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The Bigger Picture: Why?
November 16, 2022
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Why are we making our listeners jump through hoops to listen to us? Why are we making our listeners jump through hoops to win from us? It’s bad enough that our ratings system and methodology (PPM) is difficult enough to actually achieve “real” ratings with a decent margin of error, let alone capture (and keep) the attention of anyone within the first six seconds of content. But why would you as a programmer, or personality, do and say things on air that make it so difficult for your listeners to stick around and engage, or try to win prizes from the station?
I’m in a new city, and a new market, so I am listening to everything on the radio dial (or dashboard) right now to try to find my new favorite stations and become familiar with the market landscape. Radio is good here, but I have heard a few things that made me almost drive off the road in the last week or so.
First, let me start by saying, this was literally “THE” example that made me almost drive off the road. The station had my attention, I was listening to my second song in a row. I felt like I could stick around because so far, they were playing the hits. So, the talent comes on, does a decent break, and then says, “I’ll play (insert song here) when we come back in 12 minutes.” WHAT!?!?!?! TWELVE MINUTES? Are you kidding me (struggles to maintain control of car on highway)???? I could understand if it was like 2 minutes, or 3 minutes AT THE MOST. But I’ll be honest, even 3 minutes makes me as a listener, viewer or follower tap out immediately. So, twelve minutes feels like an ETERNITY.
Now, I am a programmer, so I understand that 12 minutes is pretty much the maximum number of commercials you “should be” playing PER HOUR (not per break) in radio (give or take a promo or two). But to actually say, out loud, to your listeners, “We’ll be back in 12 minutes,” is the absolute fastest way to blow your chance of ever getting a new listener to cume your station voluntarily again (meaning to actually create an occasion of listening vs. flipping through stations and landing there). It is the absolute biggest turn off possible for a potential P1, P2, or P3. And why on EARTH would you play 12 minutes of commercials in one break, even IF you are trying to make up inventory for long music sweeps? Smart managers and programmers know that if you’re going to do long music sweeps, some sacrifices have to be made somewhere, but that sacrifice is NOT 12 MINUTES of commercials in one break. And even if you do, the last thing you want to do is say that OUT LOUD, ON THE AIR.
The following day, I heard a pre-promote break by one of the jocks on the same station for an upcoming promotion. It’s a location promotion, meaning it has nothing to do with on air listening or driving ratings, and everything to do with trying to make listeners go all around the city to find clues to win. Taking pictures, stringing them all together, then posting them online. First of all, there was so much information, the jock couldn’t even get the message out clearly. And secondly, seriously? Do you understand how detailed and challenging that is? Just to win a pair of concert tickets? I don’t care who it is. Unless you are giving away a minimum of $5k…actual money, good luck getting any bang for your buck.
How many listeners will actually participate in a contest like this, much less have the time to put that much energy into traveling all around the city (a tourist city at that) figuring out clues, collecting these things and uploading them digitally? Sure, you might get a few die hards, but if you want to succeed in the ratings game, your job is to be easy and mass appeal and build cume and get people to listen for long periods of time. Not to drive all over the city searching for clues. I am not even sure how this would help a brand digitally if not everyone can do it? You better pray for something to go viral some how in order for this to pay off in any way for the brand. And by the way, everyone of your competitors is giving away the same prize but making it a whole lot easier than you are to win. You should never make your listeners jump through hoops for any benefit from your brand. There’s way too much noise out there distracting them and way too much competition.
This topic (jumping through hoops) brings me back to a recent client experience I had with launching a new morning show on a new frequency with a station in a head on battle with a legendary brand in the market. This example is the first thing I brought up to the team. On their first day on the air, they had a decent pair of concert tickets to giveaway. So, they get on the air and start to do some kind of “impossible trivia question” to find a winner and do the usual playback of people getting the answer wrong. The question was so hard, they even said on the air, “We are going to make you jump through hoops to win these tickets.” Why would you do that? It’s 2022, no one has the time or the will to jump through hoops and try to win a pair of concert tickets. Nor do they have the attention span to listen to a bunch of wrong answers. They will punch out so fast, looking for better options.
This is not rocket science. We live in a world of immediate gratification. And we can get it just about anywhere. Do you not understand, that once you do or say anything that makes it difficult to win, or be entertained, you automatically eliminate anyone who doesn’t have the time, patience, or desire to work that hard to participate, or even be interested in the competition. Caller 25, or text the code to win, or tell us what happened to win may seem boring, but sadly, if you are still doing difficult trivia or games or making people work like they are in a Cirque show for prizes or quality content, then you have no idea who your audience is.
And while you think making people run around the city looking for clues and jumping through digital hoops sounds cool, and it’s good for your social media traffic, you’ve just cut your participation rate by more than half and haven’t done one thing to help grow your ratings. You want to make a difference digitally? “Reels, reels and more reels!” Short ones that entertain.
So, here’s what you need to know:
- You literally have seconds to capture someone’s attention when you open the mic, so get straight to the juice, or play another hit record.
- Once you get their attention, you need to continue to be engaging in order to keep their Time Spent Listening. If that listener is a meter holder, you need to continue to do that for five minutes straight (within a quarter hour) in order to get credit for it in the ratings. Nothing else matters.
- When contesting, as boring as it sounds, text in to win, text the code to win, or caller 25 is the way to go. If the prize isn’t more exciting than one of these options, then the prize doesn’t need to be “on the air.” That’s where you can benefit from your digital or social contesting.
- But, demanding digital Olympics for prizes isn’t going to increase your ratings or your traffic, so your contesting needs to be designed to benefit on air listening with supporting digital engagement (and by that, I mean reels), and vice versa, so it needs to be easy (Click the “like” button and add the hashtag).
- And finally, enough with the random Trivia. Unless it’s a question that leads to great stories and engaging entertainment, get more creative. If you MUST do it, make it easy, or outrageous, but not impossible.
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