How Do You Meet The Audience's Expectations

Less Hype - More Realism

There are stations that have become market leaders and held that position regardless of the musical trends. When they do, promotions people of all ages support them. The audience identifies with and trusts these stations' call letters. Playing the hits is one thing. Serving the community is another. And you need to be able to do both. When you can do both consistently, you will have met the expectations of the audience and you can keep winning.

The best way to serve the community is to first get them to listen. You can't serve them if they aren't tuned in. And you don't have to stop playing the hits to serve them. Some well-worded liners that can run over the intro to the hits you keep banging is all you need to get the message out. That's the way to it in 2008.

Sometimes the way to stand out and meet expectations among today's Generation Jones and Generation Yers is to make the station's overall presentation simpler and not as overloaded with sweepers and effects. Conceptually, the straight approach says, "Let's communicate with this new audience in their own language."

One of the goals for Urban radio in 2008 has to be improving the response rate of the audience. Recent studies have shown a substantial increase in away-from-home listening along with subsequent midday and weekend boosts.

Hearing Vs Listening Vs Exposure

Another major issue for those stations that want to meet radio's new

expectations is the substitution of the word "heard" for the word "listen." What does "hearing" mean as opposed to "listening"? For one thing, hearing evokes a more casual passive response. e.g. "I wasn't really listening to 102 Jamz yesterday, but I did hear Magic 95 for five hours at work." "I was rolling in my ride with my friends, having a conversation, and Magic was on the radio. I didn't really listen to it specifically, but I do remember hearing it." The difference between the two terms for ratings purposes is significant. Do we call it "reported listening" or "reported hearing?" When markets switch from the diary to the meter, will the terms then switch from listening to "being exposed?"

Many Urban stations are going to have to develop new strategies to overcome the disadvantages they will face. For example, it's unlikely that many Urban stations are going to become favorites at work if they aren't already perceived as at-work stations, particularly if the word "heard" as opposed to "listen" or "exposed" is used. Realistically, how may postal workers 25-49 are going to be able to report "hearing" an Urban station during the course of a day? These concepts highlight the frailties of diary vs. meter research. There will continue to be winners and losers, no matter what changes are made in methodology.

Programming and marketing under the meter are going to require certain changes in approach. The diary rewarded stations that developed a sense of time continuity throughout the day, educating listeners as to when various program elements occurred - such as contests, special segments, weather, traffic and morning show hours.

The more informed your listeners are about your station, the greater the sense of vertical continuity you'll build, affecting their perceptions of Time Spent Listening. This is going to be even more important as we switch from the diary to electronic measurement . Don't assume listeners know what time things at your station occur. Keeping hammering away. When you're doing positioning liners, try to tag some time references to them. "Power-105 is the station you can listen to all day. Every one of your favorite songs is here, along with your favorite jocks."

While some of the rules are going to change, the basic rule remains the same. The diary is still an instrument of unaided recall. The meter measures what the audience has been exposed to, as opposed to what they listened to. If your station doesn't have top-of-mind awareness, you will not score as we move forward

Urban Radio's New World Order

In a world of too many stations and too many other music sources, Urban radio needs to excel. Instead, today the only thing more tiresome than some of our songs is our on-air attitude. For some, variety as a concept died with deregulation. There are now so many signals (31% more than 10 years ago) and so many other ways people can get their music, that you have to be a strong niche format.

Let's just talk radio for a moment. For today's listeners, variety exists as buttons on their car radios. Listeners don't want you to explore other genres - even within a genre. They're perfectly content to do the exploring themselves.

Plus, there's another musical generation gap as weird as the one that was born in the '80s and peaked in the '90s. This time, Urban and Urban AC radio represents the status quo, which is ironic since we led the charge 20 years ago. We seem to have come full circle.

What we have to do is get innovative quickly. We're going to have to create our way out of this problem. That's going to be tough to do with today's short-term, shoestring mentality. It's being forced on us by new management - broadcast owners and managers who are essentially "bean counters" for whom profit is the operative

Word!

What is happening to Urban formats is what happened to Top 40, Rock, AC and even Country. We have researched ourselves into the abyss. We have run off much of our audience to other stations and other music forms, including their own iPods. Some of this was to be expected. After all, if someone pays anywhere between $50 and $200 for an iPod, they're going to spend some time with it. So what's the solution? What we have to do is look at the competitive landscape and gauge where we belong. For all but a lucky and skillful handful of stations, the middle has evaporated.

In 2008, you have to pick your niche, stake your claim and become a calculated risk-taker. If you add a new record, report it and play it. Play it enough to let the audience learn it. And sell it. Sell it by front or back-announcing it. Sell it with confidence. There are some incredibly strong and diverse records to choose from. Find them and don't get paralyzed by fear.

Urban radio has to play more current records to fulfill the implied new-song promise that meets the expectations of today's "music freaks" -- they're the ones who only want to hear their favorite songs over and over again. They're the ones who come to our stations to find out what new songs to download. Whatever you do, don't think only established artists deserve major exposure during the Spring book.

If you're programming an Urban or Urban AC station and you're pounding the same 600 songs, it's only a matter of time before they implode and take you with them. Find a creative way to get them in the mix. Be authentic. The audience can sense when you're not. Make sure your production matches the station's attitude. It not enough to just play the right songs, you have to have personalities who will sell them and the station with the right attitude.

Finally, regardless of your format niche, there is no built-in loyalty. The audience today is smarter and very impatient. They want the best, un-fatigued entertainment available. In 2008 they can program variety with their fingertips. You have to be your creative best minute-by-minute. Because when you meet their expectations, you become ear-responsible.

Word.