The Summer Of 2008

Feeling The Heat

Urban radio's identity is being redefined this summer by a few innovative programmers determined to build audience for their stations in a very competitive market. The potential for success can always be measured by the increasing cume that samples their stations. What have they done different? They've adjusted for summer. Summer is vacation time for a lot of young listeners. The "music freaks" are more demanding than ever. People have more time to listen and there is a different feel to summer. Capture it and you could be on your way to summer ratings success.

As "The Summer of 2008" sails on, we want to look at some the things that affect us every summer and some of the things that are especially troubling this summer. Among them are outrageous gas prices and increased fragmentation. We also want to take a look at what this season means for Urban-formatted stations.

We recognize many of the format's true strengths, but it's important to fill the "tank" with high-octane hits. The "music freaks" are out there listening (in their cars, on the beach, on their patios, etc.) along with those who are still listening at home and at work. Just like high performance engines, radio "motors" run smoother and better on premium fuel. Keep the energy up and be aware that the changing demographics don't mean that adults don't want to have fun listening to the radio this summer. Bear in mind that even though the median age for the baby boomer is now 41, today's Urban audience doesn't want "wallpaper radio" ... even in middays.

Perhaps the 18-34 target isn't as viable as it was a few years ago because that segment's large numbers no longer exist in most markets. They will want to hear the fresh new artists that you might feel only appeal to the young-end audience. Check this out: Jay Leno and David Letterman rarely book any musical acts with 35-plus appeal, yet their ratings are going up. A lot of the acts they schedule are artists whose music we play.

How To Grab Some Male Listeners

One of our recommendations for the summer is to concentrate on attracting some younger male listeners to your side of the dial. Does it really matter, you say? Absolutely. Are there major differences in the way males and females listen to radio? Absolutely. A woman uses both side of her brain simultaneously, while men use one side of their brain at a time. This is why females are so good at multi-tasking and men are so good at focusing. Females' hearing skills are keener. They feel comfortable with noise that's about 50% softer than a man's hearing comfort zone. Females also have a finer sense of hearing the megahertz where language exists.

Urban AC stations traditionally attract females, but they can definitely attract both. And for the first time since the mid-'90s, there are many markets with higher 18-24 males in-tabs than 25-54 males. Much of this we feel is due to the overwhelming acceptance of rap with males. For many non African-Americans, it's the new music they use to piss off their parents -- instead of heavy metal. In these markets, the 25-34 male population is substantially larger. It appears that guys who were 18-24 between 1999 and 2006 still won't (and never will, most likely) fill out and return a diary, even with the cash premiums offered by Arbitron. Once it's settled in, Arbitron's PPM promises to change some of this. Programmers who target 25-34 adults should recognize that a 31-year-old probably graduated from high school in 1994 or 1995, and therefore listened to and was exposed to more hip-hop jams than his predecessors.

So what else can we do this summer to boost our male numbers? Imaging comes to mind right after music. There are few secrets anymore. Everyone knows what everyone else is playing. You can copy the playlist of a successful station title for title and set up your clocks in the same manner. But what you can't easily duplicate is the glue that holds it all together. Often the station that understands what imaging and production appeals to males will score.

Most veteran programmers understand the goals of imaging: helping listeners identify who you are and what you're about. When executed effectively, however, imaging becomes the driving force that creates and defines the character of your station. It stirs emotions and influences listeners. It impacts your audience in ways that nothing else can. Once you get the music right, imaging can be the most important weapon in your arsenal because it is persistent. Imaging affects listener loyalty, retention and overall numbers, yet it is often underutilized. One reason is that image production costs are a line-item expense that is not directly tied to a source of revenue.

Imaging is leverage. It can be used to captures listeners' attention, tease them through breaks and keep them listening longer. To attract males with your imaging, it should be clever, smart and creatively produced. It needs to be engaging. If done right it will motivate your male listeners and reinforce their dedication to your station.

When strong stationality driven by superior image production is in place, male listener retention, TSL and listenership can all increase. It will re-dedicate your male P1s and possibly lure listeners away from your competition.

Fragmentation And Polarization

Fragmentation within the format has created a polarization; you either love it or hate it.

