advertisers buy the music of THEIR lives!

[Tim Davisson]

> WJIB 740 by adding a lot of the true Adult Standard pop vocalists and
crooners of the 40's/50's/60's that are being dropped by mainstream "Adult
Standards" stations nowadays.Eli Polonsky>

The problems that face most adult standards stations:
it's difficult to generate strong ad revenues for a format that ARB says
attracts over 90% of it's audience from people age 65+...not a huge target
for advertising agencies or most local businesses.  I know....I'm an
advertising salesman for an AM/FM combo...the AM runs Westwood 1's "Adult
Standards" format. Big band, the old crooners, etc...is the music of most
older baby boomers' parents...not them.

Fewer than 5% of my ad buys every year come from businesses who want to
reach listeners who are age 65 or older. And, I've never had an advertiser
say "I want to advertise on your station because I love the music!".

That's were the rub comes in: many business owners are under age 60. And, in
2003, people who are even age 60 were teenagers at the beginning of the rock
'n roll era of the late 50's....and early rock is the music of their
lives....not true adult standards of the 40's and 50's. Guess what formats
most of those people place their businesses' advertising on? Oldies, talk,
country, sometimes soft AC, and so forth. Besides...the best consumer target
is not what age group has the most money, but what age group (s) tend to
SPEND the most money....and that's a much bigger consumer target than just
people over 65.

Am not saying there wasn't great music pre-rock 'n roll....there sure was.
However, business-owners tend to buy advertising on the stations that play
music/programming they are comfortable with....and that's usually the music
they grew up with when they were in their teens. Right or wrong, that's the
way it is.

Again...I really enjoyed WBOQ's recent format from the few tapes I heard.
But, I'll bet poor ad billing was the primary reason for the format change.