 1998, in the Pioneer Press:
- The Top Five morning-drive shows (6 to 10 a.m.) most popular with women 25-54: KQRS-FM (17.9), WCCO-AM (9.8), KEEY-FM (9.7), WLTE-FM (9.4) and KDWB-FM (8.1).
- WRQC-FM, local home of Howard Stern, has lost almost half its 25-54 female morning-drive listeners since switching from cowboy music (as WBOB) last spring.
- But among women 18-34, WRQC is up in morning-drive about 40 percent since Stern arrived.
Thanks to Roger for sending this...
As we've been reporting regularly (and ad nauseum according to some of you), ever since Howard Stern arrived in town last April, KQRS-FM has yet to be devastated by Stern's presence. It has lost some blood, depending where you look, but hardly enough to cause it any serious concern.
And so it goes with the latest full, quarterly ratings book released by the Arbitron company (measuring summer listenership). Summer '97 shows little change in either KQ's dominance of the Twin Cities radio market or any substantive new gain by Stern's local affiliate, WRQC-FM (formerly WBOB-FM), since it spiked sharply upward in late spring.
However, if you look at one key demographic group in this fight for the morning-drive audience, persons 18-34 years of age, KQ has slumped noticeably since the summer of '95. Meanwhile, WRQC has significantly improved its audience share, at least as measured against its previous (cowboy) format -- but at the enormous cost of its deal for Stern.
Three summers' worth of numbers...
Listeners 18-34, Mornings 6-10 a.m., Mon-Fri
Rank Station 1995 1996 1997 1. KQRS-FM 36.3 34.0 30.7 (Barnard) 2. WRQC-FM 7.0 4.5 10.5 (Howard) 3. KDWB-FM 9.6 11.9 9.7 4. KSTP-FM 6.4 7.7 6.7 5. KEEY-FM 5.7 4.9 6.5 6. KEGE-FM 7.7 8.1 5.9 7. KTCZ-FM 3.7 3.6 4.8 8. WLTE-FM 3.1 2.5 4.0 9. WCCO-AM 2.4 2.7 2.2 10. KQQL-FM 1.4 2.3 2.1 11. KSTP-AM 1.6 1.5 1.8 12. KXXP-FM 1.4 1.7 1.6* 13. KXXR-FM 0.1 0.5 1.1** 14. KMJZ-FM 1.0 1.1 1.0 15. KFAN-AM 0.9 1.3 0.8 (* Formerly, KREV-FM ** Formerly, KCFE-FM).
The story among older listeners is somewhat different.
Listeners 25-54, Mornings 6 a.m.-10 a.m., Mon.-Fri.)
Rank Station 1995 1996 1997 1. KQRS-FM 26.6 26.6 26.6 (Barnard) 2. WCCO-AM 9.4 8.6 8.4 3. KEEY-FM 6.4 5.5 6.6 4. WRQC-FM 6.0 4.9 6.1 (Howard) 5. KSTP-FM 7.5 6.5 5.9 6. WLTE-FM 5.9 5.1 5.8 7. KQQL-FM 4.4 5.8 5.3 8. KDWB-FM 4.9 5.5 5.2 9. KTCZ-FM 3.2 3.8 4.9 10. KSTP-AM 3.1 2.6 2.8 11. KMJZ-FM 1.8 2.9 2.4 12. KEGE-FM 3.0 3.3 1.9 13. KFAN-AM 1.0 1.3 1.5 14. KSGS-AM --- --- 0.6 15. KXXP-FM 0.6 0.8 0.5
Thanks to Roger for sending this...
These ratings -- for the spring quarter of 1997 -- represent the first full "book" since Stern arrived in town last April. (Previously, we've reported "trends," which represented unadjusted fractions of a full ratings period.)
While Stern has done little, if anything, to dent KQRS 92.5 FM's lead in Twin Cities morning drive, at least among 25- to 54-year-olds, he has catapulted Real Rock/ex-'BOB/100.3/whatever up where it has never been before. Even among 25- to 54-year-olds, Real Rock 100 has jumped from eighth to fifth, as its audience share improved from a 4.3 last winter to a 6.2 this spring.
Here are the numbers for the Top 5 in a couple of major categories.
Rank Station Winter '96/Spring '97
Listeners 25-54 (6-10 a.m.)
1 KQRS-FM 22.7 - 23.2 2 WCCO-AM 11.8 - 8.3 3 WLTE-FM 8.0 - 6.7 4 KEEY-FM 6.7 - 6.6 5 WBOB-FM 4.3 - 6.2
Listeners 18-34 (6-10 a.m.)
1 KQRS-FM 30.4 - 27.5 2 WBOB-FM 5.4 - 11.5 3 KDWB-FM 10.4 - 9.6 4 KEEY-FM 6.7 - 7.2 5 KSTP-FM 7.3 - 6.8
Anecdotally, it would seem to be quiet on the great Stern vs. KQRS front. Unless you've been places I haven't, I detect very little buzz in terms of who's listening to whom and who's losing to whom.
But with Wednesday's release of the Arbitron radio ratings' so-called "rolling trends," preliminary to next month's report on the full spring quarter, it is clear Stern and the transformed WBOB (100.3 FM) are making some headway in the Twin Cities.
At whose expense is a matter of discussion.
Among persons 18-34, a primary demographic group sought by both KQRS and WBOB/Stern, the latter has suddenly jumped from sixth in the winter book, (January, February, March) to third in this "rolling trend," which measures March, April and May, or only one full month of Stern's impact on Twin Cities radio. (The math nerds among you can compute what effect one month out of three would have to have to move the numbers as much as it did.)
