It should come as little surprise that WDVE/Pittsburgh was recently crowned the #1 25-54 radio station in all of America that is monitored by PPM. Much like the NFL team that calls WDVE its flagship station, the loyalty to one of America’s oldest Rock stations runs deep and wide. At the helm of this station is John Moschitta who has been working in Clear Channel’s Pittsburgh cluster for just over a dozen years. So how does he keep WDVE at the top of the pile in Pittsburgh, and now all of America? We caught up with him for the answers.
John Moschitta
By Michael Parrish
This past December, WDVE/Pittsburgh was officially crowned the #1 25-54 radio station in all of America that is monitored by PPM. That should come as little surprise since ‘DVE has been killing it in Pittsburgh ratings for most of its history and much like the NFL team that calls WDVE its flagship station, the loyalty to one of America’s oldest Rock stations runs deep and wide. At the helm of this station is John Moschitta who has been working in Clear Channel’s Pittsburgh cluster for just over a dozen years. He first arrived as PD for Modern Rock WXDX before inheriting the reins to WDVE as well. So how does he keep WDVE at the top of the pile in Pittsburgh, and now all of America? We caught up with Moschitta for the answers
At the Arbitron conference in early December it was shown that WDVE is the station with the highest 25-54 share out of all the PPM markets. Can you explain that?
They essentially looked every station in all 33 PPM metro markets for the first quarter of 2010 and then they averaged out the demo amongst all the markets. The average 25-54 station quarter hour share was 2.1, but then they took the top three stations out of those markets and averaged all those, which ended up as a 7.1. Then they took all the number one stations, which averaged out to an 8.4 share, and then they listed the overall number one 25-54 station, which was WDVE with a 14.6 share.
What was the reason for doing this?
The whole point of this, and we’re talking about one portion of a larger presentation that showed what formats were the top performing, was to show the game, just like the diary was, is still about your P1s. Your P1 Time Spent Listening and cume ratio are still what’s going to make you a winner. But, it’s less about TSL and more about the times you get people to tune into the radio station. You obviously want them to listen as much as you can when they tune in, but it’s also about the amount of the occasions you have. So we have high daily cume and we have a lot of occasions. It seems that stations with more cume are going to do a little better, but even so, if you look at everything, our daily TSL is about a half-hour more than the average station. Now, I can give you an example of a station in this cluster. We have an FM News/Talk, WPGB, that is not the highest cuming station in the market, but they do really well share-wise because of their TSL. So TSL is still part of the equation, but the reality is it’s not as high as it used to be in the diary. So what we have done is to get people to listen as many times or as frequently as possible in any given day.
A lot of people might look at those numbers and attribute them in large part to Steelers football, but let’s clarify that these results are from a point when the Steelers season was over and they were out of the playoffs.
There was one game in the 2009 season vs. the Miami Dolphins on January 3, but essentially there were no Steelers. The Steelers are an amazing partner and a very important part of the radio station, but the station wasn’t built on the Steelers alone. That’s one of the things that makes ‘DVE very successful and helps those daily occasions with tune-ins, it’s not just about the Steelers. We have an amazing morning show with Jim & Randy and people really make a connection with the other ’DVE personalities. We’re on point as far as the music that the audience wants. We also do a good job of highlighting comedy on the radio station. So it’s a number of different things that ’DVE stands for that helps drive loyalty to the station.
You have been using PPM numbers for about 18 months now. What is the biggest impact over that time from the switch?
The Clear Channel corporate programming team does a really good job of preparing markets for the transfer from diary to PPM. We had a good amount of data from other markets that had already been involved in PPM. They do a really good job of training their programmers on best practices in a PPM world and also taking advantage of all the research available to us, such as Audience Reaction and Feature Tracker through Media Monitors, which helps us see if content is performing or not. The thing that did jump out at me, and it’s not a surprise, is seeing that people really are button pushers. It’s not just three deep the diary showed. It’s more like six or seven deep, and if you really don’t give them what they want or keep them interested, compelled or entertained, they’re going to push the button and move on.
