eQB NOW: Year-End At Issue: Radio’s Best Practices Going Forward

Radio’s future is in the hands of the current caretakers who oversee the product from the street to the corporate offices. After all, radio programmers are in the optimal position to discern and understand radio usage demands of consumers. It’s really always been that way. It’s just that stations had more hands on deck in given markets to deploy staff members accordingly. Today’s standards of living in the industry have changed. The fiscal models have drastically been altered by the second most severe general recession in our nation’s history, significantly hampering a ‘Best Practices’ model in vogue during pre-recessionary days. The challenge is to adopt and execute tenets of programming and marketing that are applicable to today’s business environment and take into account the parameters that have been imposed on the industry.

FMQB’s final major feature of 2010 assembles a premium panel of radio decision makers and asks them to address the various essentials of sustaining radio’s viability, while also forecasting the requisites of ‘Best Practices’ that can insure a healthy position in the competitive multi-media marketplace going forward.

Radio’s future is in the hands of the current caretakers who oversee the product from the street to the corporate offices. After all, radio programmers are in the optimal position to discern, appreciate and understand what the listener and consumer demand for radio utility truly is. It’s really always been that way. It’s just that stations had more hands on deck in given markets to deploy staff members accordingly. Today’s standards of living in the industry have changed. The fiscal models have drastically been altered by the second most severe general recession in our nation’s history, significantly hampering a ‘best practices’ model that was in vogue during pre-recessionary days. The challenge is to adopt and execute tenets of programming and marketing that are applicable to today’s business environment and take into account the parameters that have been imposed on the industry. In this Year-End feature we have assembled a premium panel of radio decision makers and asked them to address the various essentials of sustaining radio’s viability, while also forecasting the requisites of practices that can insure a healthy position in the competitive multi-media marketplace going forward.

Dom Theodore, VP CHR Programming, CBS Radio

“Consumers have more choices than ever before.” We’ve been hearing that phrase for a few years now, and with each year that goes by, technology brings us more and more delivery systems for content. The one thing that hasn’t changed is there are still only 24 hours in the day, so consumers are constantly making choices as to what delivery system satisfies them the most. History has proven they will choose the one that provides the best ‘delivery’, and THAT’S the opportunity that radio must seize.
The old model of a radio station being an “appliance that dispenses music” is dead, as there are better appliances built solely for this purpose, and the music is the most non-exclusive content we have. But radio can provide difficult to duplicate companionship better than any other delivery system, which is why what we do “in between” the songs – exclusive talent, promotions, imaging, entertaining, informative, relatable content – will be the key to our growth. These are really the building blocks of the emotional bond that a radio station establishes with the audience, and once you have this bond, you have a real BRAND.
Programmers today need to focus on developing these areas, particularly on-air talent. We complain about how shallow the talent pool is, and yet do very little risk-taking with up-and-coming talent, which is the root cause of the problem. We must get better at identifying those passionate fans who want to do this for a living, and give them an opportunity to develop their skills. That takes time, but the payoff is huge.
The next key to our growth is understanding that the brand can go wherever the audience goes. This is really the basis for our digital future. Once you have a great brand, it really doesn’t matter how you distribute it, even when the day comes when the audience abandons tall towers in big fields in favor of wireless broadband in their cars. Who cares? Build a great brand and the audience will follow it onto the new platform. We are not in the radio business; we’re in the content business. Your brand should be represented on every platform your listeners use, and it’s more important than ever to keep all of these platforms interactive at all times. If a morning show does a topic, it’s no longer good enough to just take phone calls…post it to your social networks, invite text messages, and respond to the comments with something more than a generic “Thanks for your message” bounce-back. Take advantage of the additional “touch points” technology has given us, and use them to enhance your brand.
If we choose to embrace technology, build meaningful brands that truly entertain, offer difficult-to-duplicate content, and become agnostic in terms of delivery system, radio will thrive in the coming years. What do you choose?

