Programming in the current climate of full multi-media frontal assault is presenting radio groups with an entirely revised assessment of who should be running the show at their radio properties. The gig simply goe, s well beyond what a traditional PD used to do, and strategic decisions on a daily basis involving content, branding and distribution are at a whole new level. Nikki Nite has more than fit the bill for Entercom as they have placed a high degree of confidence in her ability to meet today’s challenging programmer standards and turned the keys of two of their prize possessions over to her.
Nikki Nite
In today’s programming environment, it has become readily apparent that having a leader possessing multiple skills in multiple formats as well as in a variety of on-air and digital platforms is practically mandatory. Striking a balance of art and science has also reached its pinnacle involving “the big chair,” and radio groups and companies of all sizes have put a premium on program curators like Nikki Nite.
Nite began her career 18 years ago and was instantly placed on the PD fast track. After stints in Huntsville and Myrtle Beach, she stayed in the mild weather belt and enlisted as WFBC/Greenville’s programmer for eight years, her initial encounter with Entercom. She had amazing success at FBC guiding the station to #1 in the market 21 out of 26 ratings periods.
CBS Radio reached out to Nite for a major market op in Dallas where she was hired to help re-brand the struggling AC KVIL as “The New 103.7 Lite FM.” While in Dallas CBS utilized her CHR experience and made her an integral part of launching “MOViN 107.5.” But it was soon back to Entercom as Nikki was recruited to Program KAMX Austin, and from there came the consummate reward of getting her Station and Program Managers stripes at Entercom Sacramento where she is successfully piloting CHR KDND (The End) and HAC KBZC (Star 106.5) in a very competitive marketplace. In fact since Nikki’s arrival in Sacramento, The End has been #1 in the market overall with huge PPM 6+ numbers.
You’ve been in Sacramento well over a year now, how have you acclimated to the radio market and how competitive of a market have you found it to be?
I felt at home in Sacramento right away. There was a great team in place here when I arrived, so I was able to focus on listening to the market, getting to know my team and each person’s strengths, and acclimate quickly. Listeners have a lot of choices in Sacramento. Like many markets, there are multiple contemporary stations playing in the same space, so it’s a fun challenge to come to work every day and work with my team to create content that makes us unique and gets listeners to say, “That’s my favorite Sacramento radio station.”
Before your arrival, your last two stops were Austin and Dallas. You’ve worked in the Carolinas as well, what regional cultural differences have you found among all the regions you’ve worked in (including Northern Cali)?
I’ve always found a wide variety of beliefs, attitudes and cultures in each place I’ve lived, but each region did tend to have its own overall vibe. Even more so, each city I have lived in (even within the same region) has had its own unique personality. All that said, there are a few general regional differences I’ve observed.
Sweet tea and BBQ are both two entirely different things in the south and in Texas, and people who make it really take pride in making the best of either. BBQ and sweet tea barely exist in NorCal.
No state I’ve lived in has collectively been as into college football as South Carolina. And if you live in a town with a college nearby, tailgating is a tradition and they take it very seriously.
Texas is not part of the south. It is Texas. It is its own thing, and the people really are proud to be from Texas. That state pride is more prevalent than in any other state I’ve lived and it’s pretty cool. A big difference between the south and Texas is the influence the Hispanic culture has on Texas. You see it in music, food, community festivals, etc.
Regarding NorCal, if you simply look at population across the four most common ethnic groups, it’s very diverse. Brown University did a study recently pinpointing where the most diversity is taking place in the United States and four of the top six most diverse cities in the study are in NorCal. In general, NorCal is less socially conservative than the south and most parts of Texas.
I think regional cultural differences are more noticeable in smaller cities vs. large cities. Large cities tend to have less of that for the most part no matter what region they are in, while the areas surrounding a large city tend to take on more of that particular region’s attitude.
Any preferences?
No. I’ve enjoyed experiencing them all. Although, I do miss a great breakfast taco. Anyone from Texas will relate.
What have you discovered to be the most successful methods of keeping your brands compelling and competitive?
Clear vision, well-defined goals, clear communication, taking calculated risks and never being “finished.” When a creative team understands the position of a brand and is fully engaged in executing that every day, the rest falls in place.
Given what’s happening with the new integrative car dashes coming out, do you feel radio in general will be competing at a whole new level?
The car dashes represent more distraction for people in the car, which is a place where radio is getting the bulk of its ATE. I have a car with the new car dash and it is interesting that not only can radio be a preset, but so can my husband’s mobile number or the mobile number of anyone I might want to talk to on the ride home. All the more reason to have great music and compelling personalities that people want to spend some time with. The new car dash is bringing a lot of technology platforms more easily into the car and making them easier to access. So, it’s more important than ever that a listener’s favorite radio stations are available on all those platforms so it’s always a choice.
What should radio keep in mind regarding this new level of digital competition as it attempts to continue to be an integral part of its listeners’ entertainment milieu?
