Ok, so I’ve been looking over the latest PPM results for my market for Holiday 09 ( I image an AC station and really want to program some day soon), The station that won did so with an unbelievable 7.something (we had a 6.3), and we launched our Christmas programming about 20 minutes after they did. Now, here’s the caveat, we only had 138 titles in rotation, and the comp had at least 300 if not more. Did that make a difference? Probably, does playing Christmas music on November 1 make a difference? You betcha, my wife ( a HUGE P1 of BOTH stations, was extremely annoyed that her favorite stations had flipped way too early, she turned them off and listened to either her Ipod or CD’s or another station until SHE was ready for Christmas music.
Perceptual indications told us that P1’s and P2’s were not going to be ready for Christmas music until AFTER Thanksgiving, but we didn’t “listen” to our primary demo, we followed the lemmings over the cliff and flipped when they did. In my opinion, I would have not followed the suits in corporates knee jerk response, I would have told them, “No, we’re gonna wait..”, let the chips fall where they may, so what the comp flipped to Christmas,, all my P1’s and P2’s that are just not ready have my regular programming to get them through their busy workdays, we’ll go when THEY want us to go, perceptually, after Thanksgiving.
Now, that being said, perhaps the way to program this is to trickle it in, like they did in the “old” days of radio, you know, the day after Halloween, you sneak in a classic holiday tune ONCE a daypart and then the next week a couple more and so on. Christmas music early in a market with more than one Soft AC can be a blessing or a curse, in our case (the station I work for) a curse. I would hope that next year, things will definitely be different, perhaps that instead of a knee jerk jump to Christmas on Nov 1, we’ll wait and let the LISTENER let us know when they are ready for Christmas Music, they’ll stay longer and that means an increase in the TSL, and the Cume will always be up in those 52 glorious days from Nov 1 to Dec 25th , plus the audio they’ll give you will be fabulous!. That’s my opinion, and I hope that it helps you make a great decision next year
Well it’s almost a done deal, the year is almost over. What challenges lie ahead for our industry, our branding, our attitudes. Personally, I believe that the new year will bring more business to the broadcasting industry as a whole. With new digital technologies that seem to morph daily, the challenges terrestrial radio faces will be how to keep and maintain P1 and P2 listeners in a PPM world. How will you maintain your stations relate-ability?. Finding new ways to brand your stations image is by far the biggest challenge I see coming in 2010.
On the other end of my stick is the production end, finding new creative audio design in a venue that has heard it all before, is there something new I missed, is there a new effect, a new mix, a new or better way to produce?. I am going to start to expand my skill sets by learning Pro-Tools and other audio platforms so that my skill sets match everyone else’.
I would love to see programmers (myself included) develop their radio brands and retro fit them to really, really look at personality driven radio again. Music intensive radio is fine, but I fondly look back at why I got into radio in the first place and I miss that personality driven, whacked out fun zoo formatting. Radio can be fun again.. I know it can, we just need to take the neckties off and stop looking at the bottom line so much and look at why our listeners LISTEN in the first place. Just my thoughts, what are yours?
How sad is this.. The USPS has decided that a 55 year tradition of volunteers answering letters to Santa will no longer take place due to the discovery of one of their “volunteers” being a pedophile.
I’m saddened by this as I had hoped that especially this year, when most middle class kids won’t be getting the latest toy from Wally World or ToysRThem that at least they would get a nice letter from The Jolly Old Elf wishing them a Merry Christmas with a Postmarked Letter from the North Pole
So here is the alternative, go to your local rubber stamp manufacturer, and have them make a stamp for you that looks like a postmark( but obviously isn’t), Write the letter yourself, and discreetly gather it with the other mail you will get from the mailbox, viola’!.. Your child will get that letter they painstakingly practiced for hours writing in their best cursive letters, editing, erasing and finally putting it on paper, the final “list” in beautiful black permanent ink to the one person they know will give them hope.
Santa Claus
I believe, shouldn’t you!
With the onset of the Holiday Season, it always becomes a challenge to find new and exciting ways to image your station for the holidays. This year is a little more challenging than in years past due to our economy and the inevitable urge to spend less and do more with what we already have.
That being said, if you find yourself in a quandary with what and how to image your station, you can always fall back to the basics, who, what, where, why, and how. The principles of Journalism 101. If you ask open ended questions using that formula, you will get the responses you need and you’ll get a bunch of tape that will go on the cutting room floor as it were.
I have come across some great tape, just asking simple questions like; “What is your favorite holiday meal and how do you make it?” ( for my AC stations I ask 9 year olds) or, How many parties do you go to during the holidays and how do you choose which ones to go to?, Or an old favorite, “What do you do to get ready for Christmas”.
