Roanoke Times
Copyright (c) 1995, Landmark Communications, Inc.
DATE: SATURDAY, February 1, 1992 TAG: 9202030144
SECTION: EXTRA PAGE: E-2 EDITION: METRO
SOURCE: CHUCK MILTEER STAFF WRITER
DATELINE: LENGTH: Long
SURVEYS SURE TO CREATE STATIC AT RADIO STATIONS
The latest radio ratings for the Roanoke-Lynchburg market were released recently, and the results likely are causing Maalox moments in quite a few station offices.Pass a big bottle to the folks at market leader WXLK (K92, 92.3 FM). In the fall 1991 (September-December) Arbitron survey of the Roanoke-Lynchburg area, K92 dropped significantly to the lowest overall market share in its 12-year history; still No. 1, but within striking distance of the rest of the pack.
This comes on the heels of station owner Aylett Coleman's half-million dollar investment in a small Lynchburg FM station (WLYK, 100.1 FM) to improve K92's reception in the Lynchburg area.
The repeater's switch over from its previous incarnation came about a month into the survey and appears, at best, to have caused some confusion. While it is too early to tell what impact "K92-times-two" will have on the market, the results so far have to be considered disappointing.
Lynchburg-based country-music station WYYD finished No. 2 overall and is holding steady, but is still unable to draw a large share of the Roanoke-area audience.
WPVR (94.9 FM), which announced that it is changing from instrumental-heavy music to a light-contemporary format next week in an effort to draw more younger listeners, was third overall.
If WPVR's change is successful, its audience gains likely will come at the expense of WSLQ (Q99, 99.1 FM), which finished No. 4 overall. Q99 was a big winner in the key 25-54 age group, much sought by advertisers. Q99's results in this survey also confirm its results in the summer '91 survey, where it showed a big jump. Album- and classic-rock station WROV-FM (96.3) was fifth overall, showing a slight increase consistent with previous results.
In the 25-54 sweepstakes, WYYD was No. 2, followed by WPVR, K92 and WROV-FM. If you add K92's repeater-station results to the main station's (Arbitron will do this in future surveys), the Top-40 station moves up to a still-distant third.
Even so, don't expect K92 to be the only two-signal station in the area for long. Mike Slenski, general manager of Roanoke's WROV-FM (96.3), says his station is in the process of building a signal-enhancing translator station in the Blacksburg-Christiansburg area and is close to finalizing an agreement to broadcast its programming on a new Lynchburg area station by late spring.
And Ladd Goins, program director of Lynchburg urban-contemporary station WJJS (101.7 FM), is one of a group of investors who says it is close to agreement on the purchase of Lynchburg's WZST (102 Star, 102.7 FM). The group plans to change that station's programming to urban contemporary and rebroadcast it on a new Roanoke station. Target date is late summer for the Roanoke signal, they say.
"It will be an interesting year," said Slenski.
Stay tuned.
Other notes from the ratings surveys:
Roanoke country station WJLM (J93, 93.5 FM) posted a big increase in its overall results and jumped to sixth, trading places with WFIR (960 AM). The news-talk station was down slightly overall.
Rush Limbaugh's syndicated program on WFIR continues its tremendous success. At any given time from noon to 3 p.m, Limbaugh's program has a larger share of the market's listeners than K92 - even though WFIR's signal on the Lynchburg side of the market is weak.
The fall Arbitron survey is the first audience measurement made using the 1990 census information. The change makes apples-to-apples comparisons with past surveys even more difficult than usual.
Fall 1991 is the final Birch survey of the Roanoke metro market. The company suspended ratings operations nationwide at the end of the year. That's too bad for subscriber WROV. WROV-FM finished second overall in the survey, not too far back of K92, which also fell to its lowest Birch audience share ever. WROV-FM won all of Birch's key adult categories.
BIRCH RATINGS\ ROANOKE METRO ONLY AUDIENCE SHARE, 12+\ Sum. '91 Fall '91\ 1. WXLK 22.0 22.3\ 2. WROV-FM 14.0 18.8\ 3. WPVR 11.0 11.0\ 4. WSLQ 11.0 10.6\ 5. WJLM 6.4 7.2\ 6. WFIR 6.7 5.8\ 7. WJMH 4.6 4.1\ 8. WVTF 3.7 2.7\ WROV-AM 2.1 2.7\ 9. WSLC 2.4 2.4\ 10. WYYD 4.3 2.1\ 11. WTOY 1.8 1.0\ \ ARBITRON RATINGS\ ROANOKE/LYNCHBURG AUDIENCE SHARE, 12+\ Sum. '91 Fall '91\ 1. WXLK 16.1 13.3\ 2. WYYD 12.1 11.8\ 3. WPVR 10.3 10.7\ 4. WSLQ 10.3 9.7\ 5. WROV-FM 7.7 8.5\ 6. WJLM 3.4 5.9\ 7. WFIR 5.9 5.4\ 8. WGOL 2.6 3.6\ 9. WSLC 2.4 2.9\ 10. WJJS 2.4 2.1\ 11. WZST 1.5 1.7\ 12. WJMH 2.0 1.2\ WTOY 1.3 1.2\ WQOK .7 1.2\ WLYK* - 1.2\ 13. WROV-AM 1.6 1.0\ WXYU 1.3 1.0