What are you doing to compete and remain as the number one entertainment choice for your listeners?
That goes back to what I said earlier. We’re not just a Music station. We’re not just a Talk station. We know who our target audience is and we try to give them what they want from us. It’s about having that bond with the listeners and executing our game plan. The station and the staff do a really good job of giving the listeners what they want. I look at it this way. There’s a new entertainment source it seems daily now, so I think in addition to executing what we do, we’re also being very cognizant to say to our listeners that if they missed something they can check it out on our website via our podcast. We’re well aware that people have other options and other things in their lives, so once something is done on the air, we try to make it available for them on another platform rather quickly. Part of that goes back to what we’re trying to do in a PPM world by trying to keep them around. We’ve done a much better job and we need to continue to improve on doing things as basic as teasing what’s coming up on the station and doing it in a manner that keeps them around.
How involved has the station become with social media platforms and in which ways do you engage your listeners with them?
As far as social media, we do have a Facebook page. It hasn’t been up very long and we have around 13,000 friends. We get a tremendous response whenever a jock posts anything as simple as our midday jock who has an Electric Lunch feature at noon saying, “I have some slots open for the Electric Lunch. What do you want to hear?” Things we post about the Steelers get a bigger response than anything else. There are times when someone will post something like: “Hey, you play too much Skynyrd.” Instead of responding, I usually watch the audience response to that person. We do specialty weekends on ‘DVE and I’ve gotten into the habit in the middle of the week posting that we’re looking for suggestions to whatever our feature is and people will respond to it. When we post morning show or other bits on our website, we’re not just assuming people are going to check it out, so we tell them on Facebook. So we are trying to take advantage of every platform we have to promote the brand and the product.
Do you long for the day when you were just able to play songs and not concern yourself with all these other platforms?
You know what, managing one’s time is a completely different challenge in itself, so I get a charge out of using all these other ways we can get the brand out there.
How much do you let the sales department influence programming decisions?
Programming has a really good working relationship with sales in this market. I’ve tried to look at every sales opportunity and put a spin on it that will benefit programming. But that’s not going to happen every time and sometimes you’ve just got to bite the bullet, because ultimately while I’m responsible for getting ratings, we need to generate revenue. I like to go in with the thinking that there’s always a way you can satisfy the two and, fortunately for ’DVE, the listeners give us the benefit of the doubt because we don’t cram a lot of b.s. down their throats. So, we have a good working relationship with the sales department and they know what we expect and they know what the audience expects. We try to make it amenable for both. It’s definitely a challenge, but I view it as a positive challenge. Sometimes it gets frustrating, but you try to have an open dialogue and make it work for everybody.
What issue should radio be more focused on that they’re currently not, that could conceivably enhance your future position?
I’ve been saying this to my staff a lot: it’s really about digital and mobile. Half the time I listen to our radio station it’s on my iPhone through iheartradio. We’re continuing to build our presence and extend our brand by telling people that you can get us on a smart phone.
Mobile application is a huge thing going forward. You need to be where people are and on the devices they carry with them 24-hours-a-day.
I know it sounds like an old transistor radio, but the reality is, if I’m walking into the Steelers game and I can hear the pre-game on ’DVE on my smart phone then I’m not missing anything. When I walk out of the Penguins game, I can listen to the post-game show. The reality is we need to be available in the easiest possible manner we can at all times. So, we need to do a better job on-air of promoting the fact that you can get us on smart phones. When you see Clear Channel as a company making partnerships with Toyota, and how all these digital platforms are getting rolled out, it’s incredibly important that we promote the ease of which you can get our brand. We have to think more globally than locally. The guy that is listening to ‘DVE in San Diego through iheartradio is just as important as the people here in Pittsburgh.
[eQB Content by Michael Parrish]
