There are a number of factors that go into any major changes at a radio station, be it a format flip or a new morning show. In this week’s Programming To Win column, Arbitron’s Jon Miller gives some examples of the types of hard data that can be used in this type of decision making.
Jon Miller
By Jon Miller Director of Programming Services. Arbitron Inc.
Part of what makes radio such a fun, interesting world to work in is that it’s nearly equal parts science and magic. There is a subjective element to radio, just like any other creative art form, that makes it difficult to predict what listeners will embrace and what they will reject.
That’s part of the reason the industry trades are constantly filled with stories of format flips, station adjustments and radio shows – some popular, some not-so-much — signing on and off around the country in an ongoing attempt to capture the largest possible market share. And, no matter what market you work in, there will come a moment when it’s necessary to sit back and consider how your station is doing when it comes to taking advantage of the ratings opportunities that exist in your market.
Whether that means considering a format change, launching a new morning show or improving your music mix, the tough part of these discussions is that, because radio is partially subjective, quite often everyone involved has an opinion on how best to accomplish the goal based on nothing more than their gut feeling.
The good news is that you have an extensive arsenal of tools at your disposal to help apply actual data to the discussion which will help in making the most informed decision possible. It won’t make the process foolproof but these three suggestions can help you provide a logical framework for finding the best way to maximize your station’s ratings.
1. Examine the playing field for your market & format
One of the simplest ways to uncover areas of opportunity is to examine the flow of listening across the course of the day in the market. You can accomplish this in several ways by analyzing total market listening, the overall listening inside a specific demographic or age cell or the flow of listening for groups of stations or formats.
By examining the market as a whole you’ll immediately find out which times of day the total listening peaks and where the soft spots are which can be important factors for where to focus your resources. Nationally, the top hours for radio are in the afternoon around 4 or 5 o’clock but, because each market is unique, local factors will impact how radio is consumed during the day so you should be aware of the top hours for listening in your market.
It can also be helpful to narrow down your data to look at the stations whose formats are in the arena you are working in or looking to enter. For example, if you are considering changing to a Top 40 format in an attempt to take ratings from an existing station in the market it would make sense to do an hour-by-hour analysis of the ratings for the stations most likely to be used by the audience you are going after; in this case primarily 18-34 year olds. Your roster of formats might include Rhythmic Top 40, Hot AC, Country and Alternative. This will enable you to see when and where the target audiences use radio during the day.
2. Find out where the holes are
No one market serves every single discreet demographic equally, but finding out what areas of opportunity exist is not something readily available on the surface when using Arbitron information. But fear not, it’s not too far away and relatively easy to pull together if you know where to look.
First, every Arbitron subscriber has access to the online Tapscan Web application (the main tool your sales team uses to pull ratings), where you can run a ‘Median Age’ report which is a simple way to find out in just a couple of clicks the core audience age of every station in the market.
Once you’ve got the ages figured out, you can use one of several Arbitron programming software programs (Tapscan Web, Maximiser, PD Advantage for Diary, PPM Analysis Tool) to run audience composition reports based on gender. Try using the key demographic you are interested in to find out the gender skew of all your main competitors.
Once you finish, you’ll know by age and gender exactly where each major player in the market is focused and therefore where the soft spots are that aren’t being covered by the current options in the market. Those holes are your areas of opportunity.
3. Study the Audience
Particularly if you’re thinking about launching a new show on your station, use Scarborough’s consumer database to learn more about what interests your target audience so you can tailor your content accordingly.
Scarborough, if you aren’t familiar, is a great but underused resource available in the top 75 markets that marries your station’s audience data with information about consumer and lifestyle habits. A short tutorial on how to pull this information can be found here.
As a programmer you can investigate your (or your competitor’s) listener’s media habits and lifestyle preferences. Not just what other media they spend their time with, but what kind of shows they prefer, what they do in their spare time, and what interests them in the consumer world.
If you are toying with launching a new morning show, try isolating morning drive listeners in your target demographic to learn about their interest in the more than 20 different categories Scarborough measures. You can find out how interested are they in the local sports teams, where they like to vacation, what they do with their time online and much more all of which are clues to help the content on your station stand out.
It’s true no amount of data will ever make it possible to completely predict what the audience will enjoy and what they will hate. If it did, every station would be instantly and continuously successful. But, when making a change of any magnitude to your station, starting with a market framework based on ratings information will undoubtedly increase the likelihood of making the right call.
Follow the Arbitron Programming Services Team online at www.arbitrontraining.com/programming and on Twitter at @ArbProgramming.
