Fragmentation splits strong inner-city audience

By Gabriel Spitzer

    As Arbitron begins releasing the results from its winter 2001 survey, it’s hard to miss all the Urban formats entrenched in top-10 spots in radio markets across the country.
    Some have been there for a long time, but others like WQHT, the No. 1-ranked station in New York, are showing major gains in audience.
    But as Urban formats proliferate—there are now six different ones, by one count—they face the old dilemma of fragmenting the finite audience that, to some degree, they all share.
    WQHT hit the top spot in New York for the first time since 1996, on the strength of a 15 percent gain in share since the winter 2000 survey. At a 6.0, WQHT now leads former top station WLTW by three-tenths of a share point.
    Urban stations dominate other major markets as well. In Chicago, where nearly a third of the population is made up of Hispanics and African-Americans, Urban formats hold three of the top 10 spots, including longtime No. 1 station WGCI, which holds onto first place despite an 8 percent decline in share.
    In Los Angeles, even with a relatively low percentage of African-Americans at about 8 percent, two Urban stations anchor the top 10. 
    KKBT, at No. 8, saw its share increase 38 percent since winter 2000, thanks largely to Steve Harvey, its morning man who now does the top-ranked English-language morning show in L.A.
    Overall, the nation’s five biggest markets have 13 Urban format stations in their respective top 10s. Those stations gained an average 5.4 percent in share over the past year.
    Clear Channel dominates the Urban formats. Of those 13 stations, Clear Channel owns seven. Its nearest competitors, Emmis and Inner City, own two each. Radio One and Infinity also own a station apiece.
    The Urban format has splintered off into several variations over the last several years. The Hip-Hop format caters to the youngest demo, with a very strong 12-24 delivery. 
    Urban Adult Contemporary, also called R&B or Smooth Soul, serves more of a 25-54 audience. In between lie Urban Contemporary and Urban Contemporary Hits Radio.
    Rhythmic Oldies, Gospel and Jazz stations also compete for some of the same listeners.
    Perhaps the format’s biggest problem is that many of the sub-formats serve a similar audience.
    "What I’ve been noticing is that the Urban arena is getting more fragmented. The Rhythmic Oldies has a difficult position and they’re eroding in some markets because they haven’t kept their playlists fresh," says Agnes Lukasewych, account director, local radio broadcast at New York-based Media Planning.
    "Unless you have a very deep buy, you target the market as the population is. In many markets, the African-American community is 16 to 17 percent. If a radio buy doesn’t have a lot of points, and you already have a UC buy, a Rhythmic Oldies would exceed the buy."
    That fragmentation means that advertisers can get away with lower rates on many Urban format stations.
     "Some of them do have trouble, unfortunately, attracting some advertising money. So sometimes they’re a bit more negotiable than other stations," says Richard Cotter, senior partner and regional broadcast manager at Mindshare.
    The Urban formats also encounter problems because their listeners’ other preferred stations tend to be other Urban stations, decreasing the likelihood that an advertiser would split its buy among more than one Urban station in a given market.
    "In the Urban arena you get a lot of audience duplication. You have one pie, and those listeners get service with three or four stations. There’s more button-pushing between one and the other, so it makes them more competitive in the pricing," says Lukasewych.
    According to Interep’s 2000 Survey of Radio Formats, the nation holds 278 stations with Urban formats, a number that has surely grown in 2001. In 2000, Urban stations had 16.8 million listeners, concentrated overwhelmingly in the south, where 54 percent reside.
    Urban Contemporary, one of the more established Urban formats, has a median age of 31.3—good for the third youngest among 20 formats surveyed by Mediamark Research in the spring of 2000.
    The typical UC listener is more likely than the average American to shop at food stores, convenience stores, be in the technical/clerical/sales professions and drink domestic beer.
    UC listeners shop at department stores at a rate 44 percent higher than the national average. Even so, UC has one of the lowest median household incomes, at $38,746, according to Interep.
    Still, if the winter book is any indication, there is plenty of life in this format.
    "They seem to be making a go of it. Based on the census information that just came out, Hispanics and African-Americans make up such a huge part of the population in so many metropolitan areas. It just makes sense," says Cotter.

May 2, 2001 © 2001 Media Life

-Gabriel Spitzer is a staff writer for Media Life.

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