Where Have the Listeners Gone

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(By Mike McVay) The work world has been slowly returning to normal, and despite many businesses continuing to Work from Home, we’re seeing listening levels start to improve. There’s still a way to go as Persons Using Measured Media (PUMM) levels are lagging behind share levels.  Those stations who altered daypart times have mostly reverted to the schedule of traditional dayparts.

The more society reopens, the more individuals will return to pre-pandemic habits, but that doesn’t mean that radio listening levels, or cume levels, will rebound on their own. We won’t get the casual listener back without a focus on improving the listening experience, marketing to bring that audience back, improving the quality of our content (including commercials) and providing better content with fewer interruptions.

Many listeners have expanded what they listen to, where and when. That means that the level of competition is greater as we emerge from the pandemic versus before. Many stations will find that they need to market aggressively to better compete for this diminished available audience. Research shows that a significant number of listeners have shifted to listening to the radio on their smart speakers, on a computer or on their phone. That should encourage stations to seriously consider Total Line Reporting. If you’re not TLR, you receive no credit from Nielsen. In most cases where a station Total Line Reports, the increased revenue from rating growth will overshadow the revenue loss of eliminating streaming commercials.

Here are 7 Steps to Take to Bring Back the Audience:

  1. Improve the listening experience on-line. The easy solution is Total Line Reporting. Simulcast what’s on-air onto your digital stream. What one hears on-air then is what is heard on-line. Update your SIP with Nielsen to get 100% credit for your content everywhere the station can be heard. Does your Smart Speaker pull-up your station when you ask for it with how it is identified on-the-air? Those two things need to match. Teach your audience how to activate such a skill.
  2. Improve the writing and quality of the produced commercials that you air. Too few stations have the team to produce good quality commercials and even fewer have copywriters on staff to create great commercials. You can outsource this service. There are several companies to both write and produce commercials. The same goes for imaging. Outsource this to the experts.
  3. Manage the heavy commercial load that many stations air by looking for those highest listened hours to air fewer messages. I’d ask that we all lower our spot-loads, as it would be valuable to advertisers to do so, but I’m not counting on anyone making that move. So, play fewer messages in your most listened to hours.
  4. Return dayparts to standard Nielsen dayparts. This is when the audience expects to hear your shows. Meet that expectation. Morning shows no longer need to extend beyond 10:00am as the nation’s workforce seems to be returning to normal workhours.
  5. Invest in personalities. If you’re a music station, music is important, but listener loyalty is developed when the audience has a relationship with the on-air talent. This is obviously true for News/Talk and Sports/Talk stations. We’re seeing more stations develop two-person afternoon shows, too. The DPS’ are adding personalities to their music streams. We have to ask ourselves what they know that we in radio don’t know … or have forgotten.
  6. Market your product. If you don’t have the budget to mass market, then use direct marketing and social media marketing. The audience you once had has been exposed to a lot of different entertainment and information programs over the last year. Reintroduce your station to the audience that you are targeting. Sell a benefit. “WHY” should anyone listen to your station? It’s not enough to simply be on the air.
  7. Serve your community and connect to your community. If you’re local and live, sound like it. Do what a national show cannot do and that is design your content to speak to the local neighborhoods within your market. If you’re using a network or syndicated program, ask that network talent to assist you to localize their show to your market. You cannot “flip a switch” on a network show and walkaway.

Mike McVay is President of McVay Media and can be reached at  [email protected]

6 COMMENTS

  1. It’s much easier for local radio to build a strong connection with local listeners, so stick to the local themes should be a solution? Anyway, you can’t compete with websites in most spheres.

  2. Good advice, down the list. Emphasize your “Improve the listening experience on-line.” – View each upgrade of an app or OS as an improvement. That’s Standard Operating Procedure in the tech world.

    Stations need to have periodic upgrades of programming, where each version improves a different element.

  3. This is one fine article, well-written, to the point. It would be wonderful if a lot of radio broadcasters gave this some thought over the long weekend. TY for saying it, Mike.

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