This week, we revisit Bob Quick’s debut Programming To Win column from earlier this year. Quick delves into important tips that can help out a small market programmer, juggling the work of two or three (or more!) people while trying to keep his or her station up and running. He suggests ways to make time to properly schedule music, be efficient with time management, effectively run promotions and also to consider the many options that syndication has to offer.
By Bob Quick, Quick Radio Consulting
Bob Quick
I have a great friend that I worked with in my early days in radio. He used to tell me that I only “worked half-days…12 hours!”
There are hundreds of stations out there with thousands of employees who will never have the opportunity to have a great mentor in their radio career. Folks that don’t work for companies that start with the letter “C”. That’s why articles like this, websites like this and trade magazines are so important. It’s the only way those radio professionals can learn from some of the best in the business.
I was one of those, who early in my career, was thrust into a situation where I had to learn on-the-job and fast. I read everything I could get my hands on about programming, production, airchecking, imaging, managing employees…absolutely anything I could get my hands on. Later, I did have the benefit of a couple of great mentors, but that was after I was self-taught the basics.
One of my frustrations with articles in places like this is that they tend to focus on big market problems like the Portable People Meter or on interviewing the latest Program Director in a top 10 market. All great information, and all due respect to those involved, but there are many more stations and even more folks outside the big markets who work in the radio business everyday.
I would like to focus on how a small, non-rated market, Program Director can make his or her station better…while still getting done all the thousands of things on his or her “to-do list” because, often, they are a staff of one.
It doesn’t matter how big a market you are in, a great radio station is still composed of programming, talent, and branding (not to mention sales, engineering and administration). The difference between big and small markets is the number of people on the staff to get roughly the same amount of work done.
I want to help those with a small, or no staff, be more efficient with their time. That way, not only can they get all the work necessary to be a great station done, but will also have time to do things outside the station. I know you love radio, you live and breathe it, but without spending time with family, friends, and enjoying hobbies and outside interests you will soon burn out. Often a great employee works so hard in this business, they burn themselves out, and leave the business. That’s a shame.
So…let me share some tips for you one man/woman staffs out there to save time and to make your station shine. I wish I had learned these sooner in my career.
1) Music Scheduling. Nothing is more important than your product and a music station’s product is made up of around 80% music. That being said, you don’t have an off-air Music Director to spend an entire day on tomorrow’s log. Set your music scheduling software up so you can spend the least amount of time possible on this task. Take the time to correctly categorize and tempo your music. Set your rules up to fit your station’s sound…make the software work for you, not the other way around. In many cases, small markets only have one station per format. How competitive is your music position when you are the only country station in the market? Can you really make a music mistake in this situation? If you can shave even ten minutes of time spent on each day’s log, that’s over an hour a week of time saved.
2) Automate anything you can to save you time. I’m not saying eliminate any staff you have with automation. What I mean is, if you have certain daily tasks that are vital but could be set-up as an automatic download, or pre-programmed satellite switch, or a computer logging transmitter meter readings, or automated recording of some type of long-form programming…do it. That doesn’t mean that you shouldn’t check to make sure those tasks were completed. It does mean that if you can have them performed automatically, without your full attention, a few hours of one-time set-up could save you 15 minutes a day…that’s an hour and 45 minutes a week, almost a full workday a month.
3) Creative/Generic Imaging. Sounds like an oxymoron doesn’t it. Have your station voice read your station’s name and positioner a dozen different ways. Then for each of those dozen reads, produce each one a dozen different ways. Vocal effects, zips, zaps, stagers, stingers. Pretty soon you’ll have 144 different sweepers that you can put in and take out of rotation and keep the station sounding fresh. For a half–day in the production studio, you have a years worth of imaging.
4) Syndication. There are so many options now for syndication and the syndicators have gotten so sophisticated in making their shows integrate with your station, it’s a shame when I hear stations run a program that never identifies the local station. Come on! Some syndication shows even let you play your own musical selections! Why would you let engineering decide what tones you will or won’t use. Trust me, most engineers will set up a tone for the legal ID and to play the commercials. (Notice the FCC requirement comes BEFORE what pays their salary! Nothing’s more important than the license, but it’s just a different mindset.) I think Delilah and the Lia shows have around 11 different tones. They are very versatile for the station using them. When adding syndication programming make sure your engineer sets up everything they offer you to use. Then you can make the determination on what you’ll use to make your station sound great.
5) Promotions. Simple…tell them what you are going to do…tell them that you are doing it…tell them what you did. Promotions are the “sizzle” of radio and should be shining examples of the show biz we create in the “theater of the mind.” If it is worthy, you can talk about a promotion every break. Don’t be afraid of sounding like a broken record. Remember, just about the time you are getting sick of it the listener is just “getting it.”
Just five simple tips to make your day easier and to make your station shine.
Bob Quick is Chief Consulting Officer at Quick Radio Consulting. He specializes in medium and small market stations, mentoring future top 10 market PD’s. He can be reached at (706) 358-9103 or at bob@quickradioconsulting.com. quickradioconsulting.com
