Should this station become Rhythmic?

[radiorules]

WKQI in detroit is a pop station. Now i have been looking at their play list and i honestly believe they should switch to CHR/Rhythmic. Not only because about 90% of their songs are rhythmic leaning, but also because Detroit doesn't have a CHR/Rhythmic station! We have 2 pops and 2 urbans! I definantly think this station should switch over.

1 1 OUTKAST The Way You Move 87 88 -1 1.2094
6 2 LUDACRIS Stand Up 83 57 26 1.2006
3 3 BABY BASH Suga Suga 80 79 1 1.198
4 4 LIL JON/EASTSIDEBOYS Get Low 79 79 0 1.131
5 5 OUTKAST Hey Ya 76 78 -2 1.1656
7 6 KELIS Milkshake 61 43 18 0.8562
2 7 TRAPT Headstrong 58 81 -23 0.9428
9 8 EAMON F**k It (I Don't Want You Back 46 41 5 0.6798
8 9 CHINGY Holidae In (f/Ludacris/S. Dogg 40 41 -1 0.6556
11 10 SIMPLE PLAN Perfect 36 39 -3 0.5672
26 11 NICK CANNON Gigolo 35 20 15 0.4658
14 12 FABOLOUS Into You f/Tamia/Ashanti 35 32 3 0.5644
13 13 BEYONCE Baby Boy f/Sean Paul 33 33 0 0.5
19 14 YOUNGBLOODZ Damn! (f/Lil Jon) 33 26 7 0.4588
20 15 CHRISTINA AGUILERA Can't Hold Us Down (f/Lil Kim) 30 25 5 0.4764
16 16 NICKELBACK Someday 29 28 1 0.5338
15 17 OBIE TRICE Got Some Teeth 29 29 0 0.4284
30 18 MURPHY LEE What Da Hook Gon Be(f/J.Dupri) 28 16 12 0.4104
22 19 NELLY/P. DIDDY/MURPHY LEE Shake Ya Tailfeather 26 25 1 0.42
18 20 SARAI Ladies 26 26 0 0.3646
10 21 CHRISTINA AGUILERA The Voice Within 25 39 -14 0.402
24 22 CHINGY Right Thurr 25 24 1 0.2894
35 23 G UNIT Stunt 101 25 11 14 0.2972
17 24 NO DOUBT It's My Life 25 26 -1 0.4652
28 25 50 CENT P.I.M.P. 22 16 6 0.3784
54 26 LINKIN PARK Numb 21 5 16 0.173
29 27 WYCLEF JEAN Party To Damascus 18 16 2 0.16
12 28 3 DOORS DOWN Here Without You 17 37 -20 0.331
38 29 MYA Fallen 14 9 5 0.2728
39 30 BOB RIVERS What If Eminem Did Jingle Bell 13 9 4 0.2538
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There are only 7 songs in their top 30 play list that are not conidered urban or rhythmic! switch over already! I am sick of this battle between them and WDRQ. WDRQ is a pure pop station, look how their play list differs.

