Thursday, October 16, 2008

(Still) More Ingredients Of A Great Country Radio Station (III)

My first and second nomination lists of things I love hearing on country's perennial award-winners, have stimulated even more:

* At the start of each hour of the morning show (5:59 and 6:59), they immediately promote to 6:20 and 7:20 am with a specific reason to listen an extra quarter hour.

* At 7:50, they do a powerful, compelling, content-driven, listener-relevant reason to take the station to work.

* They establish strong 'reason to listen' benchmarks in the 9 am, 11 am, 1 pm and 3 pm hours with fixed-time appointments to listen regularly, featuring powerful pay-offs to heavy users of the station. These are reinforced both on the air and in interactive media, online and text.

* They don't rely on radio-talk crutches like double time sells (analog and digital), say (time) "now," (temp) "outside," or use back announce audience-losers like "before that, we started off with, the latest from." PPM is powerfully demonstrating that radio "announcers" have conditioned listeners that commercials are coming and it's time to tune out unless the voice is a unique character the listener considers a "brand," who engages in emotion-sharing and story-telling first and foremost, with something important to say.

* No mixed messages, cynical attitude, dirty stuff. Funny, entertaining, bright, warm, friendly attitude.

So, what ARE you hearing right now that you like?


1 comment:

Anonymous said...

7 Habits Of Successful Stations
Copyright © 2008 by Mike McVay

1. NEWS & INFORMATION IN THE MORNINGS Winning radio stations present informative news reports and have community information so listeners can plan their lives. The most successful of these radio stations present news that, were it in print, would mirror a local weekly small community newspaper.

2. PRESENCE AT COMMUNITY EVENTS
Being everywhere, being seen by everyone, being involved with anything that matters to the community, attaching your name to those things the community cares about is extremely important.

3. FAVORITE MORNING SHOW
How often do people change their radios in morning drive? They all do it in the car, but seldom do they change the clock radio in their bedroom.

4. BEING FUN TO LISTEN TO
The person working in a steel mill considers
your air talents’ job (being paid to play music and talk) as anything but work. Encourage your on-air talent to sound as though they’re having fun.

5. BEST FOR LISTENING AT-WORK
Successful music stations have a product that is compatible with at-work listening locations. You MUST be a “Listen While You Work” radio station to be successful.

6. MOST CONTESTS
We've all seen studies that indicate only 5% to 10% of the audience plays contests. But the most successful stations have contests and games
on the air. Radio stations that win … play games.

7. CONNECTION TO HERITAGE/LENGTH OF TIME IN FORMAT/CONNECTION TO THE MUSIC
A radio station that brands one name with the type of music it plays and doesn’t keep changing will have the greatest opportunity for success. Find
something that works …. And stick with it.