Radio's Net Generation Unplugged

Totally Different Or Just Younger?

They are variously known as Generation Y, Millennials or digital natives. Whatever you call this group of young people-- those born roughly between 1980 and 2000 -- there is a widespread consensus among educators, marketers and broadcasters that digital technologies have given rise to a new generation of students, consumers and listeners who see the world in a different way. Growing up with the Internet, it is argued, has transformed their approach to education, work, politics and leisure activities such as listening to radio.

Born Digital

Unlike those of us who are a shade older, this new generation didn't have to re-learn anything to live lives of digital immersion. They learned in digital the first time around. These are young people who like to use new digital ways to express themselves; downloading their favorite song onto their iPod or shooting a YouTube video where their parents would have put it on cassette or written a letter.

Anecdotes like this are used to back calls for education systems to be transformed in order to cater to these computer-savvy students, who differ fundamentally from earlier generations of students. Programmers should move their discussion to Facebook, for example, and offer texting as a way to participate in a contest online, where digital natives feel more comfortable.

Everybody is embracing technology today. Successful Urban and Urban AC programmers need to understand and be able to appeal to what demographers call Generation Y (alternately known as the millennial generation or Generation Jones or "Generation Bling".) Although today's Urban radio audience has traditionally been a rather fixed commodity and always appealed to a wide age demographic, that target audience is changing as the median age of the baby boom population of the new "Generation Bling" rises.

Few members of this generation, born after 1980, can recall a time when the Internet was not at their disposal. Now, in addition to the Internet, you have Twitter, MySpace, Facebook, streaming and texting. They're all part of the social network.

The overall popularity and acceptance of the social network along with recently-spawned format genres, specifically hot Urban AC, the hip-hop rhythm format have occurred, in part, because of the need to continue to target the aging, so-called baby boomer generations. They are impacting and causing increased fragmentation within the formats.

It's Time To Plug Them In

Once we examine the reasons for format fragmentation and the effect of Generation Y, it's time to plug them in. Our studies showed that when asked, these young "blingers" almost always indicate they want a better variety of the jamz they like. The problem is: What do most young adult listeners really like? And what don't they like? Keep in mind that some of these are the "adult music freaks" and their answers may vary from market to market and from daypart to daypart, but they can be found using basic research.

One of the problems is that a lot of stations have had their research eliminated or severely diminished. And regardless of what you may have heard, you can't do an effective job of this type of research online. What happens is stations wind up going overboard with some songs, getting too hung up on requests and playing certain songs too frequently or at the wrong times.

When an Urban station caters to fragmented segments of the audience, they have to use caution. The real challenge is finding "future jams." Those are the new jams you have to find and play to maintain a fresh presence for your station.

The key is always "balanced rotations." I have said that for many years and in many editorials. Urban stations, particularly Urban AC stations, don't rotate their songs fast enough. A long and winding road of analysis has taken me to an amazing conclusion: Much of the format is so focused on its core that it has lost a sense of balance in its audience composition, a balance that is critical to success for the Net generation.

Let's start with the question: "How effective are my rotations in reaching our audience?" You have to analyze the percentage of each station's core and total audience that heard a song at least once during a week of heavy rotation. It would be reasonable to assume that programmers hope their core P1 audience hears their stations' power-rotation songs at least once a week. Of course, programmers hope that the rest of the audience will also be significantly exposed to power-rotation songs.

The reality is if the format was not rotating its songs effectively, both of these percentages would be very low. For example, you certainly wouldn't put a power-rotation song where only half of your core audience would hear the song in a week -- and a mere 10% of your total audience was exposed to it. In a case like that, the station's core audience would barely be familiar with the song even after weeks of power-rotation airplay. This is the case for many stations with syndicated drivetime shows.

Understanding Polarization

Misunderstanding today's Net generation has caused a polarization problem. One of the first things that came to mind when we polled several stations' playlist data recently was that their perception about slow rotations, especially for Urban AC stations, is clearly wrong. In addition to having one or more syndicated dayparts whose music they don't control, a large majority of stations in the format have a heavy rotation that is reaching their core audience very effectively, in some cases, even better than their Rhythmic counterparts.

We also noticed that while the format does well with its core, it does significantly worse at reaching its cume audience. The question then becomes how can a format have a rotation that is effective for its core, but ineffective for its cume? Aren't we talking about the same things? No. This is where the concept of polarization comes in. If an Urban AC station has a large P1 audience, very little P2 or P3 audience and a large P4 audience, the P4 audience could be made up of very casual listeners who would drag down the effectiveness of the rotations.

Let's look at it a different way and see if Urban AC P1s are actually "heavy listeners" while the remainder of the audience P2s are very casual listeners. In all formats, P1 listeners deliver most of the average quarter-hour (AQH) for the format. I'm sure you've heard statements such as: P1s make up 35% of your audience and that 35% accounts for 70% of your ratings. With very minor differences, this equation is the same across most music formats. But if Urban AC P1s were really "heavy listeners," they would contribute much more than 70% to the overall ratings. The reality is that Urban AC P1s deliver a percentage of AQH very similar to P1s in other formats.

