(By Mike McVay) One of the many things that I realized in the early part of my career as a Program Director is that almost everyone who works at a radio station believes that they can program a station.
Many air-talent believe that they can program a radio station. Some market managers, sales managers, sellers and engineers also feel that “if they just do what I’m suggesting, we’ll win.”
Most program directors have been on the air somewhere at some time in their career. They’ve had wins and losses. The successful PD’s learn from those lessons of success and failure.
There are certainly cases where someone whose never been on the air has risen to the ranks of Program Director, and they’ve been successful. I can call out several off the top of my head. Those individuals usually come from research, promotion or production. They’ve been around the show part of show business and they understand what an audience wants. They learn execution along the way. Trial and error are an important part of the process when it comes to training as a Program Director.
What is clear to me is that the very best managers of Program Directors understand that creatives often hear a party in their head that others haven’t been invited to. Be they on-air, production, or as a PD, successful market managers understand that these talented people have high highs and low lows. The very best have mercurial mood swings. We don’t always communicate well why we’re frustrated about something, but we do communicate well that we are frustrated. Sometimes too well.
It’s important to understand what a program director is dealing with in executing their daily job. Their entire focus is on growing and maintaining an audience. That means that they need to be focused on motivating and encouraging talent, on the sound of their station, and be committed to every detail of every part of what comes out of the speakers. When they’re approached with anything that may jeopardize the ratings, you’re going to get a negative reaction, which should be understandable to the individual making that approach.
Today’s PD is also aware that they need to help sales and the promotion departments. Generating revenue is an “all hands-on deck” scenario. Digital has become an important part of the platform that is today’s radio and that requires a programmer’s attention and collaboration. Music PD’s also deal with the time consumption required to meet with label reps and listen to music. All of this while protecting the product.
My style was always to try to satisfy the person who made an approach to me, but it might be that my response was to offer an alternative to their idea, as a way to satisfy my goal to protect the product and still accomplish their goal. It’s tough to not say “No” immediately when approached by someone with an idea that could cost the station audience. That’s why an approach to a PD should be with the germ of an idea whereby a collective concept can be created. You should never expect a positive response from the PD if you start the conversation with “this has already been sold.”
These are my five suggestions for The Care and Feeding of Your Program Director:
- The Market Manager (or Operations Manager) and PD relationship is critical to the success of the station. Work together versus being at cross purposes. You have to be a team and have faith and trust in each other. Start with acknowledging that you know where the PD’s heart is and share your goals and objectives as a destination to arrive at when your journey begins.
- When faced with multiple NO responses from the PD, ask “why.” If it’s to protect the product, and not put the ratings at-risk, then explain your purpose for the request and explore options that provide the same result without damaging the stations content or driving away listeners.
- You can always overrule the PD, but what’s the tradeoff, and is the move worth the risk? One of my major market clients was not in a position to match a competitors lower commercial load, but they were able to provide a bigger prize to fuel a major contest that put the station in a more competitive position.
- Give the PD the benefit of the doubt. No reputable experienced Program Director awakes in the morning with a plan to foil the market managers plans for the station. The PD wants nothing more than to rank high in the ratings. It’s our job. It’s how we’re wired. We are programmed to put points on the board.
- You cannot hold your PD responsible for ratings decline or audience erosion if you eliminate their ability to possess tools that can buoy the ratings. The same goes for saving money by degrading the product or listener experience, overselling the station, cluttering the programming with too many messages, accepting an inferior audio sound or allowing your stations technical plant or tower to decay to where it negatively impacts your signal. It’s my experience that if they can’t hear your station, they can’t listen.
Mike McVay is President of McVay Media and can be reached at [email protected]
Good morning, Mike. Nothing you said can be further from the truth. There is a talent problem in radio. Though how severe depends on the company and whether it attracts or rejects the truly talented people. A modern PD needs to know digital, yes…and good companies spend time and money to help them learn what they don’t know, or if they are starting from scratch, what they need to know. The company I work for does this. The biggest issue with this, is the level of “control” issued by corporate. Surely, they should be in overall control, but they need to allow people on the local level to make decisions. And that refers to budgets, who or what is on the air on the stations, playlists, commercial loads, etc. In order to serve a local market, you need LOCAL people making decisions on the ground about how to SERVE a local audience. Where you see that, you’ll see a company with DECADES of success. Even today.
This looks like The Cumulus handbook for the investors to read and shell out their money. Todays PD’s are mostly playing to keep their jobs. They are boring and full of fear, basically the leftovers because anyone with real talent is cashing in on the digital audience rather than free fast food and Amazon gift cards from record labels. Another aspect of the “modern” PD is that they’re not modern because they didn’t take the time to learn about leveraging digital assets. They may “know” something but they typically don’t execute it, just give their bloated and boring takes. You’ll never see another sector of the entertainment business where the most un-entertaining people are running the show.