August 6, 2018, Issue 613
Seats & Springs II:Diary Highlights
Nielsen’s Spring 2018 diary releases continued last week and more than 300 stations continue to assess their performance. Country programmers share some of the highlights here. Mel Wheeler WSLC/Roanoke, VA OM/PD Brett Sharp: So proud of the Star Country team, from promotions to programming and sales. We saw the largest P25-54 share in five books – 13.0 Monday-Sunday, 6ammid – and continuing to grow incrementally. The morning show had a near record high of 13.2 in the same demo, and this makes for consecutive No. 1 books P12+ Monday-Sunday, 6am-mid. That’s over 10 years! We are having a good time. Townsquare KMDL (97.3 The Dawg)/ Brett Sharp Lafayette, LA Brand Mgr. Jude Walker: In a market saturated with Country stations, or stations that at least sprinkle some in, KMDL continues to be top “Dawg”. Though we dipped slightly to No. 2 overall 12+, we continued our string of 16 years straight as the market’s No. 1 Country station. We are No. 1 overall Persons 25-54 and Men 25-54, too. We took a hit with Women 25-54, an anomaly, and that’s probably where we can attribute the slight decline overall. Promotionally, we actually laid kind of low this spring, but still had a great response to our Jude Walker company-wide cash promotion. We had multiple local winners, which always adds sizzle to the airwaves. We totally owned the many concerts that came in as well, welcoming the Luke Bryan and Thomas Rhett tours. Thomas even filmed part of his latest music video at the Cajundome. An important program for us, even though it’s in a weekend slot, continues to be our Classic Country Saturday Night show. It’s a six-hour, all-request, locally produced juggernaut that raked in a 28.7 share 12+ with shares of up to 43.3 among Women 2554. While it’s just weekend flavor, it should prove that folks still enjoy some “real” country music. (continued on page 7)
Fuhgeddaboudit: Capitol’s Keith Urban at the Camden, NJ stop of the Graffitti U World Tour Friday (8/3). Pictured (l-r) are Kelly Razz, WKMK/Monmouth’s Mike Ryan, Urban and WXTU/Philadelphia’s Mark Razz, Andie Summers and daughter Tori, Joe Bell and wife Cathy and Zach Stone (front).
Michael Knox: Label Maker
Multi-platinum producer/publisher/syndicated radio show host Michael Knox just added one more title to his résumé – label head. Knox teamed with BMG to launch Music Knox Records last month (CAT 7/24). Country Aircheck talked to him about the new venture. Country Aircheck: Were you just not busy enough? MK: Yeah (laughs). It’s always been something I wanted to do and the timing was right. I’m running Peermusic Group right now, too (Knox is VP). I love that. My radio show Knox Country 360 and the record label all fell into Michael Knox place at the same time. I’m kind of ADD that
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