1 1 LIL JON/EASTSIDEBOYS Get Low 88 90 -2 1.614
4 2 NO DOUBT It's My Life 84 85 -1 1.618
2 3 OUTKAST Hey Ya 82 89 -7 1.5601
3 4 BABY BASH Suga Suga 80 86 -6 1.5145
5 5 3 DOORS DOWN Here Without You 79 81 -2 1.5142
11 6 OUTKAST The Way You Move 58 44 14 1.0727
6 7 MICHELLE BRANCH Breathe 55 55 0 1.068
7 8 CHINGY Holidae In (f/Ludacris/S. Dogg 54 53 1 0.9595
13 9 KELIS Milkshake 51 40 11 0.8344
9 10 NICKELBACK Someday 47 52 -5 0.9003
12 11 CHRISTINA AGUILERA The Voice Within 46 41 5 0.888
10 12 SIMPLE PLAN Perfect 46 45 1 0.8524
17 13 STAIND So Far Away 40 30 10 0.7676
21 14 JESSICA SIMPSON With You 38 25 13 0.6579
14 15 CLAY AIKEN Invisible 36 33 3 0.6252
15 16 PINK God Is A DJ 36 32 4 0.6356
8 17 TRAPT Headstrong 34 53 -19 0.589
19 18 LUDACRIS Stand Up 27 27 0 0.4799
20 19 BEYONCE Baby Boy f/Sean Paul 26 26 0 0.4732
24 20 BLACK EYED PEAS Where Is The Love 25 24 1 0.5196
22 21 JUSTIN TIMBERLAKE Rock Your Body 25 25 0 0.4988
26 22 BEYONCE Crazy In Love 22 22 0 0.3289
27 23 JOHN MAYER Your Body Is A Wonderland 22 22 0 0.4062
68 24 DIDO White Flag 20 4 16 0.3181
61 25 FUEL Falls On Me 20 6 14 0.2972
16 26 STACIE ORRICO (There's Gotta Be)More To Lif 20 30 -10 0.2816
36 27 SARAI Ladies 20 17 3 0.3825
23 28 CHRISTINA AGUILERA Can't Hold Us Down (f/Lil Kim) 19 24 -5 0.353
33 29 LIL' KIM Magic Stick (f/50 Cent) 19 18 1 0.2936
25 30 50 CENT In Da Club 18 22 -4 0.3515

Only half of the songs on WDRQ's play list are Rhythmic or Urban. There are songs on this station that WKQI is not even playing, like Jessica Simpson, Pink, Dido, John Mayer and Fuel. What do you guys think? Should WKQI switch over to Rhythmic, or maybe even urban?

[irice22]

The WKQI has just a terrible playlist! It feels like a rap/rock station. But I guess you would have to consider it CHR/Pop.

[Matt4319]

The three rock songs on WKQI's playlist are enough to save its CHR/Pop status, unfortunately.

[ExActLy99]

Well at least neither station is playing their songs 100+ times a week. The first station doesn't look too good, Tamia-Fabolous & Sarai still in the top 20! It's time to let those go now. There are some good points: They have Trapt in the top 10, definetly one of the most opposite songs on the chart compared to rhytmic music. Simple Plan also in the top 10, but why did they all of the sudden drop "The Voice Within'" and then bring back "Can't Hold Us Down" ???
Then they've only got Nickelback, No Doubt, Linkin Park, and 3 Doors Down towards the bottom half. There definetly isn't a great blend here, but compared to some other stations, this one's okay.
The 2nd station looks pretty good, but what is up with Detroit and Sarai, is she from there?? and they need to drop "Your Body Is A Wonderland" but that's okay my station still plays that song too much.

[radiorules]

"Ladies" was a huge hit here when it was out! It was in the top 5 on both stations! But i honestly think it's just a case of "since that station is playing this song, we'll play it too".

[af18c]

Without Trapt, etc. absolutely. They should just switch and omit those few songs the following week.

[BFMR]

wow, two stations play Outkast a total of 303 times.. now that can be considered quite the overkill

i think the first station has really one of the crappiest "Pop" playlists... sure they have a few decent cuts, but overall, the selection really blows, the second station has a decent selection, but i'm not sure if i'd rush to listen either stations

[radiorules]

Believe me, this is nothing compared to Eminem! When "Lose Yourself" was out both stations had it playing over 100 times, and they were playing his other song "8 Mile" at the same time and it wasn't even a single. That song was getting around 80 spins on both stations as well, and both stations also still had "Cleaning Out My Closet" in meduim rotation, so between those 2 stations, they were playing Eminem around 450 times a week in November/December! And that's without the 2 Urban stations! I would have to say that Eminem was getting about 600 spins per week if you add all the stations together. This was exactly this time last year.

[Dan G.]

I grew up in Ann Arbor on Detroit radio. When I was a kid (I'm 21 now), WDRQ was CHR/Rhythmic and WKQI was Hot AC. For a long time, the only CHR/Pop station in the area was WTWR (Tower 98) in Monroe, MI. It was also possible to receive WVKS (92.5 Kiss FM) from Toledo, OH.

