ROANOKE TIMES
Copyright (c) 1996, Roanoke Times
DATE: Friday, August 16, 1996 TAG: 9608160035
SECTION: EXTRA PAGE: 1 EDITION: METRO
SOURCE: CODY LOWE STAFF WRITER
The top two stations are the same, but there's little other agreement between the two services that establish radio ratings in the Roanoke/Lynchburg market.
Dominating country station WYYD (107.9 FM) continues its hammerlock on the Lynchburg side of the market and to lead the overall ratings in the recently released spring ratings books.
Upstart WJJS/WJJX (106.1 FM and 101.7 FM), playing a youth-oriented urban contemporary format, maintains second place with shares of 12.5 in the AccuRatings book and 10.7 in the Arbitron survey. It's strength was about evenly distributed on each side of the market.
Moving down from the top two spots, the services diverged. (See the accompanying charts.)
For station managers, however, those numbers don't mean much.
The "oddity of this market is that there are two absolutely distinct markets" - one surrounding Roanoke, the other around Lynchburg, said Leonard Wheeler, manager of Q-99 (WSLQ).
Like most of the stations based on this side of the market, "our priority and focus has been on serving Roanoke."
On top of that, the ratings for all listeners ages 12 and older are rarely, if ever, used to sell advertising.
When Wheeler and other managers in Roanoke look at the ratings numbers, they break them down to demonstrate their strengths in the key demographics groups advertisers want to reach in the Roanoke metropolitan area.
For instance, Wheeler says his station leads in the category of 25- to 54-year-olds listening between 6 a.m. and 7 p.m., Monday through Friday. His station fares particularly well among women in that age category.
Mike Slenski, who manages the WJJS/WJJX duo, also can claim top position in that demographic group in one of the surveys. "That's my bread and butter."
His stations are particularly strong among listeners at the younger end of that spectrum.
Other stations are looking for a different audience.
Joe Conway, new manager of 96.3 WROV (WROV-FM), expects his station "to have a lock on men 18-34."
His album-oriented rock music format is aimed at getting those men - who are favorites among big advertising clients such as brewers - to be loyal listeners.
The station has been returning to its hard-edged rock-and-roll roots since Conway's arrival in May along with new program director Buzz Casey. Their aim is to regain the dominance the station once had among young men.
96.3 WROV still leads all stations among men in the 18-to-34 age group, but by smaller margins than it once did.
"There continues to be room for growth there," Conway said.
While most station managers are loathe to base dramatic changes at their stations on the basis of one ratings book, ratings may provide the incentive for tweaking the music or other programs.
At The Arrow (WPVR), program director Bill Bratton will be revising the musical playlist in the wake of a modest decline in his station's ratings from last fall. He also will be emphasizing on-air personalities more.
But Bratton says any analysis of a station's strengths and weaknesses needs to take into account a series of ratings reports.
For instance, WFIR, the AM news and talk station Bratton also watches over, is second overall in the Roanoke metro area when the last three ratings for Monday through Friday listening are averaged.
With its daylong talk schedule anchored around the popular Rush Limbaugh show from noon until 3 p.m., WFIR continues to defy the dominance of FM stations in the market - and the fact that its signal doesn't even reach Lynchburg - by consistently finishing strongly in the top 10 overall numbers.
Sometimes the ratings also can counter-balance anecdotal evidence about a program's popularity - or lack of it.
The relatively new "John Boy and Billy Big Show" on 96.3-WROV drew a spate of angry letters, phone calls and petitions when it bumped popular personality Sam Giles to an afternoon air-shift a few months ago.
But the "Big Show" held its own in the overall ratings this spring, showing a drop of only two-tenths of a point from last fall's number in the same time period. The afternoon ratings went up 1.2 points after Giles' move.
Conway says Giles will be staying in the afternoons and that the station has a contract with the "John Boy and Billy" show that it will fulfill.
Despite whatever problems there are with the combined Roanoke/Lynchburg market or with the two ratings services, station managers generally can find something good to say about their stations in the complex reports they spend thousands of dollars for each fall and spring.
Kenny Shelton, the operations manager who recently returned to the morning drive-time air shift at WYYD, predictably continues to be pleased with the position his station holds.
But management at J-93 (WJLM) can argue that it is the top country station among listeners in the western side of the market.
LENGTH: Medium: 92 lines ILLUSTRATION: GRAPHIC: Chart by staff: Radio market share/spring '96. color.by CNB