Listening to One-Share Radio Stations

I’ve had a lot of fun listening to the radio today. I’ve been listening to radio stations that are at a 1 share, or below, in Nielsen PPM markets. Often, when Radioinsight prints the monthly ratings, I make a point of catching up with the top-rated stations or biggest gainers. When the Holiday ratings book came back, I did something different.

It’s important to point out right away that I was looking for gems and audio tourism. The stations I decided to feature from my listening day were mostly stations that weren’t designed for boxcar numbers. In this day and age, there are a lot of stations — primarily among the contemporary formats that have struggled in the streaming age — with surprisingly low numbers. I was looking for something else. (Also, to be fair, during the Christmas ratings, many other stations are compressed or see their lowest numbers of the year.)

I did, over the course of the day, hear a lot of radio stations that sounded like a 1 share, and I’m not writing about those. I heard several that were jockless. I heard a few automation accidents. The stations featured here are different and in keeping with the column’s usual “praise in public” policy. 

Also, during the course of my day, I cheated a little, using the 1-share criterion to catch up with some stations that are higher-rated in their home markets. But WMGQ (Magic 98.3) New Brunswick, N.J., has a 1 share in New York, and WPST Trenton, N.J., has a 1 share in Philly. (That being the case, WPST’s footprint in Philadelphia has always been big enough to break music there, and is actually having an odd national impact now.) Mostly, though, I was glad that the exercise brought me to some stations worth sharing that I should have caught up with a while ago.

I first encountered “Listener-supported, sun-powered” KTSN (Sun Radio) Austin nearly a decade ago, visiting it at a live broadcast from Nashville at the annual Americanafest. It sounds closer to the Triple-A center now, but I want to be careful saying that about a station that plays Chappell Roan and ZZ Top in the same hour. I also encountered a great song that was never played on any other monitored radio station. The :00 ID promises “music variety with a little taste of Texas every hour.”

Sun Radio was at a 1.2 over the holiday, but has been as high as a 1.9 in recent months. Because Sun Radio is a non-comm, when p.m. driver Chris Mosser did a teaser, it was for something that was coming up in 40 seconds, not six minutes. He was also promoting the station’s Texas Radio Live, a weekly station fundraiser/concert series. Here’s Sun Radio just before 4 p.m., January 31:

• Chappell Roan, “Good Luck Babe”—in the hour before, it played Harry Styles, “Watermelon Sugar”
• Joe Walsh, “Life’s Been Good”
• Maggie Rogers, “In the Living Room”
• The National, “Rylan”
• Joseph, “White Flag”
• Teddy Swims, “Lose Control”
• My Morning Jacket, “Time Wasted”
• Pink Floyd, “Learning to Fly” — on stations where segues matter, a good- sounding one
• Cure, “Boys Don’t Cry”
• Kiely Connell, “Damn Hands” — the aforementioned great song
• Paul Thorn, “Tough Times Don’t Last”
• Jimmy Cliff, “The Harder They Come”
• Marcus King, “Hard Working Man”
• Mavis Staples, “Worthy”
• Amos Lee, “No More Darkness, No More Light”
• Ripe, “Settling”
• ZZ Top, “Just Got Paid”
• Jason Isbell, “Cover Me Up” —the first of three for his birthday at 5 p.m.

I already liked WDGY Minneapolis by the time it played “A Little More Love” by Olivia Newton-John — a childhood favorite that is definingly the type of song you need an older/deeper “Oldies XL” station to hear. But then middayer Sue Falls said as much on the backsell, adding that there is “nobody else in town playing Olivia like we do on Wee-Gee.”

WDGY is an AM/translator combo using the heritage Top 40 call letters of the market’s “original rock ‘n’ roll station.” It’s also “the station you can always come home to.” Like Sun Radio, it’s a lot more of a full-fledged radio experience than a lot of bigger radio stations. There were a good number of listener shout-outs when I listened, and most of them were in conjunction with plugs for the station app.

WDGY was at an 0.9 share 6-plus over Christmas but has been at a 2 share in recent months. Here’s the station at 2:15 p.m., February 3: 

• Pointer Sisters, “I’m So Excited”
• Jim Croce, “You Don’t Mess Around with Jim”
• Beatles, “Drive My Car”
• Cars, “My Best Friend’s Girl”
• Elton John, “Crocodile Rock”
• Bobby Fuller Four, “I Fought the Law”
• Friends of Distinction, “Love or Let Me Be Lonely”
• Crosby Stills & Nash, “Southern Cross”
• Olivia Newton-John, “A Little More Love”
• Van Morrison, “Wild Night”
• Marvin Gaye, “Mercy Mercy Me (The Ecology)”
• Kiki Dee Band, “I’ve Got the Music in Me”
• Bob Seger & Silver Bullet Band, “Still the Same”
• Jimmy Buffett, “Cheeseburger in Paradise”
• Four Seasons, “Working My Way Back to You”
• Nilsson, “Everybody’s Talkin’”

I realized in listening to Noncomm KTSU (The Choice) Houston (0.9-1.1) that I tend to enjoy any radio station whose top-of-the-hour ID starts out with “from …” (because it’s usually followed by “… the top of … ”). KTSU’s is “from the campus of Texas Southern University, serving your entire family … our entire community.” 

KTSU is Adult R&B in mornings, Jazz during much of the day, and Hip-Hop at night, simulcasting its progressive Hip-Hop sister station, The Vibe. KTSU has helped fill the Smooth Jazz hole long left by commercial radio, but when I first heard morning host Chilly Bill Smith, the station was also playing a lot of the ’80s R&B gold once associated with KMJQ (Majic 102) before it modernized — Gap Band, Switch, etc.

KTSU was heavily promoting its upcoming Valentine’s Day concert and dinner, “A Night of Love.” Midday host Donna Franklin, who took over to host the Smooth Jazz Colors, reminded listeners that she would be there by herself this year, and encouraged them to do the same if they were between relationships.  

Here’s KTSU at 8:30 a.m. on February 4, beginning with its Adult R&B Morning Vibes and into the Smooth Jazz programming:

• Lil Duval, “Smile (Living My Best Life)”
• J. Paul Jr. & Zydeco NuBreedz, “Love in the Stable”
• Rahsaan Patterson, “Don’t You Know That” — the Luther Vandross song
• Travis Greene, “Made a Way” — gospel
• Chapter 8, “Ready for Your Love” — a listener request for Anita Baker’s former group
• Kirk Whalum, “Do You Feel Me” — the show’s theme song
• Ragan Whiteside, “Steppin’ Out”
• Kim Scott, “Like Butter”
• Cal Harris, “Lemon Salt”
• Ann Hampton Callaway f/Melissa Manchester, “New Eyes” — similar to Manchester’s one R&B chart hit, “Lovers After All”
• Chris “Big Dog” Davis, “Low Down”
• Jamie Williams, “Fireside”
• Lin Rountree, “This Time Around”