Radio Maze

style='font-size:12.0pt;mso-bidi-font-size:10.0pt'>By:2'> Jill Tyrer

Odds

are, you have heard a radio sometime in the past 24 hours. Maybe it was at home

this morning, while you were downing a cup of coffee, or in the car on the way

to an appointment. It could have been at the restaurant where you had lunch,

when you were on hold on the telephone, or even when you were out for an

evening walk.

Unlike

other media, the ubiquitous radio goes from home to office to beach, and many

listeners display a kind of loyalty to radio that can’t be found elsewhere.

With

that loyalty – and with stations’ ability to attract very clearly defined

demographics – radio allows advertisers to hone in very specifically on their

target markets. In the Lee County-Collier County radio market, advertisers have

plenty of choices. More than 40 stations serve the population – a large number

for an area this size.

With

so much competition, stations are in a near constant state of flux, tucking

themselves into vacant niches or trying to create new ones. Formats change

fairly often and, in recent years, the radio industry has seen a flurry of

stations being bought and sold. In the Southwest Florida market, a few large

groups now dominate the landscape where independently owned stations used to

rule.

Once

the unrivaled electronic source of entertainment and news, radio adapted and

withstood the onslaught of television. With yet more technological advances, it

is still evolving and industry watchers predict it will continue to hold its

own.

An

Evolving Medium

Change

is nothing new in the radio world. Stations frequently start up, switch ownership,

or switch formats, and the Southwest Florida region is no different, especially

in the past four years.

“Change

is the nature of the market right now,” says Peggy Sealfon, owner of Sealfon

& Associates Inc. Marketing and Advertising Company in Naples. “There are

constant changes. It seems as soon as you get familiar with a station, it

changes.” For instance, WGUF in Collier County went from a smooth jazz format

to talk, primarily, she says, to compete with WNOG, which expanded its coverage

from Collier to Lee County.

Sometimes

stations try a niche that doesn’t work out; other times, owners see a new

opportunity to explore, says Greg Weichert, media director for Spiro &

Waites Advertising, Marketing & Public Relations. The Southwest Florida

market, in particular, has many stations with overlapping formats, so it’s not

surprising to see stations reinvent themselves. In fact, two local country

stations announced a merger in July.

text-decoration:none;text-underline:none'>“Basically, it’s easy to change

format,” he says. The equipment and facilities remain the same, music companies

are eager to provide the music, and the deejays, if they choose to stay, adapt

to their new audience.

Even

more common than format changes now are ownership changes. The

Telecommunications Act of 1996 loosened Federal Communications Commission

regulations dealing with unfair market shares, allowing a company to own

several stations in the same market.

That

opened a floodgate, and waves of acquisitions and sales swept through the

industry. Arbitron, the leading ratings service for radio, defines the local

market as the Ft. Myers-Naples-Marco Island metro area. Most of the 23 stations

it tracks in the market, as well as several smaller stations, were owned

independently a few years ago. Now, almost all are in the hands of one of five

major groups – Beasley Broadcasting, Clear Channel Communications, Meridian

Broadcasting, Fort Myers Broadcasting, and Renda Broadcasting.

As

recently as late July, Fort Myers Broadcasting agreed to purchase WCCL, pending

FCC approval, as well as the 92.7 frequency, which is not yet on air. An

independent station less than two years old, WCCL is the market’s only

commercial classical radio station.

“This

is the world of consolidation,” and belonging to a group has its benefits, says

Tim Spires, WCCL’s general manager. Not only will the station now have access

to more resources, but it will also have more services for advertisers, such as

the option to run an ad on several of its stations at a lower cost.

Another

way of looking at it is that you get what you pay for, says Jeff Alpert,

general manager of WAVV, which is not only independent, but consistently rated

in the top of the market. “You’ve got big groups with six or seven stations and

you’ll have a couple do well and they kind of pull the others along,” he says.

Advertisers might get a discount to run their spots on the weaker stations, but

it might not be much of a bargain.

Only

two of the area’s larger stations have remained independent: WDRR (Dream 98.5),

owned by Ruth Ray Communications, and WAVV (The Wave 101.1), owned by Alpine

Broadcasting. WAVV, a

“Beautiful Music” station appealing to an older audience, has ranked at the top

of the Arbitron ratings for several years with a dominant share of the

overall audience, aged 12 and older.

