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Instant Groove-Ification
March 17, 2009
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"Everything ... All The Time"
In this age of instant everything, listeners simply won't wait to be rewarded by their favorite radio station. They're searching for something we call "instant groove-ification." They want their favorite station to get into and keep them in the groove. With the advent of Arbitron's PPM, programmers whose stations are structured to immediately gratify listeners' needs have a winning edge over their competition. Even unemployed listeners are still in a hurry. They simply don't have time to waste. They're in a hurry to find a gig. Now they may listen longer because they have more time to listen, but they're still part of an age of instant, one-button memory dialing cell phones, instant microwave fast food and they have been forced to place a higher premium on their time than ever before.
Instant Strategy
To maximize the effectiveness of the instant gratification theory, programmers should keep this concept in mind when planning every on-air element, including those syndicated shows that many have been forced to run. The effort should include redesigning the hourly clocks and re-planning everything that happens on the air, from basic service features and contesting to music.
The tactics come into play from the start of the broadcast day as the awakening audience returns to the workday world, needing an instant time, weather, traffic and reality fix. What if yours is a syndicated morning show that can't give these things to them as often as they need them? That's a risk you can't afford to take. Your listeners won't stay with your station beyond the end of the next segment or record, if they don't get a least a brief time and temperature drop-in. You must find a way to give them what they need.
One way of holding onto this audience is by miniaturizing the content to an ultra-brief form, slipped into the commercial breaks. Here's a question for you: Does your station segue in morning drive? If the answer is "yes," you're not meeting that morning audience's needs. You're asking for a shorter Time Spent Listening (TSL) span and risking listeners' loyalty. You're inviting them to sample the competition and convert. Your station could instantly go from a P1 to a P2. You're risking tune-out and you simply can't afford to do this. In a diary world, they might forget that they tuned away from your station and credit you simply because you're their favorite station, but in the PPM world, the meter will pick up that switch and you will lose some listening credit.
Tease, Don't Torment
The same preoccupation with instant satisfaction extends to how you tease your contests as well as the selection of topical items jocks on music shows deliver as part of their daily show prep. In the case of the contest, regardless of what type of contest it is, it's best to combine a contest tease with music or feature tease -- e.g.: "Coming up next, a chance for you to win your way into a $1,000 shopping spree (pause), plus the most-requested song of the hour." Avoid the temptation to tease contests by themselves. Teasing only irritates the new generation of listeners. Teasing asks them to listen again at the station's convenience, but people's heads today just don't work that way anymore. That was yesterday's tactic. When you mention a prize, offer a chance to win right then and there. Provide a number to call or a place to go to compete for that prize. And put the winner on the air as soon as possible. Everything happens now. The game is over almost before it begins.
There are always top-of-mind, instant-gratification headline grabbing stories that everybody's talking about on a given day. But no matter how well those stories or topics are chosen, your planning must be flexible enough to abandon them instantly the second they're over.
Is your station about to premier a new and exclusive cut by a core artist? Hook the audience with the announcement just moments before the airplay. As you deliver on your promise, listeners feel far more satisfied with your station because you delivered on the promise instantly. Then, they will be more likely to wait when you set appointment listening for 20 minutes or more because they heard you deliver right away on one earlier promise and they will expect you to deliver on another promise later. This is a very effective way to super-serve the "no-wait" audience.
The Great Music Rush
Next, let's look at the most effective method of handling the music for the instant-gratification generation. In spite of the fact that they're in a hurry and don't want to wait to be pleased, they also can't be rushed. Sometimes there's such a glut of great music, combined with pressure from the labels, that we as an industry are too quick to drop records not showing some immediate reaction.
Remember the audience doesn't listen to music on the radio like we do, so we have to give new records more time to kick in. If you've got a decent research system in place, the passive listeners are fairly easy to read. The trick is when to pull back on the active records before they become tune-outs. Realistically, most stations can't come up with enough currents and build a true mass-appeal station without both passive and active records. We've got to be more patient and interpret the research -- especially with passive records. Some of your biggest phone records will really suck in callout. As programmers we want to know going into a song that it's a slow build record. That's why relying only on phones or club reports can mislead you.
Finally, let's look at the local air talent. In many cases where syndication and voice-tracking have taken their toll, they are the best talent that is left when everybody else has been eliminated. In other cases, they are the part-timers who have been moved up from being a board operator or an unpaid intern to an air talent, with a minimum of training and experience. The problem is that they all need guidance. They need a program director who will find the time to listen to their shows and help them to improve. The capacity of the human mind to be creative is infinite. There is lot of new talent out there that just needs to be developed and given a chance to evolve before they are eliminated.
Talent development sessions are missing at many stations, and there are many reasons for this. Program directors are too busy. They didn't come up as an air talent, so they don't know what or how to critique or instruct. If you're a programmer who never sat in the "air-chair," there are going to be some things you just don't know ... and the talent can sense this.
A programmer who is an expert at scheduling music, but an absolute failure at developing talent, is in a very precarious position today ... because it's going to take more than music. In the "instant groove-ification era," every day widens the realm of what their unforgiving world will not forgive. They face the daunting consequences of an extended winter. Snowman is an island. They'd better find the right Egyptian god to pray to.
Word.
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