All We Have Are Songs And Words

By John Frost
Goodratings Strategic Service

I'm told my weekly Frost Advisory is read by people at radio stations all over the world. With that in mind every week I sit down at the kitchen table with my Big Chief tablet and #2 pencil and attempt to carve away at ideas or observations that will help any station regardless of shoe size.

"There's nothing to writing. All you do is sit down at a typewriter and open a vein." Red Smith

Complicated programming concepts can be boiled down to core ideas. Such as.....

All we have are songs and words.

Big stations and small stations can just as easily evaluate those two things. What do we want to accomplish with each?

Songs

We want them to be loved.
We want them to be memorable.
We want them to resonate.

Words

We want them to be relevant.
We want them to be interesting.
We want them to convey the Big Idea of why the station exists.

There's more, but this is a place to start. Consider working through these concepts with your programming team.

In the coming weeks I'll dig deeper into these concepts. This, in essence, will be my speech at CMB's Momentum this September in Orlando. (That's a tease!)