Jon Zellner, SVP/Programming, Clear Channel Communications

Our content is what defines us. At the end of the day, radio “listeners” become “fans” when we become successful in creating an emotional attachment to our brands. Discovery, surprise and companionship are the three points of differentiation between radio and the iPod. It’s impossible to discover new music on your iPod because you would rarely download or pay for a song you haven’t heard yet. Nor are there surprises, even on shuffle mode. Nothing beats the feeling you get when you punch into a gold-based station and hear a song you forgot you knew or were “surprised” to hear. The companionship factor of radio keeps our fans engaged, entertained and informed, certainly not available on any iPod.
Surprisingly, radio got away from these three elements for a while. We were afraid to play new music, and worried about sticking to the “safe list” and avoiding occasional surprises that create “perceived depth and variety.” We told the jocks to read liner cards and not talk. While all three of these elements have to be done in the proper context and match and exceed listener expectations, they are all advantages we occasionally forget about. Programmers should be reminded to write like people speak, and to create interesting and dynamic content between the music while taking some risks when appropriate. Voice talent should be reminded to talk like people talk, and production people should listen to their imaging like a listener. Our talent should be reminded to be real, uncontrived and hyper-focused on one listener who has more choices than ever for audio entertainment. Instead of being a “DJ,” the talent should be a “party host” and focus on word economy, but present those “liner cards” in a way that’s relatable to the target listener. You can always tell when a talent is just going through the motions as opposed to being focused on creating an emotional connection with their audience.
We need to remember that the means by which our fans access our product is irrelevant. No one is buying radios anymore and we have to change the way we classify ourselves. Instead of “terrestrial radio operators,” we should think of ourselves as “content and entertainment providers.” If someone likes what we do, they need to be able to access our content on devices they already own. “Radio” for many young people doesn’t necessarily mean they need a “radio” to hear us. The other piece of good news is that our brands remain extremely relevant to young people. Radio’s reach is as high as ever, but our TSL has dropped given the increased competition from other technologies. So, our goal should be to re-think and update our strategies and challenge ourselves to look at anything we continue to do just because it’s the way it’s always been done. Is there anything on your station that was part of a playbook written long before you arrived?
Any radio talent who isn’t embracing digital and social networking will quickly get left behind. This truly is the best way to interact with listeners and causes them to think of radio talent as “one of them.” Twitter and Facebook have allowed us to create an opportunity for our fans to relate to us even more as “real people.” Why was Ashton Kutcher first to reach a million Twitter followers instead of a big company? It’s because people connect with other people, not companies or businesses. If you get a Tweet from a radio talent, it’s much more memorable than getting one from a radio station. Embracing technology through social networking creates a multi-dimensional experience for listeners and shows them we’re just like them, except a little more interesting, entertaining and informed.
Our future depends on us looking beyond radio for talent, digital content operators, promotions and marketing directors, and sellers. It depends on us talking to young people to stay relevant and understanding that the best ideas aren’t necessarily coming from inside the industry. It depends on staying ahead of and embracing technology while recognizing we will be memorable not because of what we do, but because of how we make our listeners feel.

