The Programming Model, Revisited

The programming model for the longest time has remained unchanged, due in large part to the consistent competitive nature of over-the-air radio versus, at most, SiriusXM, television, or social media.

Nielsen’s model in diary markets (methodology unchanged) depends on a Number 2 pencil, while metered markets’ greatest challenge was in getting five individual minutes inside of any quarter hour. That and satisfying a household that could hold a meter for 24 months. That was not long ago, but it seems like the distant past, given the media world we’re living in today.

The three-minute adjustment by Nielsen is capturing listening that went unaccounted for previously. Households can remain in a sample for up to 36 months. The level of competition is higher than it’s ever been. There’s no reason to believe it will lessen. The way the audience uses radio has changed.

Where one can listen to the radio has changed as well, especially given the multiple platforms on which programming can now be heard. Where we find ourselves warrants a new view of how programmers should be viewing content creation.

Playing the biggest hits frequently, whether those hits are top-charting songs or the biggest news/sports stories, remains a critical part of creating success in radio. It’s all about instant gratification. The more often I hear my favorite song or the biggest story, the more frequently I will return to your station. That’s how we build time spent listening. Repeat listening. However, the importance of music flow, i.e., blending music, isn’t as critical as it once was in scheduling content. I contend that the audience, especially younger listeners, is conditioned to hearing songs as individual tunes and not part of a tapestry.

There was a time decades ago when the way in which album tracks were laid down was an art. One song was to segue into another as someone dropped the needle on vinyl, and music on an album was consumed one title after another. Spending hours scheduling music is gone. The listener’s expectation has changed. That’s due in large part to self-curation of music. Listeners used to program their own radio station by pushing buttons. Now they create their own radio stations by downloading songs, listening to streams, or allowing algorithms to play a type of music by the artists they listen to the most.

Radio is not the vehicle for music discovery that it once was, but exposing a song repeatedly still creates the biggest hits. Which is why even though RDS your App or Quu will show you the artist name and song title, you should identify new music and new artists. Don’t make the listener work to know what it is that’s being aired. This can also be a positive way of positioning your station or branding the format. Magnification of the biggest artists with the biggest songs emphasizes what you want to be famous for as a radio station.

I’ve always been a fan of using a tactic called “boxcar” when you segue two songs together. That is that you speak over the intro of the next song, and not over the outro of the last song and the intro of the next. Talk over an outro when you are going into a commercial break. That’s how the audience has been trained for years. When a listener hears an air talent speak over an outro, it means “commercials are coming,” and they may punch out. Speaking over the intro only is an unspoken message to the audience that you’re not stopping down for commercials.

We are mercenaries, and generating revenue is why we do what we do, but “too many commercials” is the first complaint you’ll hear from a listener when asked. Which makes it important to signal that the music is continuing when in fact it isn’t stopping. Teasing with an incentive into a commercial break as to what’s coming has never been more important, especially in PPM markets. You only need 3 minutes.

Music Quantity is important. Long music sweeps. Fewer Stop-Sets. The objective is to build time spent listening, but being known for long music sweeps can build your cume numbers, too. If a listener knows that you play the most music day-in-and-day-out, they’ll come back more frequently. Where and when to schedule a long music sweep should be based on when you have the most listeners.

If you are in a diary market, then research shows us that the first and third quarter hours have the most diary entries. That’s a function of the methodology used by the diary rating system. The same can be said for (present) presenting the most music in the hours where your audience is the largest.

The importance of having entertaining and informative personalities is another critical attribute to enable a radio station to better compete in the cluttered marketplace today. Developing an emotional connection between your on-air personalities and listeners (without increasing the amount of talk) is an effective way of ingraining the station’s brand into the listener’s memory. The more real and genuine they are, the better connection they’ll have with your audience.

Talent are very important to the success of radio. The very best talent are amazing storytellers. They tell strong descriptive stories using visual words as they paint a picture. A competitor can copy the music or content you present. They cannot copy your personalities.

Promotions/Contesting needs to be reimagined as well. Powerball and Mega Millions dwarf the money that a radio station can give away. While a researched audience will always ask for cash, cars, and trips, what is moving the needle is experiences. Experiential marketing versus a competitor who is giving cash is akin to the campaign Burger King ran against McDonald’s. Broiling versus frying.

Experiences “that money can’t buy” take the battle in an entirely different arena. Instead of being dwarfed by a national lottery or competing with a group cash contest where there’s only one winner, offering an option that emphasizes fantasy stands out in this noisy environment.

You will need more than on-air promotions and contesting if you plan to grow your cume. You will need external marketing to do that. That means on-line marketing via website ads, social media, Instagram, Facebook, and Twitter, as well as the more traditional platform of transit and billboards. I’m not a big fan of TV for marketing as it isn’t cost-effective, unless you’re saturating CTV. Targeted marketing is the most cost-effective form of marketing that is available to us today.

Content delivery on multiple platforms is an important part of distribution to reach the audience where they listen. That is over the air, on streams, Apps, smart speakers, podcasts, social media, and on demand. Video is an important part of radio as well.

Cameras in your studio enable you to expand your reach through services like Twitch, create segments on TikTok, and add a sense of sight to your stream. In addition to serving as another touchpoint between on-air talent and the listener, it expands what you can sell to advertisers. The adage that you’ve seen me write here before, and I continue to believe is extremely important to success, is to be everywhere and be seen everywhere.

A part of consistency comes from the connection you can create with a market. A station involved with charitable organizations underscores that your station cares. It screams that you’re involved in the community. You’re giving back to the people. It is this type of connectivity that consistently-leading stations have with their markets. It is more important today than in the past because fewer and fewer stations have local owners. This is one of the many things that are different than what they used to be. A station that takes every opportunity to celebrate the community in which it serves will accomplish much more than a station that is unengaged.

It’s time to reimagine the programming model and what we’ve been doing on air. It’s time to rethink how we’re programming to attract an audience. It’s beyond time to acknowledge that the way people use the radio has changed. What we’ve done in the past can and should evolve. It doesn’t have to be blown up, but it warrants being revisited.