Both Detroit stations went pop about five years ago. WDRQ's playlists were always much better, and they kept a lot of their more rhythmic and dance songs that weren't necessarily pop hits. WKQI, on the other hand, continued to lean toward Hot AC for awhile, and later became practically a clone of the national pop chart (probably thanks to Clear Channel >:().

Having been a college student in Madison, WI, for three years now, I'm very surprised to see the turn WKQI's playlist has taken. Now that WDRQ has become a pure pop station, WKQI may as well switch to CHR/Rhythmic.

--DanG

[EvanJ]

I don't know WTWR's city of license, but right now WTWR and WVKS appear in the ratings in Toledo but not Detroit. The Ann Arbor ratings have WDRQ, WKQI, and WQKL, but not WVKS or WTWR. Detroit having two more CHR-Pop station than it had before could hurt the out of market stations, but I don't expect a station not even in the ratings to have a good signal (the exceptions being frequently low-rated Christian and Spanish stations).

[strong4PMB!]

Yes, it should.

[tico]

EvanJ said:

I don't know WTWR's city of license, but right now WTWR and WVKS appear in the ratings in Toledo but not Detroit.

According to radio-locator.com, WTWR is licensed to Luna Pier, MI, which I assume is just across the state line from Toledo. The transmitter is on the outskirts of Toledo. It used to be licensed to Monroe, MI and had a somewhat decent signal in Toledo. With the transmitter in Toledo, it obviously puts in a much better signal there now.

[radiorules]

Actually Dan, WDRQ became a pop station a couple of years before WKQI did. After WDRQ went pop, it became the #1 station in Michigan, this was around 1998/1999. Then in 2000, WKQI switched to Pop after seeing how well WDRQ's station was recieved. WKQI was the underdog for a long while and was very HOT ACish in 2000/2001. But then in 2002 the station became pure pop, even more so than WDRQ and it began stealing listeners away from WDRQ. This is when the war between the two stations broke out.

WKQI began a campaign called "Make The Switch" in which they would urge people to switch from WDRQ to WKQI, and their ratings started to soar. WDRQ launched back by creating a "Don't listen to Copy Cats" campaign. After that the war between the two sort of toned down, but then just recently this year in October it started all over again and this time, the war is much bigger!

This year, WKQI began leaning towards the more rhytmic side, and now i'm guessing it gets Higher ratings than WDRQ because of that. WKQI started the war again by puttig out a new commercial in which they claim they are now the #1 station in Detroit according to Mediabase and told their listeners to forget about DORK radio. DRQ fired back by releasing a commercial where they claim that they play on average of 150 more songs than WKQI every week, 10 hours worth of music. ("What can you do in 10 hours" the commercial says while toliet flushing and a bed squeeking is heard in the backround). WKQI fired back by saying they recieve new music months before WDRQ does, and in their ads they claimed they began playing Baby Bash in September, and DORK radio waited a whole two months before they played that one (They even give specific dates).

I am very excited to see where this war goes next because it's very intense. Does anyone actually have the ratings for these stations, because they both claim they are the #1 station, which one is right?

[radiorules]

To me it looks like DRQ gets highe ratings because their audience impression for their #1 song is 1.6 million, while WKQI is 1.2 million, and they both are playing their #1 song 86-88 times a week.

[EvanJ]

WKQI has the better Arbitron rating by 0.1 and is trying to win for all four seasons of 2003. WDRQ was ahead the last two seasons of 2002. In smaller markets WKQI is up 1.2 in Ann Arbor and up 0.4 in Flint.

[radiorules]

wait, so then how come WDRQ's top song has a larger audience than WKQI's top song? It doesn't make sense.

[Matt4319]

It might have to do with when each radio station plays their top songs. If WDRQ plays their top songs most often during the night, it would have a bigger audience than WKQI if they play their top songs most during the overnight period.

[radiorules]

Oh you are right! That makes perfect sense! WKQI hardly plays any songs at night! Those annoying DJ's do nothing but talk and talk.

But i never knew radio gets it's highest audience at night! I thought it would either be in the morning when everyone is going to work, or in the late afternoon when everyone is comming back from work.

[Matt4319]

radiorules said:

Oh you are right! That makes perfect sense! WKQI hardly plays any songs at night! Those annoying DJ's do nothing but talk and talk.