In this recessionary period, questions will change to reflect the individuals, “How are you going to make Christmas memorable this year?”.. “What will make this Christmas special for your family?”, “Where will you spend the Holidays?” Great holiday imaging is what will put your station ahead of the others. PPM not in your market?. Don’t worry, it still makes a difference and those small things make your station sound as big as it can be.
So you work in a rated market that is now utilizing PPM, how do you brand that now that the diary from Arbitron is gone? First you have to think like the listener (which you should be doing anyway), that means that from a listeners point of view, his/her favorite station is always top of mind. That being said, the branding of your station to reflect that is what is going to be crucial, especially as you move into the Fall ratings periods. I have found that by using real statements and real people to brand the station it helps with top of mind awareness.
The PPM is going to pick the station up no matter what you “say” so if they are listening at the office, or in the car or at the Megalomart you can bet that in order for them to “hear” you, you’re going to have to creatively entice them to listen longer and in more places.
Utilize your branding statement at concerts, remotes, events and anywhere you want to gather audio to brand your station. Get a great digital recorder ( I suggest the ZOOM digital mic/recorder) and make it fun, keep a supply of station brika brak on hand to give to them, and make it a “contest” of sorts, the most real audio will sound the best in post, but you’ll get great audio to use in other places as well.
PPM is our friend, the diary days will soon be over and you have to find better more creative ways to get your brand top of mind. I hope this helps you find your niche’ in a crowded marketplace.
I was taking a few days off to bond with my son, who is about to be 14 months old, and I can’t tell you how much I enjoyed our time together, bonding with a 1 year old is harder than it sounds, “why?”, well a couple of things
A)I’m not his mother
B)I’m not his mother
and
C)I’m not his mother,
that being said, he hung out, scratched, cried and watched baseball, football and golf with me while I took some days off, we both loved it, much to the chagrin of his mother, who only likes the playoffs, the super bowl and the Masters.. ahhh, this is going to be so cool, I can’t wait to introduce him to the world of Radio and Voice Over, maybe some imaging too..
Added new blog on kudl.com, you can visit it here…. http://blogs.kudl.com/taylor I’ve moved my smooth jazz show to sundays and rebranded it the Smooth Sunday Brunch, shortened by an hour and will focus on new music and the top 15 from Billboard Magazines Smooth Charts and SmoothJazz.com charts too. If you have a chance drop by the site, stream it on sunday mornings, or just leave a comment.
Somewhere between 1980 and 1993 I lost Steely Dan, but wait they were never really lost, they just took a break from each other. Fagen and Becker decided they had had enough of the touring, recording, touring, eating, touring, recording and I could go on and on but… Now they are back on tour, and after reading the article in today (7/31) USAToday about how they’re recreating entire albums in their new tour, I almost wish I had the funds to follow them as not a Groupie, but as a true connessouier of their music.
It mesmerized me as a young weed smokin kid of the 70’s and 80’s and their jazz infused classics “Aja” and “The Royal Scam” are mainstays in the in my vinyl library. You can learn alot about how we “image” radio just by listening to these guys make incredible music. If you are any where close to Chicago, LA, or NY you really must make it a point to see them live, your life will be better for it.
I’ve been using FB and Twitter a lot lately, trying to find new ways to A)market myself and my freelance business and B)having way too much fun doing it. It’s highly addictive in my opinion. But I have come across some great tools on both of the these social platforms that I think can help in my daily grind to find imaging for radio and make it topical, memorable and functional.
I took my ZOOM to a high traffic area and just asked people in general, (anyone who would answer my questions and not think I’m some sort of wacko) if they used FB or Twitter or any of the other social networking sites lately, how they used it, when they used it and what they get it out of it.
You would be surprised by the answers I got, now take your own answers ( I’m not doing the work FOR you) and create some really funny or even topical imaging for your station. Be CREATIVE, it’s how the P1’s will remember you and I’m sure with PPM coming to your town soon, you need all the tools you can to make your station stand out from the rest!
Summer is by far my favorite imaging season, people are out and doing things, eager to help out with almost anything. Case in point, I had to have some dental work done in an emergency, I went to a dentist I hadn’t been to in over 3 years and found that they were listening to a station I image, I called the on air personality and told him “Hey, they are listening at Barry Road Dental Group, give em a shout”, not only did HE call THEM, they were ecstatic about hearing their names on the radio as well as their business. Now how does that help you image your station?. Well it does a couple of things, first if you need some great tape, they would be one of the first places to look, second: they will tell their friends about how they got to be on the radio at KXXX. You’re always going to get great 1’s and 0’s here (or for my old school imagers.. great tape