Be local. Be relevant. Be human. Be unique. Be entertaining. Be different. Build relationships with listeners. Put your brand out there where your listeners are going, and create a sense of belonging to something. That sense of belonging which radio engenders is something that, right now, a product like Pandora can’t duplicate. At this point, listening to something like Pandora is a solitary experience. The more you listen, the more personalized it becomes, so how far can you really branch out to discover something completely different? It says, you like this…well, here is more of that. At some point, I think those people still branch out to music blogs or friends or some place that offers human generated feedback to get recommendations or an outside perspective. Radio can still do that.
I remember going on our family vacation in the car as a kid, and as we drove further away from town and I couldn’t hear WAPE anymore, I really got bummed out. I would listen through static as long as I could because those other stations were strangers to me. They were playing songs I liked, but I didn’t know those people or feel any connection to the station at all. If I could have listened online to WAPE all the way to NYC, I would have! You know, it felt like coming home to turn on WAPE when we got back in town. I think it’s a good goal for your radio station to feel like coming home when listeners come back to it from things like satellite radio, Pandora, etc.
Looking at the even bigger picture, how much of a serious competitor do you rate the on-line (destinations) and digital forms of music consumption these days? Which digital destinations pose the biggest threats to traditional radio?
I take it all seriously. Radio is an entertainment platform and, let’s face it, there are a lot of ways to choose to be entertained out there. That being said, audience is not the issue for radio. The latest numbers say about 90% of everyone over the age of 12 is listening to radio. How long they are listening is what is changing and what is challenging. I think any new digital destinations and for that matter, things like the DVR which makes it so easy to now choose your favorite TV show any time you want to watch it, are all things cutting into radio’s ATE. People only have so much time in the day. So what are you doing on your station that makes someone want to choose to spend their time with you over those other things? What are you doing that’s different? And how are you keeping yourself in front of them while they are at those other on-line destinations like Facebook and Twitter, where you can interact with them?
Are you sensing the trending of more collaborative initiatives among radio groups (iHeart radio, SweetJack.com) as a way of positioning itself with more “medium” strength against the digital behemoths?
I think it’s a good thing that many radio stations are available to stream in one easy to access space, such as TuneIn.com. Again, I think it’s important that wherever people are going to listen to music, radio is available as an option and easy to find.
As music consumption grows more as a streaming experience with listeners and consumers, do you feel listeners still value ownership of music and will continue to purchase downloads and CD’s?
We live in an age of convenience, and streaming music can be more convenient than owning it. I say that as someone who has lugged many boxes of CD’s across the country! And with the better marriage of hardware and software and better broadband speeds, streaming music is easier to do today more than ever. The biggest difference now, as hit music has become more song driven, is the purchase of singles over albums, and with the ease of storing music digitally, I think CD’s are going by the wayside. People who really love music or have a strong attachment to an artist will still buy it, but the more people get the impression that the music they love is always going to be available somewhere and easy to access, the more people will move toward just renting it.
In terms of music differentiation among formats, do you find the formats you work with more easily sharing artists and music and what are the advantages and disadvantages of this?
There’s definitely more sharing of artists going on. With PPM, contemporary music formats have all moved closer to the middle. It’s also a function of the way unfamiliarity can cause tune out in PPM. Everyone wants to play what’s familiar and what’s familiar is what’s being exposed in a lot of places. It’s an advantage because new music becomes familiar a lot faster and the right songs can move more easily from, in our case, Pop to Hot AC and vice versa. It’s a disadvantage because it’s become very difficult for music to be the differentiating factor that sets a station apart from all others in the contemporary formats. It makes concentrating on what can create tune-in as important as ever and that’s what is between those hit songs, such as your personalities and the soul of your station. It’s important to brand your station to artists, but even more so to brand your station to things that can’t be so easily duplicated by competing stations or other music platforms like streaming services.
What have been the most defining moments of your career?
I can think of several and they all involve taking a risk, believing in myself and moving forward into new uncharted territory, even when it didn’t feel comfortable. Going from programming Top 40 WFBC in Greenville, SC to programming AC KVIL in Dallas, and turning that situation around at a time when some people said to me it couldn’t be done. That was a defining moment.
But the one that resonates the most with me is a moment very early in my career. I remember sitting across the desk from a GM, telling him all the reasons he should hire me to program his radio station. This person knew me, they had worked with me. I respected this person and still respect this person a great deal today. At one point in the conversation, he stopped me and said, “Nikki, don’t set yourself up for failure.” I could have internalized that, especially because I knew this person genuinely cared about me as an individual. And he had some reasons to say it. I was young. I had very little experience. But instead, I chose to believe in myself and believe that I was ready to program. And in that moment, I decided not to be afraid to try. So I got a PD job somewhere else and I’ve been fortunate to be programming ever since. I think that attitude has helped me do the things I’ve done. As ‘unknown’ once said, “There are so many people out there who will tell you that you can’t. What you’ve got to do is turn around and say ‘watch me.'”
[eQB Content By Fred Deane]
