Do The Few Speak For Or Listen To The Many?

What To Do Till The Cume Comes Back

Recently, I got to thinking about how drastically different the landscape of the Urban radio and music industries have become. We have very few standalone Urban FM stations. Most Urban AC stations today have evolved from what was once a station that played both urban and urban AC music. Today, in 2007, it's nearly impossible to find not only an Urban station, but any station without any other stations in the same building. A few years ago there was no Internet, no satellite radio, no iPods, or MP3s, and the focus of everyone in the building from our GM to our jocks to our chief engineer was product. Recently that has changed. The new message seems to be "cheaper is better." As a result we have lost jobs, passion and the opportunity and ability to train tomorrow's talent and decision-makers.

It seems the very thing that fueled Urban radio's boom in the late '90s may also be responsible for the downturn the format experienced in the last year or so. Are we drowning in new artists after riding a wave of them earlier? Many programmers and MDs we've spoken to recently seem to feel this is the case. They're saying, and for the most part we agree, those listeners who crossed over to us from other formats became disillusioned with Urban and Urban AC radio because the sound and the artists became unfamiliar. So they headed back to where they came from once those formats got better artists and jams in place. And these Rhythmic Top 40 and Urban-leaning pop stations did a great job of marketing their newfound popularity.

On the plus side, I believe a turnaround is imminent, and it's already beginning to happen in 2007. If we know one thing, it's that this business is cyclical. The dichotomy between Urban and other music-similar formats should create unrest among its P2s and P3s. If Urban can market effectively and remain fairly familiar, we should see some of prodigals return. That will only happen if we begin keeping titles around longer while helping the "B-tier artists" develop roots and a fan base.

Many Urban stations are kind of in a holding pattern. Any format that is not the flavor of the day is not getting a lot of new cume, so it must pull back and focus on increasing time spent listening (TSL) among its core audience. The tremendous growth the format experienced in recent years has left it overall in better shape than it was prior to the '90s, but the question remains, will we see another growth spurt?

What else can we do while waiting for the cume to come back? Constantly evaluate all of your station's non-music elements. Urban should be focused on superserving its core, whether you're an Urban or an Urban AC. The production values on your station say a lot about who you are and how listeners relate to you.

During the mid-'90s, many Urban stations adopted a Top 40-type presentation. The reason was that many of the urban consultants were "aliens from another format" who made the decisions on how the station would sound. This type tactic was effective initially during Urban's growth cycle because it helped position the format's style from the old image and helped create a fresh new sound to surround the fresh new music. It was a great way for an Urban station to attract the younger demos that were coming to the format in larger numbers. However, Urban stations that continued to maintain the same production and presentation techniques that were effective then sound outdated today.

Finally, another thing you can do until the cume comes back is to develop the format on your station into a living, breathing thing that evolves as the competitive environment around it changes.

You can be very aggressive with music and new artists when Urban is the flavor of the day and almost effortlessly attract tons of new cume, but when the flow of new cume ceases, you must change your strategy.

Only in the past three or four years has the advent of Internet music stores, digital media players, satellite radio, DVR and cell phones with MP3 capability made me really begin to worry about our future. One thing is clear: The landscape of available media and technology is drastically different than it was just a few years ago. Listeners of every format (or music genre) have the ability to get any song they want, on demand, any time they want. Further, if they desire commercial-free programming of thinly sliced musical niches, they can find it. And too, they can now bring media players with them or listen to them in their cars. We will have to wait and see how a merger between XM and Sirius radio will take place and where that place will take us.

Terrestrial music radio is a mass-appeal medium. Even within specified formats, such as Urban AC, stations are always looking to build cume (the overall number of people tuning into a station per week) and then increase the number of occasions said people listen. Further, stations seek to extend the amount of time people listen when they do tune in (AQH and TSL).