So to go back to the issue that Urban AC stations don't spin their records fast enough; it may be because Urban AC core listeners are actually different from other formats' core listeners in that they have a smaller-than-average core audience. But that audience is much more loyal and listens to the radio significantly longer than other format's core listeners. This would explain why the format's rotations work well for its core audience, but not for its cume.

The answer ultimately comes down to whether it is healthy to have a smaller, yet more loyal core audience. We've noticed that a lack of balance in audience composition is very rare in successful stations. In fact, it almost goes without saying that having a larger core audience makes for a more successful station. This is especially true in Arbitron's PPM world.

Growing a core audience is helped by balanced rotations because rotating your records faster actually increases your cume. Some program strategists say that there is often a side effect. It also lowers your TSL. The solution for Urban and Urban AC stations with a small core audience may be to rotate their records faster ... at the risk of alienating some of their older core, but replacing it with a healthier and more balanced new core. Again, it's the "growing"/"shedding" theory. You have to grow more than you shed and you want to grow a younger audience that will grow with you.

When an Urban AC station becomes Gold or classic-driven, the obvious goal is to attempt to satisfy those older listeners who don't want to hear the same songs their kids want to hear. The problem is no matter what your liners, websites and advertising say, people only come to conclusions based on what they hear.

A lot of young and first-time PDs, who move up from being MDs, look to make an instant name for themselves by programming a lot with ego and emotions. There's nothing wrong with that. In fact it can be a good thing as long as they maintain balance in their music programming. Now if they don't have the budget or the bodies to do some serious research and then interpret it properly, they get into trouble quickly. That's one of the reasons we've had so many changes in the format lately. GMs and owners don't have time to allow you to make mistakes. Even mistakes that at one time would have simply been "pardonable sins" are often now reason for dismissal.

The other reason, of course, is that veteran programmers who were once able to focus on creating a single compelling radio station are now forced to oversee multiple stations --some even outside their markets. This, coupled with diminishing salaries, the elimination of bonuses and raises and forced, unpaid furloughs are all designed to reduce expenses. These draconian slashes are a direct consequence of the excessive debt greedy parent companies took on to create their radio empires.

In their defense, most young programmers need more time than they are being given by the GMs. In a highly competitive, heavily-fragmented market, a year or two just seems too long to go without a definite uptrend for many GMs. So they panic, hire a new PD, spin the format wheel or allow themselves to be guided into a format change by a research firm or consultant, who stands to gain if they can scare the station into going down a path where they will need some research "refills" the research company or consultant can provide.

What most of these so-called "experts" (aliens from another format with powers and abilities far below what's needed to make a difference) often forget is that are some definite "uniquenesses" about the Urban format that they will never fully understand. Urban adults are hip and they like tempo and freshness. They aren't just crazy about ballads and oldies, which unfortunately, are some stations' main attraction.

Activism or Slacktivism & Baby Busters

There is a feeling of superficiality about much online youth activism. Any teen or sub-teen (remember, now PPM measures children as young as six) can choose to join a Facebook group supporting whatever fad is popular with their particular group. But such engagement is likely to be shallow and short-lived. A recent study by the Pew Research Center, an American think-tank, discovered that Internet users aged 18-24 were the least likely of all age groups to e-mail a public official or make an online political donation. But when it came to using the web to share political news or join political causes on social networks they were far ahead of everyone else.

What does this mean to programmers, you ask? Just this: Rather than being genuinely more politically engaged, these members of the "Net generation" may simply wish to broadcast their activism to their peers. As with the idea that digital natives learn and work in new ways, there may be more going on here than meets the ear.

Another name for the net generation is "baby busters." Baby busters are part of this generation and are a valuable source of ratings as fragmentation continues to force stations to seek alternatives to P3s and P4s. Knowing their attitudes and preferences can make a difference. This group is known as the "baby busters" because they were born during sharp downturns in birth rates. For the most part, they don't like the baby boomer generations. They particularly don't like certain status symbols like luxury cars.

There is the notion that thanks to the Internet, digital natives will grow up to be more responsible citizens, using their technological expertise to campaign on social issues and exercise closer scrutiny over their government. Examples abound, from Barack Obama's online election campaign to activism on Twitter.

The Net generation does want some material things and good jobs; however they want a quality of life they believe has escaped the boomers. They purport to place their families first. They believe in late marriages; 30 is the age most often mentioned as ideal. They abhor the boomers' high divorce rate and blame the boomers' freer sexual habits for advancing sexual/social diseases. And they're fed up with being forced-fed another generation's values, tastes and debt. They despise the fact that boomers overfill the job market, leaving nothing but scraps on the table.

Busters are the best-educated generation. They are techno-literate and have come to realize a college degree is necessary for survival. Some are turning to the military for tuition money and to learn more about themselves. They're also the largest consumers of recorded music, whether they download, share it with friends, steal it or just listen to it on the radio.

Does it really make sense to generalize about a whole generation in this way? Not everyone thinks so. Some feel this is essentially a wrong-headed argument that assumes that our kids have some special path to the witchcraft of digital awareness and that they understand something that we as programmers, don't and we have to catch up with them. They could be right.

These "baby busters" are an unexploited listener market right now. Research them thoroughly before communicating with them and you'll be rewarded with their vote. They'll fill out diaries; carry meters with your frequency locked in and help you become their favorite station. Remember, these things take time. Give them time.

Word.