Jim McGuinn, Programming Director, 89.3 The Current/KCMP, Minneapolis

“Radio’s dead.” It’s not new, cool, nor sexy. How often has this been said? Radio has been written off so many times in the past, and again today as the smartphone driven media environment of infinite choice, along with a gradually increasing preference for time-shifted media, and the adoption of Pandora and other “lean-forward” customizable digital products crowd the playing field. Add in the short-term results being discovered about radio usage in PPM markets pushing programmers to more defensive tactics, and you find a few reasons for gloom in the industry.
Instead of creating robo-jocked jukeboxes of safely researched hits, we have to reach back and re-discover what made radio great: its ability to foster a deeply engaged relationship between the listener and the content. We can’t offer up a custom stream for every listener the way Pandora can, but we can do things Pandora can not. We can provide an element of surprise by curating a better mix than the algorithm of a glorified iPod. That’s what we hear everyday from listeners who are returning from their Pandora infatuation.
We can also draw context and connection between the music through playlist sequencing and great on-air hosting, and offer a sense of community. The person in the car next to you might be hearing and connecting to the same content. Those are the ways we build continued brand loyalty. In the short-term, PPM might encourage us to drop all meaningful talk and do “that was/this is” radio, but if you head down that path, what will differentiate you from thousands of similar products when the Internet is fully ubiquitous?
We need to be better at creating value with what we say. It’s harder to turn the station away when you feel personally vested and have a relationship with it, which usually comes through the hosts. Do speed breaks build loyalty? Rather than chopping breaks to the point where listeners equate the human voice with an annoying interruption, what if your listeners thought of host breaks as an opportunity to gain insight and context? This may require some shifting in the ways we execute promotions or advertising/underwriting. Should hosts be more than shills? I often wonder when listening to some formats, but for our long-term survival and growth, it should be done. This also requires radio companies to pay more attention to content. Be local, be unique and give talent enough time to do great shows instead of robo-jocking. In the long-term, you’ll be so much better for it.
Speaking of long-term, if you do have a unique brand and content strategy, you may gain new audience from the world. There are hundreds of nearly cookie-cutter examples of Hot AC, CHR or Classic Rock, but the truly great stations and brands that foster engaged communities will thrive in the future when sticks become un-tethered.
The other area where future listening/brand enhancement can grow is through creation of unique content that allows for time-shifted listening to occur, and for listeners to dig deeper into the artists and features they love. The main signal or stream is one way to experience the station, with streaming shows, sessions and podcasts to offer more value, and to hook in new global cume. I don’t expect listeners to stay with us 24/7. But the more ways I engage, the better my overall brand can do in the listener’s mind. In commercial radio there is a temptation to view side content as taking away from your main play stream, but if you provide avenues for listeners to build stronger bonds and context with artists, songs and hosts, you are heading down the path to make it harder for a listener to give up on your station when the new sexy app comes floating along.
Meanwhile, we have to do more/be better at being where the audience is by building better apps that leverage our skills and strengths, engaging in platforms like Facebook and Twitter, and letting listeners who share a bond in our music or brand to engage with each other in more meaningful ways. It sounds simple, yet in practice it’s harder than ever given shrinking content budgets. Create great content. Use all your available platforms. Deepen your engagement with listeners. Provide value they can’t get elsewhere. Keep radio essential.

Brian Michel, Operations Manager, Millcreek Broadcasting, SLC

We need to concentrate on the essentials of the product and I believe the elements that have made the Walt Disney model so successful over the years must be adhered to in radio. The key elements of safety, courtesy, the show, and efficiency are the cornerstones of the Disney success model that can easily be applied across any industry, especially ours since we’re both in the entertainment business.
Safety and courtesy apply to our listeners, clients and co-employees. Courte-sy is something a lot of companies have forgotten with everyone multi-tasking and flying at the speed of light, and we’re starting to create some disrespectful schisms between people. I’ve been concentrating on making sure we never fall victim to this, because we are still very family-like at this company. It’s the way bigger companies should be as well. The show is the attraction. Efficiency is where it gets tricky, because you can’t allow efficiency to trump the show.
The minute you take these four elements out of order you break the whole model. There’s not a broadcaster today that can honestly say their company has not broken that model. You can get absorbed by all the metrics that surround efficiency, but “stats are for losers.” You only worry about power ratios if you’re losing because you’re looking for answers. But if you’re winning and profiting, and making “the show” happen, all of sudden those stats about efficiencies become less important. Radio’s product strategy needs to sequentially follow this simple model. It’s a global approach that has to be recognized and broadcasters can’t ignore it.
Regarding delivery systems, radio has to be willing to adapt on the fly. This was discussed a lot at the What Teens Want Marketing Conference I recently attended. It’s an amazing issue with young people because they really do drive trends. If your platform doesn’t cut it, they’ll breed their own. Either you adjust or you’re left in the dust. It’s prevalent now more than ever. Teens grow into their 20’s and carry their habits with them. Young people today, even the 18-24 demo, are platform agnostic. It just has to be a platform that suits their needs. So if you’re willing to adapt, but not able to adapt quickly, you’ll have a big problem.
Social networking should be used to generate real relationships with people. It’s better to have 500 friends, 400 of which will act on the messages you send, rather than 10,000 of which only 50-100 react. You can spend a lot of time, effort and money in trying to win the arms race, but that really doesn’t matter. The real number that can leverage your business is how many passionate friends you have and how likely they are to act on a message. If we’re charging clients based on the total number of friends and we get a minimum response, it’s meaningless to the client.
The problem I have with marketing in general is when companies see the hot new thing and say; we need to be the Facebook or Twitter kings. The reality shows we need to have a broader focus. You don’t need to own one platform, you need be recognized and do well on all platforms. You cannot just say I’m going to hone in on this on