To accomplish this, we have to play music that will appeal to the highest common denominator, meaning we are the exact opposite of what the new-media platforms offer. Our gold libraries are way too deep; our repetition is high, and chances taken on new music or music outside of defined accessible formats are low. Urban AC stations typically only add one or two songs a week, if that. Urban AC radio is anything but on demand as far as music; it would seem clear we can't be if we're going to appeal to and maintain the largest number of samplers while attracting the broadest base of clients and advertisers possible. But we've been here before, which brings me to the title of this point. Are the few speaking for or listening to the many?

In the wake of the payola hearings of 1959-60, black announcers suddenly no longer had the freedom to experiment with music they felt would appeal to their audience, and few were granted unlimited freedom to play requests. Unable to rope in an audience solely with music content, appealing to the masses and building a steady sustainable audience fell to personalities, such as Tom Joyner, Russ Parr, Steve Harvey, and Doug Banks, who developed shtick and unique on-air styles. With outlandish contests and promotional activities outside of the station, personalities of the '70s, '80s and 90 have made their time on-air memorable based on their content. If there was going to be limited excitement generated by tight playlists which then, like today, could not serve any one individual listener's tastes, the content of what went on between the records and stopsets was going to have to be what roped the listener in.

Urban radio still has the ability to create content by allowing personalities to be funny, irreverent, emotional, topical, warm and friendly, engaged in the format lifestyle and, of course, local. Radio is a one-on-one "reach out and touch you" medium. It might not be viable for Urban AC music radio to match the on-demand options of new media, but we can deliver content around the best researched playlists possible. On this front, new media can't compete. The new media options can't create emotional bonds, greet a local little league team, or make Bobby Brown or Whitney Houston jokes over song intros.

Nor can an MP3 player or web jukebox give an excited, single mom a thousand dollars on a gray Thursday afternoon while she's stuck in a traffic jam. Terrestrial music radio can, but we have to allow our personalities to really be personalities again.

Syndicated morning shows, such as Steve Harvey and Tom Joyner, can add topical discussion, local listener interaction, birthdays, showbiz gossip, bits, and parodies into quarter hours. Additionally, they are shows that don't take themselves too seriously. While our listeners could all download Lloyd, Pretty Ricky, Robin Thicke and Gerald Levert songs themselves and play them on their computers or MP3 players all they like, Steve and Tom can play them along with a phone scam, a big ticket giveaway and, of course, local news, weather and traffic, all in a 20-minute span. This should be true of all stations in all dayparts. All of our personalities should be able to create an atmosphere of fun and operate within the station identity to create engaging content coupled with the music. The same can be said of strong local shows such as Dallas' K-104 with Skip Murphy and WPGC in Washington with Donnie Simpson defining the broadcast day, which is jammed packed with content and promotions. Also, both K-104 and WPGC effectively embrace new media as an extension of their personalities' shows and stationality, from podcasts to web streaming.

I could also cite examples of many great personalities, from morning hosts and nighttime rhymers to masters of the phone bit. But instead, let's remember the CJ Morgan show, formerly mornings on WQUE in New Orleans. The Q-93 formatics were notoriously rigid and the playlist remarkably tight, yet CJ was a talent who could create content by relating the way he saw the world his listeners lived in to the music he was playing. He accomplished this using benchmark features, impeccable wit and intelligent vocabulary.

A lot of his warmth and charm came from the way he could make a listener feel he respected them, sharing a joke or fact with just them "second-person singular." He did all of this seamlessly in and out of those same top 20 tested songs day-after-day.

Notably too is the revisit Q-93 did to its musical past, incorporating chatter, guests, bits, trivia, callers and music. I offer that this concept may not be far from the kind of content-driven music Urban Adult radio needs to be providing consumers to survive and remain relevant in the years to come. Mass-appeal urban music offered with lots of engaging content and direct continual listener participation may be a viable answer to slipping TSL and cascading cume.

Terrestrial music radio will remain relevant if it deeply refocuses on investing in its product. Yes, this means getting the music right, but equally, if not more importantly, it means creating an on-air, promotional and new media identity that reinforces what the product is and allows personalities to create and package this content to make that magic come through the speakers.

So back to the original question, do the few speak for or listen to the many? It depends on who you ask.

Word.