It's Not Your Mama's Radio Station

...But Is It Your Baby's Mama's Radio Station?

Programming any Urban or Urban AC station targeted primarily to African-American listeners today is an ever more challenging proposition. In addition to the ongoing Arbitron sampling issues and the PPM, the last few months have seen an explosion of competitive media and delivery systems. When we look at music released in the last five years, we find fewer titles are surviving the playlist cut on a year-to-year basis. Certain music genres that reflected what were thought to be emerging movements in the early part of the decade are now smaller elements of the music mix. In addition, we are seeing individual songs that are more disposable than in previous incarnations of the format.

The real problem though is that regardless of whether you're an Urban or an Urban AC station, you have to program effectively to at least two generations. Your station now has to appeal to both "your mama and your baby's mama." Now lest you feel that we're being a little too ghetto, what this simply means is that if you have been blessed to have children and your birth mother is still living, both of them have to be serviced in order for your station to be considered mass appeal. What's the best way to do this? First, you have to get the music right and you can't keep guessing. Why? Because the risks are too great if you're wrong. One of the solutions to risk reduction is still properly applied and interpreted call-out research.

If It Doesn't Callout, Should It Still Go On?

It's 2008 and time to tackle one of the most difficult parts of being in charge of music. If a new song doesn't pass the callout test, but it sounds good, should it still go on? How many of these failed test songs should you play ... and how often? If a new song doesn't get good scores on its callout test, but your gut tells you it's a song that can build some new audience, should you spike it on the night show? Earlier, we've talked about the calculated risk-takers and how they continue to win. Also we touched on auditorium tests, the music freaks, sample size and asking the right questions. Now we're going to look at the most effective ways to follow up and use the information provided by auditorium tests, retail sales and other research methods. There is a precept that says you're always safer by playing the songs that have proven themselves. If you look at the top of the stack, it stands to reason that a #1 song is usually a safe bet. But is it?

All #1s Are Not Equal

First of all, it is a fact that not all #1 records are equal ... and classifying #1 records is becoming a clear issue. Although two records may both reach the top, the size of their success stories can be very different. In fact, many retail trackers have found that in times of heavy retail buying activity, a tie situation can surface if two records are selling about the same amount in one week. But there is only room for one #1 record regardless of how close the numbers are.

Obviously, all records are individual and each has its own retail base; some are larger and more active than others. Unfortunately, when an act comes onto the scene and sells beyond expectations, it sets an unrealistic precedent. Such achievements tend to lessen the impact when a bad track does bring in extraordinary numbers, but isn't an all-time best-seller.

You should know how a record hits the top each time. Some make a gradual climb up the charts with consistently strong sales numbers. Others take time to develop and utilize all facets of marketing, including radio, video, MySpace and touring.

With the introduction of new technology allowing programmers and retailers to critically analyze sales figures previously out of focus, the conclusion is that slow sales weeks can still produce #1 records for artists that would never have made it had they been challenged by a superstar hitting the racks the same week.

Who's The Buyer/Listener?

We live in a world of individuals. Not everyone likes the same kinds of music and they buy and listen under even more diverse conditions. Pinpointing just who buys music and listen to records and where they listened is difficult to do. Defining purchasing patterns is next to impossible and likely to reveal little consistency. The bottom line is there are many different records that hit the top because there are many different buyers and listeners.

Like everything else in life, the success of a record depends on many factors, including things virtually out of our control. You've heard this before: Timing is everything. Many of us have seen that fact proven over and over again. The public has to be hungry for what we're feeding them. If there's a hot new rap act out, but the country is already digesting 10 others, getting it to fly may be a huge challenge. Conversely, if the masses are in need of fresh new talent, the act is likely to be received with open ears.

Determining who has genuine talent, thus predicting sales and airplay, can be a daunting task -- but that's the business we're in. We have to face the music both before it goes on the air ... and after we've added it to the playlist. But once the decision is made, additional facets even the picture: the artists themselves, the quality of their work, the label's level of dedication and priority on the project, and exposure. Yet, with all these factors seemingly in place, the reality is that success is ultimately at the mercy of the climate of the industry and of the public itself at the time of the release.

Reining In By Calling Out

One of the most common errors many young Urban programmers make is not analyzing the results of their callout and auditorium tests properly. After they finally talk their managers and/or owners into springing for the research that they hoped would give them some answers and make them a little more informed and competitive, they often don't know what to do with the results when they finally arrive.

For many, it's just reams of statistical data that they thought would give them some easy answers to what is becoming a more and more complex problem.

The first thing to keep in mind is that you have to analyze the test results objectively. Don't forget what the respondents were doing. They were telling you what they thought of an artist, of a song, air personalities or other information you queried them about.

In the case of the songs, they were not necessarily saying that the best testing songs belong on your station at this time. That is a verdict you have to make, based on the type, age, gender of the people who participated and what you determine to be the image and sound that your station needs to have to score.

Maybe the participants really liked the song, but only when they are in a particular mood. This is especially true of certain ballads and artists.

Next, what songs do you want to re-test? When you get the results of one auditorium test you should begin preparing for the next one. The fact that you are preparing gives you an edge when you ask for the funds for the next test.

