June 5, 2020
How are you dealing with the reopening of your communities with your listeners, are you actively embracing and promoting this concept on-air?
|
Buster Satterfield, Q102: We’re still addressing it with updates. We’re also proceeding with caution and spreading Good Vibes Only!
Mike “OD” O’Donnell, WKRZ: My shows do a lot of live reports with owners of local businesses where we actually put those individuals on the air with our personalities as they are opening up. A lot of them are KRZ listeners and it continues to foster good relationships with our listeners in general. We’re a very community-driven radio station anyway. It’s what makes our programming stand out, and that’s why our listeners trust us, so this is very natural thing for us to do. |
Drew Heyman, Y100: In Miami, things keep changing on a week-to-week basis and we’re staying focused on it all.
Jagger, WKSS: We’ve been trying to be positive for weeks now. We’re promoting local business and giving positive news from every angle possible. Jonathan Shuford, WRVW: We’re doing a “Get Out and Stay Out Summer” promotion. Tennessee is in Phase II and will shortly be in Phase III. Our approach is, whenever you’re ready to emerge back into the world we want you to do it on our dime. We’re getting gift cards to all of these local businesses (no chains) and giving those away in our normal giveaway slots that we would typically do concert tickets in. Everything from restaurants to museums to botanical gardens…all locally based. Jon Zellner, iHeartMedia: Definitely not a simple answer because our talent is speaking to a more fragmented audience than ever before, in terms of daily habits. Some are back to work already; some already know they won’t return to the office at all in 2020. More listeners are unemployed and out of their routines than at any other time in our generation and there continues to be a partisan divide in how our listeners view our country’s response to COVID-19, in addition to all of the other local, state, and national issues. We’re encouraging our talent to focus on positivity and companionship and to acknowledge the different places our listeners could be right now. Max Volume, KOZZ: With people spending more time at home, we’re giving away a $4,000 outdoor kitchen from Char Broil! |
Brian Mack, WXXL: We’re being very careful with this issue and just trying to mirror our divided audience. Heather DeLuca, WSJO: What we’re saying are things like ‘we can’t wait to catch up with you again’, and ‘we support local business owners and decision makers in the reopening of South Jersey’. Just that we’re glad to see things getting back to normal, as slowly as that may be. Jeff Hurley, iHeartMedia: The idea of a ‘Grand Re-Opening’ is happening in many of my markets over the coming weeks. We’re actively supporting our local communities in this process. Everyone understands the continued concerns about COVID-19. It’s our responsibility to provide timely, factual information by working closely with local and state governments to inform the public about these plans. |
Alex Tear, SiriusXM / Pandora: We are a national platform, being local can be tricky so we’ve taken the approach of creating a local community with our talent that’s included the biggest stars in music to share their real and relatable experiences during this unique, isolated and historic time. From Taylor to the Justin’s, Halsey, Jonas Brothers, Dua, twenty one pilots, Camila, Sam Smith and more, they were there for our Hits 1 community keeping it real. During social isolation we’ve grown closer to our audience by being there. Simply being available and providing some pretty cool surprises. We’ve become their daily audio companion. Our most recent example includes Memorial Day Weekend where our entire Hits 1 family was fully engaged on-air. We were there for our listeners. So many didn’t have family or friends to be with for the day, on Memorial Day while the majority of the country was “off,” we were on and fully engaged. Our efforts are not so much directed at “re-openings” per se, we’ve been open and have been listening, sharing, engaging and giving hope to a better tomorrow.
Rich Davis, KDWB: It’s a tough issue because people are everywhere across the spectrum with this. We’re just trying to convey that nothing is going to be “normal” for a while, but we’re here with you and we’re trying to resume some sense of normalcy with what we do on the radio. We know that people have different opinions on the subject, we’re just saying that it’s not normal for us either, but we’re all in this together.
Matt Johnson, KSLZ: We have to serve as a conduit of information because so many aspects of the country reopening can be taken as political. Our situation is complicated by the fact that we are in a bi-state area where Illinois is on a very different schedule than Missouri, and we have counties that are part of the market that are in both states. So, it’s more about gathering the info and presenting it in a consumable way that listeners want to hear it.
Rick Vaughn, KENZ: We’re scouting out local businesses as they open. We have a web page dedicated where local business operators can inform people that they’re open. We’ve been shouting-out the high schools who have been doing their graduations on the streets and sidewalks. We’re really not talking about the negative side of COVID-19 anymore, instead we’re focusing on the positives that are going on in the community. We’re not being too preachy about wearing masks and being safe. We’re not encouraging people to be stupid, but we’re also not being preachy anymore. That’s somebody else’s job.
R Dub! Z90: We are continuing to be an “escape” for our listeners in every way possible, concentrating on what we do best (entertain people) while helping everywhere we can — whether it’s celebrating grads or helping local businesses effected by Corona and the recent destruction.Next Week’s Question Of The Week:
Which two songs (one current or recurrent and one gold) best describe your philosophy on life?
e-Mail your responses to: jodorisio@deanemediasolutions.com or bburke@deanemediasolutions.com