Here are the rankings among persons 18-34, measuring the 6-10 a.m. morning drive of Winter '97 against the "rolling trend" of March, April and May:
Rank Station Winter Rolling
1 KQRS-FM 30.4 28.3
2 KDWB-FM 10.4 10.9
3 WBOB-FM 5.4 8.3
4 KSTP-FM 7.3 7.0
5 KEGE-FM 8.8 6.7
6 KEEY-FM 6.7 5.7
7 WLTE-FM 5.1 4.7
8 KTCZ-FM 3.1 3.8
9 WCCO-AM 2.5 2.2
10 KQQL-FM 1.6 2.0
As you can see, if Stern is to be blamed (or given credit) for the slide in KQRS' numbers, the effect thus far has been minimal. But, since in many ways this is a corporate battle pitting Chancellor Broadcasting (parent company of WBOB, KDWB, KEEY, KQQL, KTCZ, KFAN and KTCJ) against Disney (parent company of KQRS, KEGE and the three low-power FMs bound together as "X105"), its interesting to note that both KQRS and KEGE are off from their winter numbers, while virtually all of the Chancellor properties have increased market share among 18- to 34-year-olds.Even KFAN-AM's morning drive (Bob Yates, et al.), which some figured would be dealt a fatal blow by Stern's arrival, increased its numbers from 1.5 to a 1.7 over the period. Not much, much up but it's better than down.
Looking at the next older demographic group, the 25- to 54-year-olds, KQRS' morning drive numbers remain strong (nearly 2 1/2 times the audience of No. 2 WCCO-AM). WBOB is up slightly, from 4.3 to 4.8.
The ratings for 25- to 54-year-olds, again comparing Winter '97 to March-April-May.
Rank Station Winter Rolling
1 KQRS-FM 22.7 24.9
2 WCCO-AM 11.8 9.5
3 WLTE-FM 8.0 7.8
4 KDWB-FM 5.2 5.8
5 KQQL-FM 5.5 5.7
6 KEEY-FM 6.7 5.3
7 WBOB-FM 4.3 4.8
8 KSTP-FM 5.4 4.5
9 KTCZ-FM 3.6 4.3
10 KMJZ-FM 2.5 2.7
These numbers might suggest WCCO-AM is at most peril in terms of a direct hit from the Stern arrival. But note that Disney's youth-oriented KEGE drops from 10th in the Winter '97 book (a 3.3 share) to 12th in the rolling trend, (a 2.4).WBOB operations manager, Andy Bloom, was guardedly optimistic about these first numbers to offer any kind of an indication of Stern's appeal and impact in the Twin Cities.
"It's a pretty good day," said Bloom. "We're very pleased to see some progress with Rock 100.3 and Howard Stern. I think I can say the numbers are impressive."
Bloom was instrumental in Stern's arrival in both Philadelphia and L.A. He ducked a question about comparing Minneapolis-St.Paul to either of those markets on the ground that "in both cases, Howard was added to ongoing formats. Here, the entire radio station was blown up when he came on the air."
Bloom is referring to WBOB's switch from a cowboy-music format to its present head-banging, simultaneous with Stern's arrival in late April. The full Spring '97 Arbitron report will be out in mid-July. With it will come more specific demographic figures, specifically the battle between Stern and KQRS for younger men.
Bloom has said in the past that Stern has traditionally taken a year or more to establish a large enough audience with which to springboard into numbers that would be genuinely competitive with KQRS. But by any objective measure -- and the Arbitron system is the only one we've got -- Stern and WBOB are off to an excellent start in Minnesota.
Beyond the morning drive battle, we'll throw in the trend report for the entire day (6 a.m. to midnight) among listeners 25-54:
Rank Station Winter '97 Rolling
1 KQRS-FM 14.7 14.6
2 WLTE-FM 8.6 8.7
3 WCCO-AM 8.5 7.2
4 KQQL-FM 6.9 6.8
5 KSTP-FM 6.1 6.2
6 KEEY-FM 6.9 6.1
7 KTCZ-FM 4.8 5.6
8 KDWB-FM 4.8 5.1
9 KSTP-AM 5.3 5.0
10 WBOB-FM 4.6 4.4
It'll be interesting.
Brian Lambert is the staff broadcast critic.
Published Thursday, June 19, 1997, in the St. Paul Pioneer Press.
Thanks to many for sending this in...
Very early numbers (these are Arbitrend numbers, not the official Arbitrend ratings) are in for WBOB in Minneapolis. This just shows how big Barnard is in Minnesota, and how much ground Howard will have to make up. But he can do it! The first ratings for Howard Stern are essentially inconclusive. The Arbitron radio ratings are packaged in quarterly "books;" the report released Wednesday afternoon measured audiences only a week after Stern's April 16 debut on WBOB-FM (100.3). - Thanks to Roger for sending this in.Local radio-philes are fascinated with whether Stern will do any harm to our local heavyweight, the KQRS-FM (92.5) Morning Crew.
The consensus Wednesday was the that the week's worth of numbers are meaningless, partly because Arbitron admits they are short the required number of young men, a prime KQ-Stern listening bloc.
For the record, Wednesday's trend report, measuring morning-drive listenership for late March to late April, shows KQRS with 27.2 share of men 18 years of age and older, compared to WBOB's 2.5 (WBOB was a cowboy-music format prior to the arrival of Stern and headbanging rock 'n' roll).
KDWB-FM's (101.3) morning-drive showed a 4.1 share among men 18 and older, KSTP-AM (1500) had a 4.5 and KFAN-AM (1130), a 2.2.
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