Night Jocks And Cross-Cuming

A real cool night jock named Stan
Got a steaming call from a fan
Her voice gave him chills
He offered to pay all her bills
If he could just be part of her plan
(Or if she would go for a ride in his van.)

Stan is definitely the man. A homie you can understand. In this particular case, Stan is working the night shift. But he could just as easily been working afternoons or middays. But live, non-syndicated night jocks (the few who are left) seem to connect better with their audience. That's probably because night listeners have more time to text, call and e-mail.

Night jocks with a fresh, hip approach -- a little personality jamming the right tracks -- can force some fickle fingers to your frequency. They can cause "cross-cuming." A killer night jock could re-cycle some audience back to your morning show. A well-disciplined night jock, playing the right jams at the right time, could easily capture some casual cume. And if they are between a couple of mass-appeal, crossover jams when they lay out those fresh clever lines, your station could really score.

There's much more to being a strong air talent than just consistent shout-outs, show-prep, lots of talent development sessions and the right jams. A good air personality must have a feel for the audience. That often separates the average personality from the super-jocks. Super-jocks can propel your format to the next level. Jocks who are really into their craft not only prepare for each break and sound good; they also flawlessly deliver a consistently great flow as well. Sometimes the only thing that is called for in the format is to blend the elements so that the smoothest possible transition from commercial to promo to stager to song is achieved. That's when the real jocks shine. They mix and blend as well as the jocks at the clubs. Like great painters, they just use different brushers, tints and hues.

The goal, as we go forward with Arbitron's PPM, will be to build cume. Cume was important under the diary methodology, but under the meter, cume is king. And in a continuous measurement PPM world, understanding the secrets of cross-cuming could be a huge help to programmers.

In a PPM world, just like it was under diary measurement, five minutes of listening still gets you credit for the quarter-hour. The biggest difference is that with diary methodology, the audience, for the most part, tended to write down their listening time sequentially and more than likely never wrote down three-minute listening spans. They just didn't keep track of their listening that accurately. With Arbitron's new PPM, those three-minute intervals will count toward quarter-hour credit ... if they occur inside a 15-minute block.

Another change that could affect Urban stations is the fact that listening in PPM is based on 6-plus listening as opposed to 12-plus under the diary. We're talking about exposure vs. engaged listening.

This time, we want to combine all of this new information and then examine the effect of strong night jocks and the cume they can build. Today more and more markets have continuous measurement, even if it's under the diary. Now summer not only means warmth from the sun, it also means heat from those people with the report cards in Columbia ... Arbitron.

There are still some markets that only have two sweeps a year, Spring and Fall. And those markets probably won't be getting meters any time soon. But if you're a programmer looking to move up, you still need to understand the value of knowing how to cross-cume in a continuous measurement world.

Shape Up For The Fall Battle

I recommend setting your goals early. It sounds simple enough, but how many programmers now coping with the onslaught of four 12-week surveys or the PPM have actually set specific goals? The answer is probably only a few.

Then you have to allocate you resources. Agree on what ammunition you can bring to the battle. How does you situation compare to the competition? Agree on a timetable, given the goals and resources. In which for the survey periods do you expect to achieve the agreed-upon goals?

Many first-time programmers who take over an already dominant station in a larger market tend, at first, to leave well enough alone, but some want to step out and make some kind of obvious creative statement. They want to come up with some kind of high-end/low-end mass assault. It's a twist on the told adage that says, "If it ain't broke, don't fix it." The new slogan is "If it ain't broke, break it and see what you can do with the pieces."

Cross-cuming with the competition is another way of effectively connecting and building audience, especially if you are able to play the percentage and niching game. What you want to do is to diagnose the situation, anticipate where things are going, why you got some of the ratings you got and what you can do to build on them. If you just sit on whatever numbers you've got now, they can become stale very quickly and those numbers can slip away almost overnight.

Generational Differences

I've often said that the best, most-experienced programmers know that part of any successful programming strategy is assuming that some of your listeners are going to get a diary. To really program effectively in 2008, you have to increase your Arbitron awareness. This simply means that at least once an hour, you have to program to those members of the audience who are also diary keepers or may be carrying a meter.

Who are these people? They are everyday, living-for-the-weekend people. They span and overlap at least two generations. The boomers, some 78 million of them, are wealthier and more numerous than any generation before or since. They have controlled political power long enough to begin to stack the financial deck in their favor. They were and are, brash, bold and beautiful.

Boomers have always struck some as very self-centered and self-important because there are so many of them. They're always in the middle of the next fun moment at some everlasting party and they're not able to deter the gratification to tackle the long-term problems. What some boomers did was expand the range of individual choices of how people live. The division today between conservatives and liberals is really a debate over the boomer's legacy.

Some of these boomers already take pride in what they have bequeathed. Boomer women, for example, broke into many male-dominated fields on a broad scale and expanded options for those who follow.

Some of these boomers are "music freaks." As we look back on their lives, we find most of them had a good time. They partied and protested, then grew up to dominate with their chutzpah and sheer numbers. Yet now, as the oldest members of boomer generation prepare to turn 55, there are glimmers of doubt with this "have-it-all" Generation Y or Jones about how they will be judged by those who come next; and, by extension, how those who get Arbitron diaries or meters will judge and credit their favorite station.

