ROANOKE TIMES
Copyright (c) 1996, Roanoke Times
DATE: Friday, February 23, 1996 TAG: 9602230094
SECTION: EXTRA PAGE: 1 EDITION: METRO
SOURCE: CODY LOWE STAFF WRITER
MEMO: ***CORRECTION***
Published correction ran on February 24, 1996.
Amplification
An illustration in Frida's Extra section inadvertently omitted
Bedford radio station WBLT (1530 AM) from a listing of stations in the
Roanoke-Lynchburg metro area. The listing also incorrectly listed the
location for station WLMY, which is in Bedford County.
WHO'S NO.1 on the radio dial? That depends on who you ask, what you ask - and whether you live closer to Roanoke or Lynchburg.
Trying to figure out which is the most popular radio station in these parts can be tough.
Is it WFIR, an AM station specializing in news and talk?
Or could it be WJJS/WJJX, an urban-contemporary FM combo once thought to appeal primarily to a black audience but now attracting both white and black listeners?
Or is it still WYYD, the country music powerhouse licensed to Amherst that has been dominating the Roanoke-Lynchburg ratings for several years?
The answer, it turns out, depends on who - and what - you ask.
A look at the most recent station ratings "is really a tale of two metros," said Mike Slenski.
Slenski left WROV-FM and its sister stations to take over management of WJJS/WJJX and WRDJ/WLDJ, an oldies-format FM combo, when they were bought by Cavalier Communications recently.
Slenski says it's becoming more and more important for local advertisers to understand how the market breaks down as things are changed by consolidated ownership, deregulation and the opening of new stations.
Certain other owners and managers - notably Terry Gibbons at sister stations WFIR and oldies WPVR-FM ("The Arrow") - would like to see the market broken back into two pieces as it had been until the early 1980s. That's because some of those stations fare a lot better in the ratings when the statistics are broken down geographically.
"It's ridiculous to keep these two very different markets tied together," said Gibbons.
For instance, according to the Arbitron ratings service, Gibbons' WFIR - whose signal doesn't even reach into Lynchburg - comes out in first place when only Roanoke-area listeners are measured.
According to the rival AccuRatings service, Slenski's urban-contemporary WJJS/WJJX ties for first place with Salem's country music WJLM-FM (J-93), if you just measure the Roanoke listeners.
WYYD - which has dominated the overall ratings for several years - comes in 10th place in Arbitron and eighth place in AccuRatings when those numbers are broken down to look only at Roanoke.
However, WYYD wins the overall numbers game by completely dominating the Lynchburg side of the market. The station garners three times as many listeners as its next nearest competitor in the eastern end of the market, and shows about double the audience share of the number-two station overall.
Naturally, the folks at WYYD want no part of breaking up the market and disagree about the degree of separation between the two cities.
"There are plenty of Roanoke businesses that Lynchburg people visit," and vice versa, insists Kenny Shelton, operations manager for WYYD and the entire Benchmark chain of stations in the market, which include WROV-FM (96.3) and WROV-AM on the Roanoke side.
Besides that, Shelton said, "I don't think the market as a whole would want to live without the national advertising dollars" that come automatically based on the market size.
Those dollars from national and regional advertisers were a major factor in the request by stations a decade ago to have the Roanoke and Lynchburg markets combined.
Gibbons concedes that he was one of those who wanted the combination, which moved the market into the top 100 in the nation and brought it to the attention of national advertising agencies. Those agencies often buy advertising time based solely on such numbers as market size and station ratings.
"But now the market has dropped out of the top 100" - to 101st - and the combination no longer draws the kind of national dollars the Roanoke stations hoped for, Gibbons said.
Shelton disagrees. Other stations "may be jealous of the chunk of the pie we get," but he believes the market's size is still an attraction to advertisers.
Slenski figures 60 percent of his advertising pie is national and regional, and that the population growth of Bedford and Bedford County - linking Roanoke and Lynchburg - strengthens the ties between the two sides of the market.
In any case, since it would require the unanimous consent of the big stations to persuade the Arbitron rating service to split the market back in two, that is not going to happen.
So station managers are working harder than ever to get advertisers - and listeners - to understand what being "number one" means.
For years, the dominant station in the market was WXLK (K-92, now paired with WLYK in Lynchburg). It ranks as number two or three overall in the latest survey, but claims the largest estimated cumulative audience of different persons over a week's time. That is based on Arbitron's numbers for its "Total Survey Area," which includes more than 30 counties and cities in Virginia and three counties in West Virginia.
Other stations can make claims to be tops among specific demographic groups - women aged 24-49, for example - or during a specific time of day, such as the most heavily listened to hour of 7 to 8 a.m.
Despite intense competition for advertising dollars and listener loyalty, "it does always amaze me how resilient this market is - how much things stay the same," says Slenski.
The same dozen stations - generally those with the greatest broadcast reach - stay on top and the other dozen stations vie for position in the lower tier of positions.
And that's OK with some station owners.
One of the self-defined "little guys," Ed Hale at Vinton's new country station WZZI-FM, knows he won't be competing against WYYD for the number one position in a combined market.
"Our whole concept is to make radio accessible to the little sports bar or mom-and-pop grocery... that can't afford to spend $40 or $50 for a 30-second spot," he said.
For most stations, the key to success lies not in dominating the entire market but finding a niche and filling that, Slenski said.
"It's harder to be broad-based. You've got to pick a good spot and refine that."
LENGTH: Long : 118 lines ILLUSTRATION: GRAPHIC: chart - The Roanoke/Lynchburg Radio Market colorby CNB