I'm not going to argue with you or take a lot of exceptions here, BUT, programming decisions based on listener input? I'm sure you don't mean that this is the sole source of research, but I can assure you that in DFW, stations like KLUV, KDMX, KDGE, KHKS, KDBN, WRR and KVIL are getting large numbers of listeners by default.
OK, here is a different perspective. Often, when a station gets good listening levels by default, it means the foratic concept is effective. It also means that a competitor may not be likely because there is a limited share for that same format, and dividing it without winning it all (seldom happens, which is why stories like the WRBQ and Power Pig battle in Tampa are so much fun) means there will be two stations with under a 2 share, and neither will make much money. That's why, for example, we did not see second and third smooth jazz stations springing up, even when the format was bigger than it is today... dividing a small share is not worth the effort.
I also think that the stations in question must do music and / or perceptual research. They maintain the position by providing what the listener wants and expects from them.
There's nothing else competing with each of them directly, terrestrially, for their respective formats.
With today's fragmentation, we don't see too many head on battles; they tend to be lose-lose situations. We see flanking, and searching for holes that develop as tastes splinter or change as listeners mature.
If KLUV had a survey taker at the local mall asking folks if they thought a 300-song playlist was a great way to cover the entire history of pop oldies, I don't think the response would be positive.
This is true, and it is why stations don't research that way. Even I would say that I wanted more variety than that or something to that effect. However, sit me and another 99 listeners to a station down and play me the songs, and I will tell you one by one which I want to hear a lot, a little and never. So will the rest of the room, and that is how we find a group of songs that are not so negative to parts of the audience as to drive them away. If there were more songs in any particular format, we would play them. There is no programming reason to reduce the playlist... the reasons all come from having the listeners score the songs individually.
If you asked a large group of women if they wanted crossover country injected into their "light rock" on KVIL, I doubt most would.
But if you played, for many of those women, sample hour mixes with and without the country elements, and added the individual possible songs to a test, you could tell the differece in song scores and intent to listen to each sample mix.
If you asked a group of mainstream teens and 20-somethings that weren't into CHR to voice their opinions about KDGE, it'd be either 'too much alternative mixed in with the active rock', or 'too much active rock mixed in with the alternative.'
Alternative and active are probably the biggest programming challenge. An associate has conducted tests on these listener groups, and it seems that, for every three songs, each one likes one, tolerates one, and hates the third. the problem is that they are not the same songs. This is where the iPod wins, unfortunately, because we have here a listener group made up of active individualists that share only minimal commonalities.
Bottom line, the listeners, and mostly the white demo, are being fed an inferior, incomplete, fragmented and ill-researched music product that's designed to be advertiser- and stockholder-safe with no regard given for the "art" or for what might be creative, different, fun, exciting, community related, engaging or anything else, and we're dumb enough to keep listening (or are we?)
Whew. That is hard to answer. We, as programmers, design formats that can generate audiences in demos that are salable. That means make the CHR Female 18-34 friendly, as the 12-17 don't sell spots. And make the talker as young as possible via talent and subjects, as the 55+ is definitely a hard sale to make. But we look also at how to make the product fun, within the mood of the format... and, from what folks at other companies tell me, within every tighter budgets. But things that get listenership get budgeted, hopefully. The good thing is that if things at some companies have gone too far, other companies will sieze the moment and whack them good, and the reaction will be for the competitor to improve the product. We hope...
Dumb station owners are not the product of consolidation. They are the product of ignoring the listener.
For most of us, the radio is the most convenient way to receive sound. iPods don't have speakers, satellite is not very portable, and not all of us can afford new cars with all these luxuries built in (let alone HD.) So the masses are still basically stuck with AM and FM, and are getting very little in return for their TSL. Yeah, I know it's a business and it's all about the money. I just want something fair in exchange for my listening time.
I would only say that the vast majority of listeners I talk to or my associates talk to like radio and are not as negative. Maybe the fact that you are on a radio board indicated much higher interest and expectations... or maybe your dissatisfaction brought you here. But board posters are not typical listeners.
Oh, and competition makes BOTH stations better...it's almost like a secret handshake agreement now between the corps to not compete with each other in this town.
I don't think this is the case. What you have are decisions based on research and analysis. If a format search shows that fragging KXXX will get only a 1.5 share, most will write it off as not a good idea. And if going head on with WZZZ will make both stations fail, that is not good either... think back to the country battles in many Texas markets in the early 90's and you see that there were just too many of 'em in the format for any to make real money.
Also, explain what the decades-long complaint has been by Hispanic stations about the samplings and diary distribution with Arbitron? You wrote this idea off as if it never existed.
The main diary based issue for nearly a decade was to have proportionality between English and Spanish dominant Hispanics. That was done two years ago, and the rest of the process is quite good, except for occasional issues that hit all staitons every onece in a while and are more related to things like what happens when you get that occasional kiss or bomb that is in the two standard error range... it's a poll, a survey. It is not a census, because we can't afford a census.
Prior to this, the only issue was getting Hispanics (as well as Blacks and 18-24's) to participate, and Arbitron developed DST and HDHA and HDBA areas and placement techniques to fix those issues... as problems arrise, as we have with ethnic PPM measurement, broadcasters will ask Arbitron to work on better procedures, which they tend to do in the long run.