Jimmy Steal, Programming Director, Emmis VP/Programming & PD KPWR (Power 106)/LA

It is more important than ever that we program each and every element of our presentation with extreme care, always keeping in mind that our audiences have more choices than ever to fill their limited available entertainment time. The good news is we have more people than ever consuming music/movies/media (both legally and illegally), but they’re spending less time with each individual portal (big cumes and challenged TSLs). They are time starved and “choiced out.” So what are you doing to distinguish your product from all of these infinite amounts of entertainment options? If you can’t answer that question, there’s no mystery as to why you may not be doing as well as you could be.
Pre-web 2.0 thinking was predominantly focused on driving everyone to your sites. While that is still part of a successful multi-platform engagement strategy, the cold, hard reality is we have to troll the web and be where our listeners already are, and herd them back to our branded content. It’s more of an outside-in strategy. Some of the moves we are making at Emmis have embraced this web centric perspective in addition to our original site centric thinking.
Social networks are not a trend, they are a cultural shift. We have to simply bring station branded consumer value to the myriad of sites our listeners congregate on to make an impact. McDonald’s picks busy intersections to build their stores. We are doing the same thing online extending our brands across the web. This includes widgets and links to original content, music discovery, access to unique events and exclusive features/characters, as well as breaking entertainment news to name a few things.
Now with PPM, the charge to compete in this over-media-ed world is louder and clearer than it ever has been before. You must find un-duplicatable compelling original talent, and promote it! Without this caliber of talent you are destined to be just another anonymous voice in a cacophony of generic second tier media options pointlessly vying for listener/viewer attention, which is bad for you, your station and our medium. So look for the best talent you can possibly find, wherever you can find it. We are programming in the most exciting of times. We are broadcasters, database managers, social media managers, text club supervisors, streaming officers, web programmers, and so much more. We might consider changing the PD title to CEO since we really are “Chief Engagement Officers,” though the CEO title is already taken! Ideas anyone?

Bill Weston, Programming Director, WMMR/Philadelphia
Any product or service, to remain viable or sustain value, has to relate to the life of the one who consumes it. I doubt radio’s future is its ability to present a relatable mix of songs. It’s the manner in which those songs are presented that make the station relatable. Pandora has no voice: a great mix of songs, but no connection beyond that. If a radio station employs a memorable voice collectively for its community, or the singular appeal of an engaging morning show speaking with a voice that makes the listener feel more human and more connected in an ever increasingly disconnected world – that, my friend, is power, vitality, viability, and the base of our strength. Even stronger is the station that throughout its broadcast day includes friendly, enthusiastic voices that relate, connect, appeal, challenge, comfort, inform and entertain.
You know how that legendary, all-news AM station became indispensable in the minds of its 45+ listeners? It’s been there for them every minute of every day for every snowstorm, interstate closing, hostage crisis, government official’s downfall and 4th of July parade. Not many stations on a hub and spoke, state-wide syndicated setup seem to be working towards this lofty status of indispensability and home town/home team support.
For music or personality stations, having someone in the room, station or city is a big, simple part of the answer. Don’t you want to know there is someone there watching out for you, or helping sift thru the insignificance to share the most important, most funny, most relatable stuff? It doesn’t need to come over a radio. It’s any audio connection over a web stream thru a desktop rig or thru a PDA mobile device with access to the stream or an FM or AM chip, or a highlight, on-demand podcast.
Getting young people back into the fold is a challenge I think of often. Some may remember in the 60s when Top 40 took over the MOR stronghold, or the latter day example when the FM long-hairs took over from the Top 40 jocks. In either case, the air talent sounded young enough to connect with us. When’s the last time you heard a teenager or early 20’s something on the radio in the daytime talking to his peer group? Not a lot of money in the 12-24 demo, but there’s a lot of upside.
Social media should not seek to serve bottom line revenue objectives. It should serve as an incredible opportunity to speak/share/enlighten on a very personal basis. Tell me something of interest I don’t know, make me laugh, make me care. Endear me more deeply to the speaker. I really don’t want anyone selling me anything on Facebook.
Radio needs to stop selling big numbers and focus on the strength of the relationships we have. Audience segmentation for commercial messaging is a key. A 60 second F150 commercial, while intrusive and a tune-out to Mrs. proud new Prius owner, is cume-essential programming for the guy in the market for a new pickup. Radio has many tools at its disposal besides the big megaphone on a stick. We need to devise marketing campaigns that present a combination of those tools (spots, endorsements, event management, web traffic, brand loyalty, mobile messaging, ring-tones, web-cam, video capabilities). They need to be employed in the right combination and priced accordingly. Others much smarter than I have posited the reality of results versus smoke and mirror cost per thousand as a means to evaluate a successful campaign, and successful campaigns are what continue to bring in the dough that pays for all the talent and toys we need to employ in our R & D for tomorrow’s version of radio.

