Atlanta ahead of Detroit in Arbitron rankings

[jry]

Keep Detroit in the Top 10.

The rankings are for MSAs (Metro Survey Areas).
Metro Areas a defined by the Census Bureau and definitions are subject to change, sometimes as a result of political pressure and influence.

Get the Census Bureau (and therefore Arbitron) to include Washtenaw County in the Detroit Metro Area.
Currently it's the Ann Arbor Metro Area (including only Washtenaw County) - Market 147 with 297,100 people 12 or older.
That's more than enough to put Detroit ahead of Atlanta and Washington, making Detroit the number eight market with Detroit radio getting all those extra bucks that go to stations in the top 10 markets.

Check the Ann Arbor ratings.  They mostly listen to Detroit radio anyway.  Based on radio usage, and not all the other factors the Census Bureau uses, it should be in the Detroit market anyway.

The other alternatives are:
Make babies.
Get people to move back.

at one point there was talk about shifting flint around, based on listening and working trends. flint could join saginaw/bay city or detroit. however, if arbitron ever moves lapeer back to the flint market, where it was originally, then detroit would drop out of the top ten.

[kenhawk1160]

at one point there was talk about shifting flint around, based on listening and working trends. flint could join saginaw/bay city or detroit. however, if arbitron ever moves lapeer back to the flint market, where it was originally, then detroit would drop out of the top ten.
[/quote]

That doesn't surprise me.  Lapeer County is where much of the suburbanites have been flocking because it used to be that everything south of 8 Mile was considered undesirable.  Now it's everything south of Metro Parkway (aka 16 mile or Big Beaver Road if you're west of I-75), or in short, much of Macomb County.

Flint could join Saginaw/Bay City, but Flint is too far geographically from Saginaw to really benefit.  If it's absorbed into Detroit, the stations there that depend heavily on agency revenue (which is most of them) will certainly be hurt.  As if the GM plant closings in the 80's weren't enough.

[Al Johnson]

To be accurate, this is the Census Bureau's call, not Arbitron's.

If you bring in Genesee County, the market may move up but the stations (except maybe 'JR) get screwed.  You'll have a situation where only 'JR can put a good signal into the entire market area.  The FMs generally get good coverage to somewhere around the Northern border of Macomb and Oakland Counties (some fall short, some get coverage across the line depending on terrain but not too far).  Everybody's share numbers get smaller.

OK, Detroit becomes number 11.  So what?  How does it matter to anybody who isn't a radio geek?  Population is shifting South.  Thank air conditioning.  And thank the factory closings; a lot of Detroiters moved South.  When I first started paying attention, Detroit was number five.  The markets just behind Detroit in population are growing, so number 15 in 10 or 20 years is not out of the question.  This only matters if it results in any sports teams moving out.  Then again, maybe the Mud Hens would move to Detroit and you could go to a ballgame for the price of a movie.

[Marv-L.A.]

Atlanta's real estate market is much healthier than Miami's, so keep that in mind.

If the politicians don't overreact to the subprime meltdown, Atlanta should be okay, if not as brisk as Nashville, Albuquerque, or various cities in Texas.

[DavidEduardo]

To be accurate, this is the Census Bureau's call, not Arbitron's.

To an extent, you are right. Arbitron uses Census projections to determine the population updates they implement each year in the Fall book. However, the Census data is supplemented and processed by Claritas (what used to be Market Statistics) to get a 12+ population for the metro. Arbitron's Metro Survey Area is not always the same as the OMB-defined Metropolitan Statistical Area, as the radio metro is defined in part by the amount of listening to local stations in outlying counties. In fact, many metros are redefined each year by Arbitron based on whether they get listening from the "main city" in significant quantity.

[/quote]OK, Detroit becomes number 11.  So what?  How does it matter to anybody who isn't a radio geek?[/quote]

Yes, station owners, managers and sellers... being  in the top 10 means lots more national business than being outside the top 10. This could mean a million or two in annual billing for the leading stations.

Already Detroit bills like it were market 13 or 14, because it is perceived as a low growth market that is not "trendy" just like Cleveland or Pittsburgh or Buffalo.