Is Seattle just not a radio market?

[TexasTom]

Take a look at Atlanta and Seattle.  Atlanta is a bigger market, but has half the signals.   Terrain, movins over the past couple of decades like 106.9, 97.3, 104.5, 104.9, 99.9, 98.9, 103.7, 102.9, 97.7 and the list goes on have created a glut of signals and depressed shares.

How are 98.9 and 99.9 move-ins?  They've been licensed to Seattle as long as I can remember, going back into the seventies. 

97.3 and 103.7 (and perhaps you should have included 106.1) are arguable as move-ins, as they're Tacoma stations, and thus certainly part of the Seattle-Tacoma radio market.  That does represent a change from the seventies when Seattle and Tacoma had separate radio ratings and the Tacoma stations didn't really come in well in Seattle and were mostly ignored once you left Pierce County.  But the Tacoma FM stations all boosted power to cover Seattle as well as Tacoma in the early eighties and have long served both cities. 

Just out of curiosity, does anyone know when separate ratings for Tacoma were eliminated?

[radioguy123]

Meant to say 99.3 moved in to South Mountain by Bustos. not 99.9.  Most of the remainder were Tacoma, Bremerton, Olympia,or outlying areas or lower power signals that got moved up to Tiger Mt or Cougar during the last thirty years.  Forgot about 106.1.   By making the move to Tiger or Cougar they became full market signals.  Makes for a crowded market.   I think years ago KMTT actually used a translator to two to cover the market until they moved their stick.

[Bongwater]

Meant to say 99.3 moved in to South Mountain by Bustos. not 99.9.  Most of the remainder were Tacoma, Bremerton, Olympia,or outlying areas or lower power signals that got moved up to Tiger Mt or Cougar during the last thirty years.  Forgot about 106.1.   By making the move to Tiger or Cougar they became full market signals.  Makes for a crowded market.   I think years ago KMTT actually used a translator to two to cover the market until they moved their stick.

KMTT moved to Tiger from Three Sisters around 1993. They had a translator in Bellevue on 103.9 and one on 104.1 (I think) in Olympia as well as the West Seattle 103.3 translator up until then....

(Speaking of translators, is the 95.7 translator on 103.3 in Edmonds still going? They had one in Everett on 106.3 until 106.1's move to Tiger. I've NEVER heard the 103.1 translator in Everett for 100.7)

The first move to Tiger was 97.3 in 1988. The initial results were spectacular. Areas in Snohomish County and elsewhere where 97.3 was a noisy mess, 97.3 suddenly became the loudest thing on the dial.

Then 94.1 moved in 1989, 106.1 in 1991. From there it becomes a blur, a mass exodus off Cougar and Queen Anne during the '90s.

The benefit of Tiger was/is better coverage in hard to reach places like downtown Everett with better height and lower power. The downside is spottier coverage in areas outside the general Seattle-Tacoma-Everett area. But it's getting the $$$ areas like the Eastside that mattered most..... 

[crainbebo]

I don't think the 103.3/95.7 xlator is on now. I've only noticed KMTT's Downtown Seattle xlator on 103.3 in the Edmonds/Mukilteo area.

-crainbebo

[IndigoCoyote]

The KMTT translator in Olympia is still going strong.

[Dusty Dale Brooks]

I only came here in 2006 and all I bring to the party is a long history of having worked many other markets though not Seattle (except I did work briefly in Olympia).Seattle has long been considered by the industry as a great “personality” town where radio had a high entertainment factor. And I have always believed that great stations have to entertain or serve—preferably both.

One unfortunate fallout from consolidation, media convergence, and all the evolutionary changes has been the death of the suburban station. Every significant market in this country at times had one or more successful suburban stations. They were usually signal-challenged or privately held but they scaled. They embeded themselves into the fabric of a particular county, “side” of the metro, or a suburb that for which ARB would do a breakout —at a reasonable cost.
 
Inevitably owners and managers got frustrated with huge swings in local sales at such stations and with their inability to compete for national business, or even the big regional accounts. The rep firms poured sugar in their ears and consultants of both the programming and engineering ilk leaned on them to upgrade and “move-in” to the easy money game that was being played by the metro stations. Truth-be- told there was nothing easy about the money downtown stations made. Rating periods were gut-wrenching experiences for all and remain so today.

Now we still have viable communities chock full of listeners who care about what happens in Tacoma or Everett, or Bremerton, or the eastside to the exclusion Seattle proper. Their life is lived in the south sound or the North Sound whatever. The really don’t want to know what goes on in Seattle.
But sadly the radio horse left the barn years ago. Now those local advertisers have community portals where they can spend their ad dollars. They continue to spend on yellow pages ads (?), local newspapers, and support schools and youth sports. Radio could have had a share of those dollars, but frankly I think too many broadcasters let greed, laziness, narrow-thinking, and low expectations color their actions. For a creative class they showed very little.

Of course it depends on whom you ask. The programming people will tell you that sales and management types were devoid of creativity and always have been. The sales types will tell you that jocks and PDs held inflated opinions of their talent and creativity. Now scores of both sales types and programming types are out of work or out of the business. They all lost and so did listeners.

Dysfunction led to dissolution and seemingly always does.

[Bongwater]

I only came here in 2006 and all I bring to the party is a long history of having worked many other markets though not Seattle (except I did work briefly in Olympia).Seattle has long been considered by the industry as a great “personality” town where radio had a high entertainment factor. And I have always believed that great stations have to entertain or serve—preferably both.

One unfortunate fallout from consolidation, media convergence, and all the evolutionary changes has been the death of the suburban station. Every significant market in this country at times had one or more successful suburban stations. They were usually signal-challenged or privately held but they scaled. They embeded themselves into the fabric of a particular county, “side” of the metro, or a suburb that for which ARB would do a breakout —at a reasonable cost.
 
Inevitably owners and managers got frustrated with huge swings in local sales at such stations and with their inability to compete for national business, or even the big regional accounts. The rep firms poured sugar in their ears and consultants of both the programming and engineering ilk leaned on them to upgrade and “move-in” to the easy money game that was being played by the metro stations. Truth-be- told there was nothing easy about the money downtown stations made. Rating periods were gut-wrenching experiences for all and remain so today.

Now we still have viable communities chock full of listeners who care about what happens in Tacoma or Everett, or Bremerton, or the eastside to the exclusion Seattle proper. Their life is lived in the south sound or the North Sound whatever. The really don’t want to know what goes on in Seattle.
But sadly the radio horse left the barn years ago. Now those local advertisers have community portals where they can spend their ad dollars. They continue to spend on yellow pages ads (?), local newspapers, and support schools and youth sports. Radio could have had a share of those dollars, but frankly I think too many broadcasters let greed, laziness, narrow-thinking, and low expectations color their actions. For a creative class they showed very little.

Of course it depends on whom you ask. The programming people will tell you that sales and management types were devoid of creativity and always have been. The sales types will tell you that jocks and PDs held inflated opinions of their talent and creativity. Now scores of both sales types and programming types are out of work or out of the business. They all lost and so did listeners.

Dysfunction led to dissolution and seemingly always does.

VERY well said.

In the '80s, little KWYZ 1230 AM Everett, with it's Radio 123 country format stood surprisingly well against the FM boomers of KMPS and KRPM. KWYZ also had a seriously locally oriented format in personality, news as well as advertising.

That alone was their greatest hedge against the Seattle/Tacoma FMs......