I was in a major market last week with some time alone in the car. This was a historically great radio town – a city to which I had actually travelled in younger days mostly for the purpose of listening to radio. Now on family trips, time alone with the radio was at more of a premium. But the rented Toyota had a great-looking AM/FM dial, there was nobody to annoy with my constant punching around, and I was excited to dig in.
Thirty minutes later, I’d run out of music stations. Not every major music format was available anymore. A few frequencies had been sold to KLOVE or to non-mainstream operators. Several were now Sports or FM Talk. The car’s FM dial made HD stations attractive and easily accessible, but many side channels were gone. To be fair, some still-flourishing heritage stations now had to compete with my nostalgia for their 1999 forebears. Overall, though, it was a disheartening experience.
I last asked “what’s the best U.S. radio market?” in 2007, a moment when the greatest challenge to broadcast radio’s music leadership and variety of offerings was still satellite radio, not the Hydra of alternatives to come. The amount of variety in a market was one of my primary criteria at the time. Even after a decade of streaming, it was still a fun question to consider (and one made easier to research by streaming).
Even though I no longer had to travel to hear radio, it was still great to come across a market with numerous options and quirky choices. Salt Lake City, with its three-way CHR battle, was that for me. So was Asheville, N.C. Or South Florida. Or driving from Austin to San Antonio. (What those markets had in common, by the way, were having a few different cities’ radio dials clumped together in close geographic proximity.)
Besides, even though it hasn’t mattered as much to me whether New York has a commercial Alternative or Country station at any given time, the lack of local choice isn’t good for radio listening levels. Of course, big Sports and All-News brands belong on FM, but it has meant the effective consolidation of two bands into one subset of available frequencies. And even those listeners willing to stream often default to their locals.
Impressing an out-of-towner isn’t radio’s real job; the best stations were once the ones agreed to be so local that they confounded other radio people. That afternoon, I put a revised version of my “best market” question to Facebook friends. What was the best, most durable market for radio now, especially for choice? Did any place still offer “a wide variety of options and well-operated stations? Which market has the best radio left standing?”
As with asking for a Song of Summer in an off year, I girded for snarky or angry responses about the state of today’s radio. It was encouraging, at least, that there were a significant number of positive responses. About half of the top 30 PPM markets got votes. So did a variety of medium-to-small markets.
Here were readers’ top choices, starting with PPM markets:
Denver: Nominated by Jason Gorodetzer, CE of that market’s KSE Radio cluster and Radioinsight publisher Lance Venta who praises “options for every format, with the exception of Adult R&B, along with format battles in Country, Hot AC, Classic Rock, and multiple variations of Alternative/Triple-A, most of which are still locally staffed.” Seconded by Bryan Broadcasting’s Rob Mack: “Unique takes on formats, lots of choices, good talent, good competition.” “Really good right now,” said Andy Webb of WFRE Frederick, Md. Certainly, a market with strong sense of place, and one that draws listening from far and wide.
Chicago: In 2007, I chose Chicago as the best current market. Now it’s tied with Denver for the top slot. “Hands-down my favorite out-of-town market,” says Rubber City Radio Akron’s Kurt Leibensperger. “Every major format represented with full-market FM signals. Competition in many formats: Triple-A/Alternative, Rock, Urban, Top 40. A decent AM band still with sports competition. Legendary stations still doing what they do — WXRT, WGCI, WBBM, the Drive, WLS-FM.” Market programming veteran Bruce Cole seconds most of those examples and adds pioneering Soft AC Me-TV FM.
Miami/Fort Lauderdale is the choice of Megatrax’s Ileana Landon. “I would say the 25-54 war between [Hip-Hop WEDR] 99 Jamz, [Adult R&B] Hot 105, and [throwback Hip-Hop] Power 96 right now is epic,” adds former WEDR PD-turned-talent manager Cedric Hollywood. The AC/Classic Hits spectrum is just as competitive and contains two of the most interesting stations of the last decade, WFEZ (Easy 93.1) and bilingual WMIA (Magic 93.9), as well as resurgent AC WLYF.
Boston: “We still kick ass,” declares Audacy Boston APD/MD Mike Mullaney. Engineering veteran Nick Straka praises it for “a commercial Triple-A [WXRV], a non-comm Triple-A [WERS] and whatever WUMB is, Americana? There’s a Classical station, two public-radio choices, a plethora of college stations that run the gamut of formats, Lite AC WPLM, full-service WATD, and the totally unique WJIB … there’s something for everyone, unlike my home market of New York.” I’d add Hot 96.9, the first success for throwback Hip-Hop, and the Country battle that pits WKLB against now-pop-leaning WBWL.
Pittsburgh: The largest of several markets cited by RCS’s Tom Lawler. “Pittsburgh has almost everyone covered: AMs doing Oldies and Beautiful Music, Triple-A from WYEP, News on WESA, HD choices on WRRK for people tired of 300-song playlists, and heritage Rhythmic WAMO still hanging in there.” (WRRK’s flagship channel, the market-leading 96.9 Bob FM, is pretty stout among Adult Hits outlets as well.) “Pretty much all the full-powered stations have local [hosts] for most of the day, and they’re all programmed well,” adds webcaster Sam D’Addieco.
Other PPM markets that got multiple mentions: Atlanta, Detroit, Los Angeles, Phoenix, and San Francisco. Radioinsight’s Venta also chimed in on behalf of Dallas which “offers every format and is the home of some of the best talent in the country.” As was the case in 2007, there was cynicism about New York, but veteran newsman Gil Gross believes that “New York and Los Angeles are still great if you travel down to the non-commercial part of the dial. [L.A.’s] KXLU has long been my go-to station, along with KCRW, and WFMU among others in New York.” Gross also raises the question of what the actual in-market dial still means given both the amount of choices and a lesser emphasis on localism by many stations.
But there’s still plenty of agreement with Community Broadcasters’ Watertown, N.Y.’s Lance Hale that “smaller markets with smaller companies are killing it.” Lawler is one of several readers chiming in for Cape Cod, with “good smaller operators, and, between the translators and low-powered stations, almost something for everyone, aside from [Hip-Hop].” “I hear radio being played a lot on Cape Cod,” adds VO/creative maven Jeff Berlin.
Rubber City’s Leibensperger also has good radio karma. There were multiple votes for Akron/Canton, Ohio, which I am happy to second. Again, the combined markets as well as the availability of nearby Cleveland radio were cited here by D’Addieco, who also shouted out Frederick/Hagerstown, Md., for the same reason. Other non-PPM markets cited were Buffalo; Green Bay; Hudson Valley/Poughkeepsie, N.Y.; Idaho Falls; Scranton/Wilkes-Barre, Pa.; Sikeston, Mo.; and Tucson.
Lists like this one always lengthen my “to listen” list. It’s worth mentioning that I have followed up by streaming some of the stations from my last road trip at greater length and had some good experiences when I could listen at greater length. Some of this listening will likely make its way into the column this fall, or, one hopes, the forthcoming Intriguing Stations of 2025.
In the meantime, the issues of bolstering both the local radio dial for listeners who still prefer that — on whatever platform — and codifying infinite radio choice for those who have moved beyond it remain key to radio’s future. The solution may well be a hybrid that makes it easy for out-of-town choices to fill in a market’s holes. That there is still enough radio in major markets that inspires passion, even among industry people, is an encouraging starting point.
This story first appeared on radioinsight.com