The Infinite Dial

It was only a few minutes after the e-mail went out announcing that Chicago was No. 1 on our list of Top Ten Markets for Radio Listeners that WBGO (Jazz 88.3) New York's Cephas Bowles posted a comment.

"It seems to me that you have overlooked New York City," he wrote. "They have the format variety and talent of your Top 10 markets. Further, quantitatively, there are more radio stations offering outstanding programming than anywhere else in the country. You also have quality non-comms. What's up?"

Debra Grobman of Megatrax also dropped me a series of notes in support of the non-comms, citing in particular Triple-A WFUV and WBGO's R&B oldies host Felix Hernandez. So far, however, we haven't gotten quite the barrage of cards and letters asking why New York didn't make the Top 10 that we were bracing for.

If this article had been written a year ago, it would have been nearly impossible to make a case for New York in the Top 10. One of the key criteria was consumer choice and, at that moment, there was no Oldies FM audible in much of the metro, no Country station, and no young-end Rock station. The Hip-Hop battle betwen WQHT (Hot 97) and WWPR (Power 105) had bottomed out in a particularly distressing way. And if you were under 25, or looking for today's music, there weren't many choices.

This fall, WHTZ (Z100) sounds the best it has in years, and has the numbers to prove it. WCBS-FM is back and deserves its instant success. The WWFS (Fresh 102.7) vs. WLTW battle has shaken things up. WBLS, as noted earlier this year, has had a lot of impact on the Urban AC paradigm nationally. Hot and Power sound a lot better--if not fully recovered. WXRK (K-Rock) is back, if not yet flowering. And to Grobman's list of non-comms, you should add WFMU, WNYC, and WSOU for starters. In 2007, New York at least bore some consideration.

If I were still trying to make the brief, I would point out that this city still has two All-News AMs, still has Smooth Jazz, and has a Classic Rocker in WAXQ (Q104.3) that reflects the market in the same way that WMGK sounds like Philadelphia. I'd also call your attention to a number of unusual suburbans. And I would have no shortage of marquee talent to reel off.

That said, New York has rarely ever felt like the No. 1 market. It's never been a market where every station has the seven best possible jocks (okay, four best, these days) in its given format. There still aren't a lot of young-end choices. I live next to Newark, a city of nearly 300,000 people, that I hear mentioned regularly only on WBGO and on a pirate station. And even the guy who's going to do radio on the audio portion of a LP-TV station didn't go Country.

One clear lesson from the response to this series, it's that the people in a given market are often the ones that take their radio for granted. We're willing to allow that as a distinct possibility here--but it didn't stop us from citing Philadelphia, also in Edison's backyard, as the No. 2 market. The other recurring theme was that there weren't enough small-markets included. To some extent, that was precluded by our emphasis on both quantity and quality of choice, but we agree that smaller markets deserve some recognition, something we plan to address.

New York radio, meanwhile, is in rebuilding mode, and as somebody who depends on it on a daily basis, let's hope there's a great case for it in the Ten Best Markets For Radio Listeners: 2008.