January 29, 2003 10:56 pm
Happy Ratings
Wednesday I got to work and saw my boss and asked what time the ratings were expected (they come by computer). He said 1:30. We were talking in my office about that time and he said, "well, I guess I'll go see how it went." I said, "I'm going, too." I followed along and it was only him and me in his office as he drew up the website and started the printing process. The most talked about rating is made up of all listeners of all ages from 12 years old and older, both men and women. It is the "12+ numbers." Most advertisers don't care so much about the 12+ numbers, but if you are going to brag about being number one, you have to be number one there to really be able to lay claim. For the last 20 years, our sister station, the Top 40 Country station in town, has been number one. Our station has never ever been number one, at least not since it became an FM station.
Jason started the printing process, pulled out the first printed sheet and said, "Holy shit." My station was number one. We moved from number 5 last book to number one this time. It was an incredible jump. And our sister station wasn't even number two, they fell all the way to number 3. This was great news for me, but since my boss is in charge of all of the stations, he felt some dismay at that station losing. I was nothing but happy.
As we began to get some of the other numbers (which I still haven't seen everything), there were other reasons to celebrate. I certainly wanted to beat our local competitors, but mostly I wanted to beat the "evil" boss that left and I replaced. Overall, my help in the music certainly had to help the station overall because our good ratings came mostly from our regular loyal listeners listening more and longer. But when it came to afternoons, I was far and away number one with most of the men in the city. My predecessor had been number 15 in our most important category, persons 25-54. I doubled his rating and took us up to number 4 there. It was amazing. It was exhilierating to be a part of. It may only last a month, until the next ratings come out, but it was a great victory.
Thursday afternoon we had a celebratory drink (or two...) at the cafe. I looked around amazed that a year ago I was training there to be a waitress and was about to be fired at the number one station in town. Now to be a part of its demise was extra sweet. The speeches at the party were very inspiring and fun.
Since the first hoopla, there hasn't been much said about the ratings, which makes sense since there are five stations in our building that didn't do as well. But it makes me more confident on the air and more willing to be myself and just do what I like to do on the air and not feel I need to find a way to be funnier or more clever, since I'm not really that kind of a personality. It is very satisfying.