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The Straight Skinny
BA Makes Major Programming Adjustments Straight from the horse's mouth: Allen Kepler's
By Carol Archer |
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On Oct. 13, Broadcast Architecture President Allen Kepler sent a memo to BA Smooth Jazz Network affiliates and non-affiliated outlets that outlined a variety of new findings, based on PPM ratings, along with a number of resulting strategic programming enhancements. I thank him for permission to share that communiqué with readers of The Straight Skinny, below. |
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We are seeing value in some of the new artists and new music we're playing, showing lower tune-out than some of the gold library. |
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Kepler strikes an upbeat note: "Even with the challenges facing everyone in every business, this is a very exciting time for the format: with new artists coming on board; perhaps the busiest summer tour schedule I've seen in recent years; and the fact that today our format holds more of a solid, unique and exclusive position compared to other radio formats than ever before.
"There are currently 37 full-time commercial Smooth Jazz radio stations across the US. Our weekly Smooth Jazz Top 20 chart that reflects total audience reach (last week's No.1 song was heard by 2.8 million listeners) and actual spins across the 37 markets. The No. 1 song last week had 850 spins across the 38 monitored markets; including Smooth Jazz Network stations and Sirius Satellite's Watercolors channel. It is the only chart that ranks the top new songs by the total audience reached and offers the actual total number of spins weekly.
"Currently, there is much conversation and concern over the loss of Smooth Jazz stations in markets like Detroit, San Francisco, Washington, Miami, Chicago and others. Keep in mind that there were over six million listeners tuning in weekly to these radio stations and most dropped the format due to ownership-driven format strategies rather than actual station performance." |