By Dave Larsen
Staff Writer
Youth migration
Fly 92.9 has rocked Dayton’s radio ratings, but a hot new station isn’t the only challenge facing radio stations in the digital age.
Extras
Radio listeners, especially young rock music fans, are migrating to digital media alternatives such as Web-based streaming audio or MP3 players such as iPods, said Rob Riggsbee, president of Cincinnati-based Inside Media.
Broadcast radio also has potential competition from Internet, satellite and HD (high-definition) radio.
“There’s just a lot of different ways that these guys like to get their music,” Riggsbee said. “Unless the station is capturing those listeners who are going to their iPods or going to satellite (radio) … on their new media platforms, you’ve got a problem.
“Because it’s a fact: The younger the listener, the more likely they are to use other alternatives to what I call ‘terrestrial’ radio.”
In addition to music, broadcast radio delivers local news, weather, traffic updates and sports scores.
Young people are turning to computers or cell phones for such information, leaving them no reason to listen to local radio, Riggsbee said.
“The only way that I see radio stations being successful in keeping young listeners is if they break new music,” he said. “If you don’t break new music, then you just lost that whole demographic.”
Loyal listeners
Capturing young listeners is a challenge, agreed Bob Zuroweste, vice president and market manager of Clear Channel Dayton. But radio’s older age demographics have seen little if any decline over the last five years, he said.
Dayton Clear Channel stations include WMMX-FM (107.7), WLQT-FM (99.9), WXEG-FM (103.9) and WTUE-FM.
“There’s a couple ways you can look at radio in measurement,” Zuroweste said. “It’s the number of people you reach and the time spent listening to the medium.”
Both measurements have seen slight declines for adults age 18-34, but neither has been impacted in the 25-54 demographic.
“So they’re spending as much time with the medium, and as many people are still listening to it,” Zuroweste said.
Flipping formats
Main Line Broadcasting dropped Z-93 in attempt to reach a broader, older audience with Fly 92.9. The format change was “unquestionably a good move,” Riggsbee said.
“There was certainly a void in the marketplace for a radio station like Fly, and it had seemed that over a time a large share of the listeners had abandoned
Z-93,” Weed said.
“But the departure of that radio station opened the door for a really exciting new radio station and at the same time it helped our stable-mates here. It stopped splitting an audience between Z-93 and Hot 102.9.”
Main Line’s WDHT-FM (102.9), which has an Urban Hits format, grew in share to rank No. 1 with adults 18-34.
In contrast, Cox Radio’s WHKO-FM, a perennial ratings leader, had nearly 50 percent audience drops for both adults 18-34 and 25-54.
“It’s the first time since the ’80s that a major signal has changed formats,” said Nick Roberts, operations manager for Cox Radio Dayton.
“So from our perspective, there was a lot of people checking out the new store. A new restaurant opens up, everybody wants to check it out. But they eventually go back to the ones they like.”
Online audience
Audience declines will continue as younger listeners migrate to media alternatives. “But I’m not suggesting that radio is a dinosaur and that nobody listens, because they do,” Riggsbee said.
Increasingly, people are listening to radio stations online via their office computers.
“That has been a big, big growth area for radio just in general,” said Clear Channel’s Zuroweste. “Streaming has become a very important factor to all of our stations.”
Radio stations sell streaming Web commercials separately from their on-air commercials.
“It’s the same music, it’s the same on-air personalities, but when it comes to commercials and commercial breaks, it’s a separate radio station,” Zuroweste said.
Broadcast radio stations must adapt to Internet streaming and digital media players to survive, Riggsbee said.
“In order for migration not to take place and affect radio stations to the extent where they lose half of their audiences over the next five years, they have to strategically capture those people who listen to their station when those people go from getting out of their car … to the next place they’re going to be, whether it’s in their office or jogging down the street,” he explained.
“They have to figure out how they’re going to capture those people when they go online.”
Contact this reporter at (937) 225-2419 or
dlarsen@DaytonDailyNews.com.
Internet radio: An audio broadcasting service transmitted via the Internet, also known as Web or streaming radio.
“That is the biggest growth area, and that is the area that these radio stations have to master,” said Rob Riggsbee, president of Cincinnati-based Inside Media. “They have to be able to convert their off-line listeners to become their online listeners when it comes to streaming.”
If successful, radio stations will help to stem listener migration and continue to provide advertisers with good value for their dollar.
Satellite radio: A subscription-based digital radio signal broadcast by communications satellite. Mobile services such as Sirius and XM allow listeners to listen to the same audio programming anywhere they travel.
Only 14 million of the nearly 300 million U.S. radio users subscribe to satellite, Riggsbee said. That number could increase as carmakers continue to put satellite radios in new vehicles with free subscription service.
“Today it’s not much of a factor,” Riggsbee said. “Moving forward with carmakers doing deals with the satellite companies, it will start to have impact.”
HD radio: A digital audio broadcasting technology that provides additional side-band programs on the same FM channel, referred to as “multicasts.”
“They’re not a blip on the radar screen,” Riggsbee said. “Even though they have spent a tremendous amount of money marketing HD on the radio stations, there is no impact.”
But that could change in time. “There is serious growth potential,” Riggsbee said. “We just haven’t hit it yet.”
