Spring Scheduling Secrets

Creative Clocking Is Not Just Hit-After-Hit ... Time After Time

One of the things every Urban station must do in preparation for the upcoming Spring Arbitron sweeps is fine-tune its music scheduling systems. There's no more locking in a hot clock and then letting it run for weeks or months. Programmers are finding the drudgery of putting every power, recurrent and gold cut in the same place every hour, every day, is hurting Time Spent Listening (TSL). These radio decision-makers are making changes. Sometimes the decision is based on research. Sometime it's based on available music. Occasionally it happens at a scheduled time whether it needs to or not. And sometimes programmers are forced to adopt policies where shaking it up starts as soon as it becomes rote.

The question becomes when should you shift your clock? The answer is if you're not a programmer who also does an air shift, you should change it when the jocks have memorized it or when it sounds like they've slipped into a bored sound of automatic pilot. Remind them that when this happens, they're vulnerable to being replaced by outside voicetracking. You should make slight adjustments in the clock, like when the liners hit or when the stopset runs. This keeps the jocks on their toes and sounding fresh. Fresh is really important during the crucial Spring rating sweeps, when you want lots of your core listeners to listen for longer periods of time. This is going to become especially important when your station shifts from the diary to the PPM.

An East Coast programmer told us recently that he really calls attention to his changes by making a big deal with his jocks with the hot clock. First, there's a face-to-face jock staff meeting in addition to a memo. He explains the rationale behind any changes to the air staff. He warns against not reflecting the changes right away on the computer music scheduling system. If you don't, it sends a message to the staff if they're not paying attention and it reminds them that they need to place as much importance to the sanctity of the hot clock as necessary and the reasons why it's important.

This Is No Time To Be "Shiftless"

What do you do when your playlist is bursting with ballads and there aren't enough tracks with tempo? First of all, this makes the station sound too soft and predictable, especially during the Spring sweeps, when lots of your younger core listeners are searching for tempo and freshness. Changing the clock can help to cure predictability. It should happen every few months. I recommend that you update by moving around current and recurrents. I've even placed strong recent gold or long-term recurrents at the top of the hour instead of a power current. We need to closely monitor the tempo and/or genre of the available music, especially between April and June. When the format's leaning too heavily in one direction or another, it's time to switch the emphasis from current and power-currents to recurrents and recent gold. Part of the reason is to slow down the rotation of currents so the few really strong ones that are available don't burn too quickly.

As Urban formats continue to split and develop niches in an attempt to super-serve specific slices of the audience, the hour-by-hour questions become more critical. The niche formats, coupled with the concurrent focus on narrow demographic and psychographic groups, have made the answers nearly indefinable.

One solution, when the playlist permits, is to set up three different clocks that rotate continuously, just to vary the sound of the station. Not by daypart, though. That can be dangerous. One may start the hour with a power, the next with a recurrent. A Midwest programmer we're in touch with says he leaves his stopsets in the same place. He admits it's rough when there aren't enough strong currents to be flexible with, though, especially during the Spring sweeps when there should be fewer daypart restrictions. Music he usually holds until after 3p moves up to 9a.

Sometimes it appears that radio is coming up with more reasons for not playing a song rather than searching for tracks that might become favorite songs. Today's audience is evolving into a group that wants fresher jams. This is true of both the young-end audience as well as those 25-49. As we continue deeper into the new millennium, where the listeners have more avenues than ever before to be exposed to new product, it's important to move to the cutting edge of the engine rather than to cuddle in the caboose. Cutting edge is a lifestyle which author Douglas Coupland talks about in his revised edition of "Generation X." It's a lifestyle practiced by a segment of the audience that grows larger every day. We must do more than just recognize it. We must find ways to cater to it.

Freshness Counts

Urban Adult stations are particularly guilty of not changing their music, hot clocks or presentations, and you can see it taking its toll across the country. As a result, mainstream Urban stations continue to flourish and dominate the adult demographic ... a demographic which was traditionally reserved for Adult stations. Why? Because these mainstream stations, even without knowing it, provide their listeners with a window to the hip world of the future. What's happening in the market? Who's coming in concert? What are the latest jams? Adults identify with stations that provide these answers and, because those questions are now being answered by others on the mass communications superhighway, Urban Adult stations are losing out. Radio is now providing less information and less hip information. Fresh new tracks? Not many and not often.

Next, there's a question of balance. Can callout research really save us here? It can help if you do it right and interpret it honestly and accurately, but unless you're an intensively current/recurrent mainstream Urban station whose success rests on pleasing a volatile young audience, weekly callout can be an exercise in overkill.

There are some research houses that are now using a kind of multivariate analysis to cluster and segment the cumulative figures from weeks of callout research. While basically there's nothing wrong with this approach, there has been a dramatic surge in multivariate research techniques used by major consulting and research firms and, in many cases, they're not fully understood by the people paying for the services.

Factor analysis can be used effectively to determine which individual songs factor together. Cluster analysis can actually show like groups or clusters of individuals together based on preferences toward certain types of music. But those clusters and factors aren't always autonomous. One song can (and often does) show up in more than one factor, and one individual can be represented in more than one cluster.

Being Boring Means Losing Listeners

The sad thing is that there's less strong music available to be played and exposed today; we're seeing fewer artists developing because there is less proven hit product. There's also a glut of ballads that take longer to develop and longer to burn out. It's kind of like rush hour at the airport. They're all in line, waiting to take off. Then there's the age-old question of what stiff do you play? There needs to be some understanding that some songs that wind up in the C-stack are simply not going to ever make it to the B-stack, but we still need them for variety, tempo and balance. So the question now is do you want to play another mid-chart tempo song or one offering a difference in sound? The answer is you want to be consistent as a hit music station, but you never want to be boring.

So take the lock off your clock! Make certain the jocks do daily show prep so they won't add to the problem. Then your station can keep its music, air talent and presentation fresh. While it may be true that your station won't run out of any of these, if you don't do it you could run out of listeners. When that happens, the station may decide a change is needed -- one that starts with your departure.

Word.