As John Mayer said, “A little bit of summer is what the whole year is all about,” but today, the first day of Fall, is so much more than a time marker for when summer ends. The emotions felt are varied: from melancholy over losing warm weather and longer days to excitement and anticipation for the holiday season.
We start to feel the end of another year coming, as life “starts” again. Post-Labor Day, we return to a normal work routine. There’s high school, college, and professional football. Pictures of our children as they grow. The ever-popular raking of the leaves.
For radio, the upside of this seasonal shift is that routines reemerge, even with a lot of economic and political uncertainty, global turmoil, and media overload. If history is predictive of the future, listening habits will return to the pattern of everyday life before summer and school vacations began.
This is when those things that are traditional for your station should be highlighted and promoted as new. There’s a comfort to knowing that benchmarks happen on time, that the talent and/or news anchors remain reliable, informative, and entertaining. Being predictable is, in some cases, a good thing.
Applying the theory that all businesses lose 20% of their business each year, now is also the time to aggressively search for new listeners, use exposure and marketing wherever and whenever possible as tactics, and contest in a way that builds Time Spent Listening. It’s always easier to write these suggestions than to execute them.
Summers Gone; Fall Has Begun
Start Fast
Realize that mornings start earlier when the world shifts following summer. Because parents and their children are up earlier, they will be listening earlier. There’s no warm-up. Be ready and awake to hit the ground running. Morning shows need to sound bright and engaged, present entertaining and compelling content right away. Be prepared to deliver on topics that will be talked about all day.
Day-to-Day Habitual Listening
Benchmark features are referred to as such because a “Benchmark” is a way to measure something. Thus, my preference is that benchmarks air at a regular, consistent time whenever they air. The listener knows that “If I’m not crossing the railroad track by the time Trivia comes on, I’m going to be late for work.”
Localize Consistently
There are things that happen in the everyday life of every community that interest someone somewhere. Show prep has to be more than using a service or looking at the national news. Lean into those things that are relatable seasonally. If your talent are not locally based, then they need to do even more purposeful research to ensure that they’re talking about connected topics.
Refresh and Remember; Play The Hits (Music or News/Talk):
Music: If you’re a music station that means playing peoples favorite songs frequently, be yours a gold based or current based station. Refreshing the music means checking the be 100% sure that your music is rotating at a turnover rate that enables your audience to have the potential to hear a song 3.5 times a week. Track your music to check on exposure across all dayparts. Create multiple clocks so that the position of the songs played changes hours and days through the week.
News/Talk: If you’re a spoken word station, treat your biggest stories as if they’re the biggest hits. Present them frequently and in high-profile positions. Balance them through the hour and day as the stories have a life cycle. Never assume that the audience listens for long periods of time. Every quarter hour likely has significant audience turnover. If news/talk radio is to be a “destination,” you have to deliver on the promise of instant gratification.