Jim Kurdziel, Programming Director, WEDG/Buffalo

The product is the number one issue for radio. At some point, you have little or nothing to sell. Then it will get really bad. We’ve done a bad job of separating sales and programming. I understand everyone is a part of the sale, but ultimately you have to trust that the sellers are selling and the programming team has to focus on creating and delivering original content. Content is king for a reason. It’s ultimately going to be what attracts people, and we need more new and different types of people to do it effectively.
The scary thing about radio now is there are fewer and fewer under 30 year-old professionals even interested in radio. It’s not even on their radar. Worse, radio seems almost impossible to them even if they were interested. Therefore, we have a lot of older people in this business with no next generation in sight. That has to change. But we have to compete with those who are hiring. We have to be cool again (cooler than a website) and we have to make it interesting so younger people start to pursue us again. It’s time to reinstate a creative atmosphere. So many stations are full of stressed out people who are in twenty different directions. The last thing they’re going to be able to do is create audio and video that will entertain the local masses. We have to lure the new people; those with a passion to create. Accomplish that, and you find yourself with fresh ideas from a new generation of professionals who are immersed in the culture with whom we supposedly speak. Why would listeners and clients want to consume our products if no one wants to operate them?
The next move is to make sure radio goes with people and availability. Apps are nice, but you’re still making people seek you out. We have to be on the devices upon receipt. YouTube and the Internet are, so must radio. I’m surprised radio didn’t get hurt even more in the past 15 years. We haven’t been mobile at all! For over a decade, we’ve lived and died in the car. That’s a scary proposition going forward and it simply can’t be, as a matter of survival. We have to go where people go and offer them something more by constantly creating and updating original content. We also have to start telling people we’re good! How many friends do you have outside of radio think satellite radio has already put us out of business? Over 250 million listeners and we’re letting satellite beat us in a simple marketing battle. We have to start telling our side and be much louder when we do.
The aspect of radio which I’ve always found interesting lies in integration. We tell ourselves we compete with the Internet, but we all have websites. We compete with Pandora, but we all stream. Facebook and Twitter are a major threat, but we’re all there. Radio has always been able to adapt and integrate. At some point we have to decide if these tools are truly an enemy. Until then, we’ll keep dipping our toes into the water instead of diving in and being a true revolutionary 360 degree medium. Social networks and streams should be tools for delivery, not replacements for content. We have a major advantage over anyone on Facebook. We already have over 250 million people who recognize us, but throwing up your logo and asking people to be your fan isn’t enough. We have to engage people as much as they engage each other and do a better job of understanding the capabilities of these tools. The public has made it simple for us. The answer is the cell phone. We must be there for them. We can’t expect everyone to find us first.
We’ve already gone back to the basics, now we must now take it to the next level. People root for radio to be great. We just stopped delivering. That’s a hard truth. Everyone feels there’s a national solution to a local problem and there isn’t. Every station has the opportunity to be meaningful to listeners by speaking to them and taking action for them. Then keep going, do more and never stop. We need to be quicker and teach our talent to get out of the way and stop forcing it, but it can and ought to be done. Why do you visit a website often? Because the more they offer, the more loyal you become, but the good websites have people and lots of them. We have to get talented people on our side again. The dominoes then will fall. There are a couple of distinct facts in radio today: content is king, and local wins and is why we are dynamic and unique. The coming years should be spent marrying those ideals.