It's an ongoing process. To begin to prepare for the next test, you should:

Look at your past test results to determine the play history of each title. This is essential so you will know and not guess what titles always test well, then you can make a better decision on whether or not to re-test a particular song.

Make a complete list of former "hot rotation" songs you have been playing but have not tested before.

Make a list of the titles of songs you have never tested before but would like to or feel you need to test.

Make a list of songs that continue to show up on your request sheets, your website or ones that listeners are complaining about on the telephone.

Make a list of songs that have burned out and should be placed in a "rest category."

A lot of people only test their currents and recurrents. Their thinking is that the library gold has already stood the test of time and it can be recycled confidently without any danger of overplay or burn-out. Wrong.

You should re-test as many of the songs in your present library (golds) as possible, starting with the power songs and then both the long and short-term recurrent categories. Then you should work your way through as many of the other categories as you have available time and inventory.

After you have done that, go back over some of the initial steps you took to set up the test sample. Try to accurately evaluate them as well as you can. Keep in mind they represent the listeners you hope to reach by using their feelings and opinions to project the entire market. Usually these same participants represent listeners who feel that same way, associate certain types of songs with certain types of stations.

I remember once programming a Jazz station in the Midwest and deciding that adding some well-researched vocals could change the flavor of the station and hopefully attract some new female cume. Well, if we had researched the market a little more before we added those titles, we would have found that our regular listeners didn't expect to find vocals, even by some of the same artists whose instrumental versions we were playing, on that station. Many were shocked and upset to hear certain songs and/or artists on that station. They became very possessive about "their radio station."

It all comes back to the importance of careful screening. You have to know who is rating the music and artists and how to use the results.

There is an important factor that has to do with cultural segmentation that involves lifestyles and demographics of the group being tested. How closely do they really match your core audience? With research firms and consultants not familiar with the uniqueness of the Urban audience, cultural differences are often ignored.

While there may be no such thing as a perfect sample, there is certainly a representative sample. The Urban listeners are often seen as a general market group; a homogenous population bound by its culture. Although the similarities far outweigh the differences, there are both. No matter where you grew up, you grew up with the hits. Urban listeners tend to want to hear the hits longer, meaning that just because they are past 35 doesn't mean that all of a sudden they quit liking the hits that an 18-year-old likes, including certain hip-hop titles.

If you don't test them with all the hits, you will not get the kind of results that will allow you to make informed decisions, which is why you do this type of involved testing in the first place.

Another beneficial thing is to make certain that the sample size of special breakouts is sufficient to make the numbers meaningful. If you ask the consultants or research company to provide you with a breakout of the reaction of 50 25-29-year-old males who like Urban music and spend at least three hours or more a day with radio, you might be basing a decision on only a handful of responses. The more specific the breakout, the less stable the data. Use sub-cells only to help confirm a decision based on a larger part of the total sample.

Finally we want to take a quick look at how this research information should be analyzed. Data analysis can be the easiest or the most difficult part of the whole research process. It can be the easiest only if every step up until the analysis has been completed properly.

If the problem is not properly defined, if the research methodology is inaccurate, if the questionnaire has shortcomings or if the interviewing is inadequate, then the analysis will be difficult. The reason it will be difficult is that the researcher must find answers that don't exist. It's kind of like saying now that we've found the cure, let's find the disease.

Certainly a trained researcher, one who is familiar with the peculiarities and intricacies of the Urban format and who has completed many media studies is better able than station management to immediately see patterns or trends in research data. However, if the process was done correctly there is nothing about research that makes its interpretation and analysis the sole domain of the research company. Again, there are several ways of insuring the analysis is adequate.

Make certain the researcher you hire or are considering hiring defends his/her interpretation of the data. There is no better way to ferret out fuzzy thinking and poor analysis. Many consultants and researchers, even some who may claim to have had some success with Urban-formatted stations, really don't specialize in them and don't really fully understand how our audience thinks and reacts.

They don't, for example, know that the Urban audience is impatient and will not wait for the so-called "safe songs" to emerge. We have seen dozens of examples of research firms and consultants who have tried to go the "safe song" route and found themselves left behind because while they were waiting for the results of certain jams to callout or chart before they would agree that they should be added, the station became stale sounding. Both Urban and Urban AC stations have to be kept fresh.

You should insist on a copy of the computer printout a week or more before you receive either an oral or written analysis of the information the research firm has agreed to provide. This will allow you to spend some time interpreting the information.

You should question everything. Do the researcher's conclusions seem logical, based on your own knowledge, as well as that of the other members of your management team? If they don't, be extremely cautious.

Research, especially callout and auditorium music testing, can help you to find the music that appeals to both your mama and your baby's mama. It can give you the edge you seek to help your station win. Just be aware of the risks involved. Because by ignoring the dangers inherent in these vital but delicate forms of research, you could find yourself facing more than the music. You could find yourself facing unemployment and joining the parade of musical chairs and the ever-growing long line of those who are out of work. And when the music stops today, there's virtually no place to sit down.

Word.