Rookie of the Year

The Fall 2005 Richmond radio ratings have come out, and apparently the word has spread. In its very first ratings period, Liberty has checked in with a solid 4.7 -- good enough for 8th place. Some of the usual suspects are near the top of the heap -- nobody is ever going to knock off Lite 98, Kiss FM, K95, and WRVA in this town. But talk about blowing away the direct competition! Liberty is the top-rated station of its genre. It's ahead of both "new rock" stations, it's ahead of both classic rockers, it's ahead of Mix 103.7, and Q94 went from a 5.2 to a 3.7! Little doubt where those listeners went! Of course, if Liberty translates high ratings into high commercial rates and we get 22 minutes of commercials an hour...well, it would still be better than the soulless programming of Q, X, and Y, but I'd probably stop listening and go back to CDs. It will be interesting in any case to see where Liberty's ratings go from here. Might the other stations break out of their corporate-formatted funk and try to compete by actually being innovative and giving us some real music (yeah right)? Will people eventually get tired of Liberty and listen to less radio, period? Or, will Liberty regress to the mean and become less and less differentiated?