Mark Adams, VP Music Programming, CBS Radio Houston

As time goes by I hear more and more programmers refer to their stations as brands and it’s more than semantics. In our digital, on-demand world simply serving as a music delivery mechanism is not enough to break through. In Houston we always refer to the “Hot” brand, the KILT brand or the “Mix” brand. That encompasses everything from on-air personalities, to promotional and marketing strategies, to community involvement and street presence, to imaging and presentation, and our music programming. When people punch into one of our stations we want them to be able to determine what station they’re hearing in short order, and that involves creating an overall station feel and presentation that’s a combination of all of those elements.
For example, with our CHR station there may be three or four stations in the market playing Katy Perry, but there can be only one station offering our brand. Hopefully we can create a more complete experience for the listener so we can develop a better emotional connection with our audience. It’s about creating non-duplicable, compelling and relatable content. This is not only integral to our continued success, but necessary for remaining both relevant and compelling in the future.
Every year I hear and read how radio’s in trouble and every year there’s no lack of qualitative information debunking that well worn meme. There was a recent article I read where the Southern California Broadcaster’s Association chief, Mary Beth Garber, commissioned Arbitron to conduct an analysis of 12-34 year-olds in the “oldest” PPM markets. Among the bulletin points: from 09/09–09/10 both total cume and TSL are up, and that’s against a backdrop of contrary speculation on how smartphone usage, social networking, other competing digital (music delivery) media and the like are growing threats to our medium. I tend to view such things more as opportunities, and feel radio on the whole is treating it the same way. You’d be hard pressed to find a group without an active and growing digital presence. I feel fortunate to be with CBS and excited about our efforts in that area, and not just in terms of offering exclusive content, but also in the context of making radio a part of those other digital receiving devices. Getting our applications married to smartphones, portable MP3 devices, and making sure HD becomes standard automotive equipment are all a part of that. Radio goes everywhere; we need to make sure we’re making it easy for our listeners to access our content from the digital device of choice.
Social media is an integral part of our mission to continue to tie radio into every aspect of our listeners’ lives. The days of people arguing that Facebook or Twitter is a fleeting phenomenon or something that only affects younger people are in the past. Radio, perhaps better than any other mass media, has the ability to localize and be immediate, and that’s really what we’re talking about here. When you give your listeners a compelling reason to follow their favorite station on Twitter and then reward that loyalty, you’ve established a connection. That’s valuable to our stations as well as our advertising and marketing partners. Being able to provide a truly integrated, 360 degree marketing campaign, of which effective social media will almost inevitably be a component, is where our business already is today, and more critical in the future.
Looking ahead, it’s important to stay focused on our content and the sound of our stations. While that sounds entirely rudimentary it’s something that’s easy to miss. We’re all incredibly busy and with the number of things requiring your attention on a daily basis it can sometimes be difficult to set aside the time to truly listen to your stations. It’s more of a micro than macro issue, but it’s something I remind myself of, and it’s come up more than once when speaking with our various format VPs. Beyond that and speaking more to the big picture, it’s critical we continue to develop on-air talent. A compelling morning show is, by definition, the kind of non-duplicable content a radio station can offer that’s effective for both listeners and advertisers. While we can always do more, our industry often gets less credit in that regard than we deserve. Our company has put together a host of great morning shows across multiple large markets and formats over the past few years and continues to put an emphasis on talent development. I know other companies have their own success stories to boast of as well. I suppose my overarching point is two-fold. Radio’s reach, locality and immediacy are unmatched, and when you can combine those assets with great content you’re setting yourself up for success.

