Revised:Commercial Radio Formats(USvs.Boston)

[Bill Piacentini <billpi@ll.mit.edu>]

[Sorry for the jumbled "columns". I hope this version is better.]
I ran across an interesting bit of data from a company selling mailing lists
of radio stations. The figures are all from their website. The number of US
commercial stations and their format:
All AM stations................................4422
All FM stations.................................5261
Satellite Users...................................3839
FORMAT:                                  US                            Boston:
Country....................................2323 (2613w/simulcast).....2
Adult Contemporary.................1730..................................3
News/Talk/MOR......................1583.................................4
Religious..................................1011...............................5
Gold(Oldies)............................883..................................4
AOR........................................828................................5
Spanish......................................452................(all ethnic=)6
Big Band/Nostalgia.....................419.................................3
Beautiful Music/EZ & Soft AC....415.................................5
Contemporary Hit Radio.............403.................................2
Black/ Urban/R&B.....................371.................................1
Note:Granted some liberties were taken with putting classical with
"Beautiful Music/EZ & Soft AC,etc.
It looks like CHR, for instance, have few stations but many listeners as Top
Ten Radio Market Standings attest.
I don't know what all this means toward the state of Boston Radio. Some suit
in Chicago would probably say Boston needs one more Country station! We all
know that won't work. Or, maybe if it were Country Gold? Nah, not in Boston.
How about AC/Country Gold? A ratio of  15 AC with 5 Country Gold per hour?
On another tack, I could never understand most FM/music stations ignoring
the news except at AM Drive. At least have a 60-90 sec summary. Remember
WRKO(FM) with 20-20 news(20after/20before/on the hour? Don't you think that
WBZ's ratings being so high is an indication of news starvation? People
aren't glued to WBZ throughout the broadcast day; they just go there for
their news update. If I were a PD/GM, I'd blend the news(100sec. on the hour
and 50sec. ea. at 20min. past and 20min. before the hour) with the music
using the DJ/announcer. One does not need a huge investment in news sources
these days does one? A good example is WQEW New York. Granted they are owned
by the New York Times but they have the same person announcing songs and
reading the news. 
This may start a good discussion.

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