But i never knew radio gets it's highest audience at night! I thought it would either be in the morning when everyone is going to work, or in the late afternoon when everyone is comming back from work.

Well, I could be wrong, I don't really know what time period gets the highest ratings. I guess I was just basing it off TV/prime time, lol.

[tico]

I'm guessing that the morning would have the highest ratings since most stations promote around their morning shows.

[Rose "Payola" Nylund]

Yeah, I would assume during weekday mornings and afternoons between 4-6. The time the most people are in their cars.

[EvanJ]

For markets that aren't embargoed and have more than one CHR-Pop station on the panel, here is whether or not the top CHR-Pop station in the ratings has the highest audience per spin:
Dallas-Fort Worth: Yes
Detroit*: No
Atlanta: Yes
San Antonio: Yes
Salt Lake City: Yes
Jacksonville: Yes
Louisville: Yes
Dayton: Yes
Albany-Schenectady-Troy: Yes
Greenville-New Bern-Jacksonville, NC*: Yes
Mobile: WYOK is no audience listed, but WABB has over four times the rating of WYOK so we can assume yes.
Roanoke: No. Here WJJS's rating is 1.11 times WXLK's rating, but both stations played their top song the same amount of times and WXLK's top song has 2.51 times more audience.
Boise*: No
Jackson*: Here the two CHR-Pop stations are tied in the ratings. Their audience per spin for the most played song on each station are close enough that I'm counting it as a yes.
Quad Cities: Yes
* means the stations are 0.5 or less apart in the ratings
Pittsburgh, Kansas City, Rochester, Wilkes-Barre/Scranton, Syracuse, and Youngstown are embargoed markets with multiple CHR-Pop stations on the panel.
12 out of 15 are yes, so they agree most of the time. Roanoke is the only market where the ratings and audience per spin are way off. Detroit is an exception.

[tico]

EvanJ said:

Jackson*: Here the two CHR-Pop stations are tied in the ratings. Their audience per spin for the most played song on each station are close enough that I'm counting it as a yes.

But doesn't the amount of spins the songs get affect the audience per spin? While WDBT and WYOY are tied, according to today's Mediabase update, WDBT's top song ("Suga Suga") has 96 spins and an APS of .181, while WYOY's top song ("It's My Life") has 61 spins with an APS of .0977.

[Slinky]

Matt4319 said:

Well, I could be wrong, I don't really know what time period gets the highest ratings. I guess I was just basing it off TV/prime time, lol.

Ah, but what you failed to realize is that since prime time is when people are watching TV, it also means they aren't listening to the radio.

Radio's most listened to time periods stack up like this:

1. Mornings (6-10)
2. Afternoons (3-7)
3. Middays (10-3)
4. Nights (7-12)
5. Overnights (12-6)

Listening is done:

1. In the car
2. At work
3. At home

Of course, this is just an average. Some youth-targetted CHR stations may have more listeners during nights when everyone is home than they do in middays when all the kids are in school. AC stations may have more midday listeners than afternoon listeners because people at work are more likely to put on a "safe" AC station than people in their cars.

[Slinky]

I would guess that the audience numbers aren't just based on home markets, but total ratings for the stations everywhere. Dayparts are also a factor of course.

[Dan G.]

This year, WKQI began leaning towards the more rhytmic side, and now i'm guessing it gets Higher ratings than WDRQ because of that. WKQI started the war again by puttig out a new commercial in which they claim they are now the #1 station in Detroit according to Mediabase and told their listeners to forget about DORK radio. DRQ fired back by releasing a commercial where they claim that they play on average of 150 more songs than WKQI every week, 10 hours worth of music. ("What can you do in 10 hours" the commercial says while toliet flushing and a bed squeeking is heard in the backround). WKQI fired back by saying they recieve new music months before WDRQ does, and in their ads they claimed they began playing Baby Bash in September, and DORK radio waited a whole two months before they played that one (They even give specific dates).

Wow! I've sure missed a lot since I left Ann Arbor two years ago! I only caught the very beginning of the stations targetting each other.

--DanG