Younger demos, for example, will support it as long it's fun and satisfies their expectations. When you have an 18-year-old male who loves Lil' Wayne and Young Jeezy and an 18-year-old female who's into Eric Benet, you have to figure out how to play both. Most times, because of the fragmentation, you don't. But this summer you can and you should!

With rap music, it's important to remember that it tests well for your adults. A high percentage of rap music is strictly active. For rap hits, it works and works well. Rap songs add energy, freshness and vitality to the station. When you "set up for the summer sizzle," add an extra ingredient of SRP (strong rap power) to the tank and feel the surge.

Now let's look at the midday workplace. Here is where a lot of programmers, driven by plug-in research, fail. Today's workplaces are one of the major focuses for the cultural clash and one of the most troublesome spots in the present work world. The choice of what radio station is played on the system in many workplaces is also an area of daily conflict.

One Midwestern salesman, who had been on the job for more than 10 years, said, "I've been here all of my working life and now they have installed a music system so that we can listen to the radio while we work. I thought that since most of the staff in my department are black or Hispanic, we would be able to choose one of the Urban stations.

But we have been forced to listen some 'white wallpaper station' that plays soft music that almost puts you to sleep, one that advertises clubs and restaurants in the suburbs where we're not welcome."

Another black female employee, who works in an office where the radio plays constantly, complains, "I keep my car radio tuned to an Urban station so that when I get off work and into my ride I can get an instant blast of black culture -- whether it's rap, Chris Brown or Alicia Keys. If I'm angry, it calms me down. It (the radio) makes me realize there's another world out there."

With those dayparted diaries and meters Arbitron is passing out this summer, some Urban stations could find themselves losing out to AC stations, News-Talk and Adult Top 40 stations whose sound is soft, but whose message may print on them, just as it does for the others for whom the format was really intended. The answer is to continue to be a "foreground" dayparted station that focuses on the "heavy users."

A look at the heavy users shows that most of the quarter-hours credited to a station come from a relatively small percentage of listeners. In most cases, 60% of the average quarter-hours (AQH) come from 20% of the cume. So if you concentrate on satisfying the listeners most likely to value your product, the quarter-hours will take care of themselves.

When you evaluate your impact on a weekly basis in a given survey, you must consider the week's total in-tab. For those who have done diary reviews at Arbitron world headquarters in Columbia, MD, you may have seen many station-mentioned diaries on a week-by-week basis. But this pyramid of prized diaries doesn't necessarily mean your latest contest or new syndicated show scored. Unless you take time to sort out how many total diaries came in during a specific week, you can miss the point completely.

Thursday Thinking

Most stations attempt to target special events for Thursday, the first day of the new diary week. This practice should continue throughout the summer. Even though Thursday is the most listened-to day of the week, there is only a slight shift in reported listening percentage for all weekdays. Eventually in most major markets, the whole Thursday concept goes out the window once the PPM is in place.

For those programmers, music directors and consultants who think they have fooled their adult audience into believing that a steady diet of tired, often untested gold songs and ballads is really what they want to hear, guess what? They're not trying to hear that.

So what's really up this summer? First of all, much of what must be done cannot be done with an owner or a company who is not totally committed to winning. The consultant, corporate PD and GM must all be on the same page. Then the entire programming staff must be committed to getting it done better than anyone else on the dial, every day.

The Risks Of Research-it is

Another summer challenge is to avoid "research-itis." You know, like when your consultant or researcher are not sure what songs to play, so they test all kinds of different songs and then play whatever tests. The problem is that a lot of the songs that test well do not fit the radio station. Ideally, it gets down to basics. Ask 'em what they want. Give it to them in generous quantities and in a manner that ensures they'll come back tomorrow and tell their friends.

Thoroughly tested music, in a careful rotation, along with strong attitude liners combined with vibrant, entertaining personalities are still the answer this summer. Beware of the possibility of erosion in TSL, especially in the 25-plus cell. This is a predictable occurrence when you have many signals clawing for every crumb of the demo pie. What you may want to do is go through your library and "rest" some of those classic cuts that everybody's research found. They may be burned out from continuous play by your competitors.

Finally, if you really want you want yours to be known as the cool station by your listeners this summer when they are feeling the heat, pour in some originality. Make yours a station that takes into consideration all the things we've mentioned and then offers programming that's fresh, different and creative.

Word!