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Alfred Liggins told a very unpleasant truth at his earnings call about a week ago
http://radioink.com/2016/11/03/liggins-done-classic-hip-hop-format-already/
He mostly runs Radio One, a radio network started by his mother Cathy Hughes in Washington DC – that almost completely focuses on black American radio and related business like a black only dating service and a black only news service
Classic Hip Hop was a really big deal – we discussed it here about a year ago. It drew really big ratings when it hit, but Mr Liggett is saying what no white person can say. It may get really good ratings, but that doesn’t translate into revenue. You can’t force advertisers to advertise on the station who don’t reach the audience the format attracts, and you can’t make businesses that want to reach that market able and willing to spend the money.
In a similar example, most stations targeting recent Mexican immigrants fail. You may get the migrants to listen, but they send most of their income back to Mexico – they don’t buy much. So maybe you can sell ads to immigration attorneys, day work employers, Home Depot and money transfer services, and a few companies like McDonalds and Hershey’s, but Accura is not likely to show up with their checkbook.
Rush Limbaugh’s early success was not so much the number of people who listened, but the type of people – well educated older white men with large disposable incomes. Once Rush’s show was over, his audience might hang around and listen to local shows. Local advertisers noticed people came in and bought stuff. All people don’t have equal value.