Stan Priest, Program Director, WKSS/Hartford

Our challenge will be to remain compelling and resonate with our target listeners by providing (daily) difficult-to-duplicate content and personality… actually every second will be of supreme importance. Every great brand has a personality and our brands will be a precious commodity for years to come if we manage them pristinely. Our presentation will be decided by our listeners and not as much by us. Generation “C” (the connected generation) will have the most dynamic relationship to the brands they consume starting yesterday and extending into the unforeseeable future. One thing is absolute, expect change to speed up, and the challenge is keeping pace with the ever present demand to research exactly where the center point of focus for our target audience is at any given moment. As communication and the way it’s consumed and dispensed evolves, a few constants will remain. Quality will continue to be sexy and we will either be entertaining or informing or we will be in the off position.
We have to be everywhere and not make the users have to think about it. This will require real gamesmanship and there will be efforts by companies and the industry as a whole to insure we are recognized as a viable resource. Keep it simple, but grow quickly and adapt fast to the tastes and demands of the target users. Seek every opportunity to align ourselves with strategic partners and expand brand reach in ways that are beneficial to awareness or creating ease of access. There is an obvious move to own the handheld devices and the virtual brand online. Brand awareness only works if you generate enough passion and consciousness to motivate the user to seek you out and make you their selection.
Innovate, but remember just because you say you’re cool does not make you cool. Respect the user’s circle of friends. We are about to see a shift to more private social networks as the preference for many. However Facebook is so dominant today and will continue to reign for some time that they will be challenged by some of the deepest pockets on the planet. There are simply too many eyes and too much money on the line for exclusivity. The optimization of social networks will also be determined by the users not by us. We have now been given enough connectivity and bandwidth to make very specific and personal choices about our entertainment. We will see more customization offers and more tools to allow our listeners to take ownership of our products. Being responsive to the changes in trends in taste from one week to the next or even quicker will start to be more of the new norm for us. The sense of urgency will increase for changes to be made in shorter time spans, but the quality of the product must improve while remaining familiar in a consistent manner.
As for what lies ahead, it’s hard to speculate on the unknown. The reality is we cannot expect our listeners to adapt to fit us. We have to adapt to fit them. Read your target listener, know what they want from you and deliver in the fastest most effective ways possible. Keep on top of what matters to your target user and do this with constant vigilance. There will always be distractions from listening, the speed of the digital evolution is increasing and convergence is happening before our eyes. Take a look at what Apple and Google are doing right now, for example at http://www.google.com/tv/.
Radio broadcasters need to insure they are the soundtrack of the lives of our listeners. Our focus needs to be on more than just the highest quality experience. While flawless execution of the basics remains essential to creating a consistently high level of performance, we will need the best talent to give our brands the sizzle required to cut through the cacophony of distractions.
It still comes down to being the water cooler talk of the day, however now and in the future listeners will breakout the mobile device of choice and play the clip they heard to their friend instead of relating the story of the experience.

LA Lloyd, Program Director, KISS/San Antonio

In an environment where radio’s consumers have more choices than ever, programmers need to make sure the content hits the headlines in seconds. On-air personalities have had this message shoved down their throats for years: “Get to the point and make it count.” PPM is unforgiving and we know listeners are punching out if we are not holding their attention. Again, this happens in seconds not minutes. PPM has pushed programmers to be hyper-aware of getting the absolute best product on the air. On-air talent has to be compelling. Period. If you are not saying something that matters in the first sentence, you are not doing your job. The same rule applies in your recorded promos, liners, and even commercials.
In regards to music, we need to make sure the best testing artists are on the air. Radio needs to be as musically broad as possible. You have to play the right music to increase your cume. In the Active Rock format, many stations have become narrower due to the lack of superstars in the format. There are exceptions to the rule with some artists. However, how many bands have we seen come and go in the past decade? Therefore, you are seeing more classic artists blended into the overall library of many Active Rock stations. Here is a great quote from our consultant, “Niche formats receive niche ratings in PPM.”
The iPhone changed my listening habits tremendously. With the “Pocket Tunes” app, I have the capability of listening to pretty much any radio station or Internet radio station available. We are not locked to the computer anymore for online listening. The iPhone and other digital devices are now plugged into the AUX ports in car radios. Online listening in cars is not coming…it’s here! It is a fact that the number one gadget consumers have with them always is their smartphone. Create an app for your radio station so consumers can take you with them everywhere they go that includes station content and the ability to listen online.
MySpace may have put Social Networks on the map but Facebook took it to a whole new level. 99.5 KISS’ Facebook page has reached nearly 10,000 fans in less than a year. Nearly all of our clients use Facebook. We have the audience that can link to their Facebook/website page for contesting and more in-depth information that time will not allow on the air. This is a tremendous interactive tool for the station, our listeners and our clients. I anticipate many 2011 annual buys will include some type of texting and/or Facebook presence when deciding how they will be spending their money.
The great thing about radio is the strong brand it has with its consumers who get it in the traditional means of terrestrial listening. But I have to go back to my original point of keeping your brand with the consumer EVERYWHERE they go. We have to keep finding ways of expanding the brand. The tentacles of our brand have to continue to spread to compete with the many choices our listeners have at their disposal. At the end of the day, it’s still about compelling content and keeping our customers engaged. It is a fight for the listeners but I’m still optimistic that radio is and will continue to be a dominant medium.

***eQB Content by Fred Deane***