While

many stations make changes to secure a greater market share, WAVV has succeeded

largely because of its consistency, Alpert says. WAVV has been on the air since

his father, Norm Alpert, who still owns the station, started it 13 years ago.

“We’ve had the same call letters when all things have been bought and changed

around,” says the younger Alpert. The Alperts know the station’s audience well

and the listeners are loyal. Norm Alpert, incidentally, handpicks the music his

station plays. “He puts a lot of painstaking effort into this. He shops around

for what he likes,” says his son. The loyalty that the listeners show has, in

turn, encouraged advertisers to stick with the station.

A

Lot of Stations, A Growing Market

“This

is a very radio-intensive market,” says Weichert. About 15 years ago, he moved

from the Tampa-St. Petersburg area, which had about 10 stations, to Southwest

Florida, where there were 27 stations. It has only grown since then.

“There

are a tremendous number of stations for a market this size,” says Gary

Firestone, chief executive officer of Firestone & Cimring Advertising.

“We’re one of the fastest growing areas in the country. People recognized

that,” he says, and opened new stations in anticipation of the growth.

>According to Arbitron, this region has

climbed from the 77^th metro market in 1995, with a population of

487,900, to 71^st place with 556,600 people.style='font-size:12.0pt;mso-bidi-font-size:10.0pt'> “That’s a growth of almost

70,000 people,” Alpert points out. “That’s huge.”normal'>

Jeff

Edwards remembers the local radio market including only one FM station when he

started working here in 1974. AM stations ruled the airwaves at the time, but

even their numbers couldn’t compare to today’s. Edwards, regional sales manager

for WXKB (B-103.9) and general manager of WJST (Silver 106) – both Beasley

Broadcasting stations – counts 44 stations that local listeners can pick up

now.

font-weight:normal'>The dominant stations are, of course, the best known. Their

ratings change, but those that appear consistently at the top of the Arbitron

ratings include Cat Country, WINK-FM, B-103, K-Rock, and Wave 101.

Those,

however, are only a few of the many stations people can listen to in Southwest

Florida. Some reach this market from areas such as St. Petersburg and Miami,

and there are public radio stations, which are not commercial, as well as

numerous Spanish-speaking, Christian, and other small stations with very

specific audiences.

Formats

range from rock to classical, from easy listening to country, and from jazz to

talk radio. The stations try to fill particular niches by differentiating

themselves from others with similar formats. For instance, 99X plays modern

rock, whereas K-Rock and Arrow play classic rock. While both competitors

attract male listeners ages 35-44, K-Rock appeals more to a wider age range,

pulling in men ages 25-34 and 45-54. Several stations also play country music,

but they define themselves as playing classic country, pop-country crossover,

or “young country.”

Those

well-defined formats appeal to very specific groups of people, which is why

radio advertising is so useful to many businesses. All a business owner has to

do is find out which station appeals to his target market. Local radio stations

and the programs they air “cover just about every demographic in the market,

right down to the fact that we have Spanish-speaking stations,” says Firestone.

“With so many alternatives, they all have smaller audiences, but they are more

targeted,” and that makes it more valuable to an advertiser.

Businesses

can reach young, medium, or older women or men, even those with a right-wing

political bent or other particular values. When a marina had a load of

“entry-level” boats to sell, for instance, it advertised on a classic rock

station to reach those younger men, says Sealfon. An upscale jeweler, on the

other hand, would likely place ads with a classical or easy listening station.

Advertisers can narrow the field even more by evaluating the best times to

reach those people. Car dealers, for instance, typically run their ads on

Wednesday, Thursday and Friday to gear up for the weekend, Weichert says.

“It’s

not so important to go after the masses of people,” says WCCL’s Spires. “It’s

more important to go after the target market that you know is going to come

into your store.”

The

Advertising Advantage

According

to a study by McCann-Erickson, radio advertising in 1999 represented 8 percent

of the $215.2 billion spent on media advertising, Weichert says. That’s more

than $17 billion, and spending for this year is predicted to reach $20 billion.

Of that, 78 percent was spent on local radio advertising – local advertisers on