They're all part of our growing and shedding audience, and if you find your station is shedding more than it grows this Fall, you may find you need a new formula. There are still a few time-tested formulas that, when put in place, can actually help stations achieve their Arbitron goals. As we move through 2008, we noticed a unique market revolution that continues to take place in Urban radio today. We see it as a far-reaching, sociological change and with the new economic realities brought on by consolidation.

Born into the more favorable, less competitive environment of the late '90s, many stations achieved ratings success rapidly. Now with expanding group ownership, the level of competition has increased in nearly every sized market. There is a new, grim Darwinian law at work that directly affects this "shedding and growing" generation.

Cume Contests & Promotions

This year, lots of programmers will try to lure listeners by using huge cash contests to attempt to temporarily buy an audience. But the effect is short-lived. Even worse, you may just turn your audience into addicts. Every time you run a contest they want more and more. I knew of an East Coast Rock station that gave away several cars and cash and still went down in the Spring book. Then, to add injury to insult, the station had to run spots and promos for days.

People listen to the radio to be entertained and informed. Anything we can do beyond that has to work really well or listener expectations won't be fulfilled. In a book that called "Generation X," author Douglas Coupland talks about baby boomers and their expectations. Because of the current economy, many listeners in this generation are living under huge debt. Job availability for some of those between the ages of 18 and 29 is pretty limited, particularly for minorities. So the whole prospect of getting older is a little unnerving if you're in the "Generation X" demographic.

Out of the "Generation X" group study came some results that showed that this group tended to react negatively to the hype most stations offer as part of their programming and positioning. The problem is that this generation doesn't believe it. They feel, and we agree, that you can't always walk with a swagger, be bigger, badder, more improved, constantly offering more music, more money and a better variety. So we if can't do that anymore, what can we do to capture some cross-cume?

First of all, you can't get on- air and say, "You get it all here." We've got to be different. Your benefits have got to be self-evident. Above all, the marketing messages have got to be credible. We've got to be real. Honesty is super-important. We've got to share our weaknesses as well as our strengths. This generation knows very well that nobody is perfect. To them, self-re-evaluation reinforces credibility.

Even with the PPM, Arbitron still measures awareness as much as actual listening. That means whatever you do, you've got to be one of those two or three stations people mention and remember. If you have two very good sounding radio stations, the one that is top-of-mind wins.

With PPM it is important to re-focus your programming strategies to reflect the value of different listeners. If most of your average quarter-hours (AQH) come from your P1s (heavy users), 25% from your P2s and 10% each from your P3s and P4s, you have to place a higher value on your P1s. Remember it still takes three P2s to equal the value of one P1. Then you need to be able to sort out your "loyal P1s" and your "fickle P1s." Why? Because your "fickle P1s" can be converted to "loyal P1s."

Another type of ratings maneuver that can cause your ratings to rise involves knowing where your station stands in the awareness category. This should become an important part of your next research project. Just make sure you include it when you do your next auditorium tests. If it turns out you have great awareness, you just want to maintain share.

There are some very traditional strategies to be followed. If, for example, your station is #1 and you're taking up a defensive position, you should do like Coca-Cola did. Every time Pepsi came out with a new product line, they copied it (and then they got credit for it). Meanwhile, if you're the new kid in town, you've got to figure out ways to get your product to market faster and make a big noise about it. You want to produce a product that fits the niche your competitor is trying to fill. Then, you get credit for it because you're the leader.

As the leader, you have to maintain top-of-mind awareness. Certainly having your listeners become habitual and constantly thinking of your station when they turn on the radio will help you to score with the P1s. However, we must all do a better job of customer service to really put the game out of reach. With so many stations changing formats and adding syndicated shows all the time, it makes it very difficult for the audience to become brand loyal; therefore, consistency is key here.

There is a difference between consistency and predictability. What we want to ultimately become is predictably unpredictable. This is so while listeners may not know exactly what to expect, they know it's going to be "off-the-hook." To be totally appealing we must be both fresh and familiar. It's not impossible, but it does require some research. A fresh, hip, familiar sounding station can score big numbers. All it really means is that the overall sound of the radio station, from the way the music is delivered to the promos and the liners from the jocks, must be attractive to an audience that sees itself as the hippest and most "with it" listeners out there, whether or not they really are.

That's exciting, and excitement does make a difference -- an Arbitron difference. We must always strive to super-serve and exceed listeners' expectations. This is another tactic that translates into a definite competitive advantage in the ratings race that leading stations use to lead.

The bottom line is that Urban radio stations need to get back to being product-driven and audience-driven. We need to once again become those types of stations where good creative people can make the difference. It's a given that the best way to ensure that your station gets the credit it deserves is to be top-of-mind.

Winning the format franchise means good management of cume and core. At any given point on your radio station, you've got people coming in and leaving the "store." What you want to do is get people to come and stay. You want to convert cume into core. The best way to do this is to assess the appeal of a given song at a given time against its appeal to either the core or the cume. Then assign to it a category that makes it either a core or a cume song. Then you build your categories in sequence in such a way that it lets you manage the flow of core and cume. A song will pull in the cume listeners. They'll know that song and then a core selection will follow that, so that they're not alienated. We find too many programmers and consultants still categorizing songs by era and not really addressing the issue of cume and core stress.

Regardless of the daypart, by effectively converting your cume into core you can win the ratings wars. Start with the night jock and then work in either direction. Finally, in order to maximize your cross-cuming and therefore your ratings, you need to do an effective job in all the areas discussed above, and then combine them with deeper footprints.

Word!