Talk:List of radio stations in Wisconsin

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[edit] Tables

I'm slowly working my way through the state; I've done Milwaukee, Madison and the Fox Valley, and I'll do the Eau Claire, Green Bay and La Crosse next. This should take a day or two. --BaronLarf 04:21, July 27, 2005 (UTC)

BarLar, I notice you're including stations from Kewaunee, Manitowoc, Shawano, Calumet (Brillion) and Door counties in Green Bay (which is fine, but it doesn't say that in the heading), also Fond du Lac and Dodge counties in Appleton & Fox Cities, Dunn County in Eau Claire, Manitowoc Co. (again) in Sheboygan, etc... I'm not trying to pick nits, but I'm trying to figure out how you're dividing up the state here. There are a few "problem" areas, admittedly, like "how do you classify Trempealeau and Buffalo Counties?", since the northern half are oriented far more toward Eau Claire (Minnesconsin) than to La Crosse (definitely Wisconsin)...and "What about Platteville/Richland Ctr./Manitowish Waters/Eagle River/etc.?", i.e., places that are um..."far from a larger urban area" (although Platteville is arguably "near" Dubuque). Anyways. I see that Tomah is still listed separately from other Monroe Co. stations (included in La Crosse), and that Pleasant Prairie (i.e., <whisper>basically Kenosha</whisper>) is the only station in Kenosha county, which I find rather difficult to believe. Two questions:

1. Is there an FCC listing of licensed stations somewhere that we can get ahold of to help flesh this out? Tomer ^TALK 05:16, August 2, 2005 (UTC)
2. What is your scheme for divvying up Wisconsin? Tomer ^TALK 05:16, August 2, 2005 (UTC)

Good questions. I am dividing up Wisconsin into the markets as assigned by Arbitron. I used the PDF map located here which shows Wisconsin to have the following radio markets wholly within its border:

• Eau Claire
• La Crosse
• Wausau-Stevens Point
• Green Bay
• Appleton-Oshkosh
• Sheboygan
• Madison
• Milwaukee-Racine

In addition, there are four markets which overlap into other states:

• Duluth-Superior
• Chicago
• Dubuque
• Minneapolis-St. Paul

I cannot find any page on Arbitron which lists radio stations in those markets, though; for that information, I relied upon this website, which purported to stick to the market areas described above. As you've pointed out, occasionally these listings include stations from outside the Arbitron defined borders.

The Arbitron system also leads to another problem; large portions of the state lie outside of arbitron's markets. Temporarily I've left the subheadings which existed before I started putting up the tables (including Pleasant Prairie, Tomah, etc); perhaps I should have taken them off the page and put them in the talk page or something.

I like the idea of listing stations by markets rather than by county or city, since a station broadcasting from Fitchberg is going to be heard in Madison, etc. But I'm not quite sure what to do about the outlying areas. Perhaps we should use the Nielsen boundaries used for television, which completely cover the state; I'm not sure where we could get complete station information on those areas, though. Cheers. --BaronLarf 14:06, August 2, 2005 (UTC)

The way I read that .PDF, according to Nielson, Eau Claire and La Crosse are the same market, Green Bay and Appleton-Oshkosh are the same market, Sheboygan and Milwaukee-Racine are the same market, and Kenosha Co. is part of the same market, instead of part of Chicago, Dubuque plays no rôle at all, Grant Co., both halves of it, being in the "Madison" market...and it goes on. I'm thinking that perhaps for WP purposes, dividing Wisconsin according to something less "media market" intensive might be a better route. I can almost guarantee that these "markets" are deterimined by someone who has never once been to Wisconsin, and so has no idea that you can hear Eau Claire radio stations when you're still in Minnesota, and any number of other "facts on the ground" that cloud the value of their divisions. In other words, while these divisions may be useful for numbercrunchers at Nielson and Arbitron, I don't think they're of any particular encyclopedic value except to mention perhaps which counties belong to which markets according to each of these ratings services. I think that if we can come up with a reasonable division scheme of our own, uniform across all Wisconsin articles, and that it wouldn't be too big a violation of WP:NOR if we can come to a consensus about their legitimacy...certainly it would help reduce the inconsistencies between reality and the seemingly bizarre "regions of Wisconsin" found in Template:Wisconsin. (E.g., I've never heard of the "western upland", eventhough I live "there".) Tomer ^TALK 05:04, August 7, 2005 (UTC)

The colors and the large, bold city names are the Nielsen radio markets; the dark black borders are the Arbitron markets for television. Thus, with Nielsen radio markets, Grant County is with Dubuque, Kenosha with Chicago, Pierce & St. Croix Counties with the Twin Cities. Also, the colors themselves represent the size of the markets. Green Bay and Appleton-Oshkosh are both ranked lower than 100, so they are both blue, thought the bold titles show that they are separate markets.

I'm not disagreeing that one can still hear Eau Claire radio stations in Minnesota, but I would believe that the average person listening to radio in Minnesota would listen to a station broadcasting from St. Paul before listening to one broadcasting from Altoona.

The regions of Wisconsin have more to do with physical geography than with the populations (see Wisconsin#Geography); I don't think of myself living in the Eastern Ridges and Lowlands either.

I used the Nielsen regions because I could not figure out a better way to get a relatively complete listing of radio stations across the United States sorted in a meaningful and helpful way. An alphabetical listing by city would really not be helpful, I believe, but you are welcome to create one. The Template:USRadio allows for several ways of sorting stations. The tables that I have created could be moved to List of radio stations in Wisconsin by market area, an list by city created at List of radio stations in Wisconsin by city, etc., and this page contain a list of the different types of lists available. Cheers. --BaronLarf 06:01, August 7, 2005 (UTC)

[edit] WMSE

The style should not be listed as Alternative (under milwaukee). Although you differentiated it from Alternative ROCK, I don't think people will catch that. The only thing I can think that is accurate however, is to put "Varies" because the style changes depending on who's time slot it is. --Animarxivist 19:59, 4 August 2006 (UTC)

A better solution would be eclectic or non-commercial.--Fightingirish 20:47, 6 September 2006 (UTC

[edit] List of radio stations in Wisconsin by market area

This article should be merged with List of radio stations in Wisconsin by market area, which seemes to be a more complete and accurate list. --Nwa757 13:42, 6 February 2007 (UTC)