SURVEY SAYS…

The early results are in. You can see the numbers and the analysis, thanks to the smart people at RDI, HERE. (Note: If Research Director Inc is not part of your team, you’re missing a game-changing advantage.)

The story in each of America’s Top-3 markets is that music-based stations that usually lead their markets have all lost “a noticeable amount of cume.”

And, that information-based stations in each of these markets have shown their best results in at least a year.

I didn’t need to be Nostradamus to have predicted that a few weeks ago in my post COVID AND NIELSEN.

And yet, I still hear music boxes in every city I monitor.

I still hear the same boastful and inane sweepers and liners, as if nothing at all has changed.

I’ve been banging the drum for decades that Radio, at its best, is not just entertainment, it’s COMPANIONSHIP. It's HUMAN CONNECTION on a very personal, one-to-one level.

Sadly, we have a generation of radio programmers who never got to hear radio at its best. They’ve never heard a talent that can make anyone feel as if the only person that talent is speaking to is you.

COVID-19 is the most serious, disruptive catastrophe in over a century, and music-based radio stations are just puttering along as if nothing at all has changed.

For God’s sake, wake up!

Your listeners need you to inform them. They need you to help them find food banks and testing and uninfected neighbors willing to get their groceries for them.

They need you to help them feel hope. They need your empathy. They need to voice their frustration and fear. They need you to help them feel comforted.

Why on earth would you not let them hear a live human being between every song?

Why on earth would you not offer more spoken content than you ever have before?

Forget your damn formatics! Be human. Be real.

The first survey is in. The conclusion it reaches is clear.

If you don’t stop business as normal, if you don’t understand that “much more music” is not what anyone in your town needs, you’re going to lose more than listening.

You’re going to lose the reason your station was granted its license.

You’re going to lose a generation of human beings who need you now more than ever.