Abstraction In The Urban Landscape

Is The Format At A Crossroads?

As we sail deeper into the diminishing moments of the summer of 2007, this is a good time to take a brief look at the current state of the Urban formats. We want to examine the necessary changes caused by increased competition and cume sharing. We also want to look at what the future of format holds with PPM.

In many markets, the popularity of Urban music is at an all-time high. What we're seeing is a natural evolution on a local level. Naturally, each market has a different history and competitive environment. Some stations need to focus on a small niche to be successful. Others have the luxury of being more broad-based, focusing on adults in the 18-34 cells with a wide approach in their music.

So, is the format at a crossroads? Maybe. Is the honeymoon over? In some markets, the answer is yes. Let's go back a few years and look at what has happened with Urban radio. In some major markets, there were two or three different versions of Urban and Urban Adult formats. Eventually it was whittled down and the strongest player or players survived and the others changed.

This kind of thing continues right up to today and is the reason for the demise of the "Jack" format explosion. In several markets, the "Jack"-formatted stations are returning to a strict Oldies-based format. That is going to continue to happen with these formats until "they get it right." It's important that they keep trying because if they discover something newer, faster or more compelling, we all benefit.

While most general-market stations have found their formats fragmenting in recent years, Urban radio has its own set of problems, particularly Urban Adult radio - and those that continue to use the "ballad-heavy Quiet Storm" approach. The decline of total audience in some markets is also affected by the increasing disaffection for our core audience from women 25-49 in middays. This trend is not related so much to the vagaries of research, but to improper programming.

Many Urban AC stations are suffering from image problems. They were perceived as being too laid back -- much like the Jazz and Blues-formatted stations that realized that if they were to remain true to their causes, they would have to change or be forced to accept a much smaller slice of the ratings pie.

In a recent national survey, a number of listeners claimed that except for evenings, they weren't really into the "Storm." A few even said, "It was like background music they used to study to." While this may be an exception, it touches on reality. The reality is that if an Urban AC station gets too soft, if nobody is paying any real attention to the songs, artists, titles or call letters, the station could become an instant victim of fragmentation.

With Arbitron's pending change over from the diary to the Personal People Meter (PPM), that could prove disastrous. For one thing, the audience does not grow in the first minute of the song, .but it also doesn't shrink. This means tune-out and tune-in are likely to be very small in the first minute of a new song. The growth in audience takes place in the second and subsequent minutes of a song, indicating that much of the new audience is added as new listeners tune in and that tune-in tends to outweigh any losses over the course of the song's exposure. What's also interesting is that in a series of recent PPM studies, uptempo songs performed better than slower ones. Thus, higher energy jams do much better than slower songs. Mid-tempo songs, performed right in between the slow and the uptempo songs, increased the audience just under 2%.

Based on the recent Philadelphia PPM results, there are certainly some issues with proportionality. Consultant Tony Gray says the key to measuring the ethnic audience is tied to where the measurement takes place. Arbitron President Pierre Bouvard claims that Urban stations shouldn't rush to judgment based on what happened in Philadelphia, and that the future is pretty good for the continued growth of Black and Hispanic stations.

Dayparting

There is a way to daypart the format so that the station is still mass-appeal, highly identifiable and works well in places like offices, shopping malls, etc. Here are my thoughts on how to recognize and then correct this problem.

But first, in addition to being too soft middays, there is another problem that often plagues Urban Adult-formatted stations. There are simply not enough fresh new titles. The flow and the mechanics suffer, as do the cumes. The hit music precept still prevails, even for adults. All the "music freaks" want to hear are the hits, over and over again. If your station has a reputation for finding the fresh jams, this will keep those fickle fingers from finding a new frequency.

The trick is to keep playing the hits while you're searching and researching, but take a chance once in a while, even during the Spring ratings sweeps. Because if you're right, you begin to build a reputation as a place to stop for the best new jams. That can be a very powerful tool. You've just taken the basics and stretched them a little ... and if you're an ambitious programmer, this is how you build a reputation.

The basics of good radio have to be there. The basics mean properly conducted, finely tuned research. Lots of stations just don't do much research -- and some that do, don't know how to interpret and then apply the results of that research so that the station gains an advantage from this effort and makes informed decisions. In any research project, some questions get answered. The trick is to ask the right questions. That leads to another test because now you know something. You've got a piece of information, but now you want to fill in the next blanks; most of those blanks involve some math.

Music And The Math

Mathematically, it's possible to gain or lose some quarter-hours depending on how you play your math game. The key is to be able to analyze your music's mathematic strengths quickly. Once it's set up, additional monitoring helps to analyze your rotations properly. After you've analyzed your station, you must take time to monitor the competition. A music monitor has to be least 24 hours long.

There's a predictable difference between the weekday audience and the weekend audience. For one thing, the Time Spent Listening (TSL) increases significantly on the weekend. What smart programmers have been doing is chart each song that both you and your competition play, indicate the hour each one was played. High repeats should be identified immediately. Gold and long-term recurrents should have no repeats.

On your own station, you will immediately discover which air talent is cheating on the format and playing their favorites ... or just not paying close attention. Not only will this process allow you to discover your competition's format and musical strengths and weaknesses, you will also be forced to discover your own, perhaps for the first time.

As a consultant, this "detective" role is one I've had to play many times. It's a role the program director and music director should play, so that the consultant can concentrate on other things like mistakes, auditorium tests and focus groups.

By The Dawn's Early Light

One of the eternal axioms of our industry is "as mornings go, so goes the station." Yet while most formats have developed either a local or syndicated morning show, the blueprint or personality archetype for Urban radio is still lacking. In other words, we have not yet developed a system for developing strong local morning shows for the future.

Like those in other formats, Urban programmers continue to say things like, "The music is really the product. We'll get the music right and let it do the talking. We can hire or import a morning show and we'll be all right." That philosophy and attitude -- in a world with no competition and before the PPM -- might have been able to generate some numbers in the past. However, for those of us dealing with the real world where there are strong, well-financed stations hammering at us from all sides, it doesn't take a rocket scientist to figure out that you got to have a "killer" morning show to be competitive.

Not all syndicated morning shows work in all markets. You could bring in a morning show that got great numbers in a similar market and it could tank. Audiences are fickle and might not take to a new morning show right away - or at all. That's happening right now in markets or all sizes. What happens in mornings affects the state of the format.

When a morning show finally establishes itself as the benchmark in Urban formats, you'll see many things that are considered to be mass appeal and mainstream combined. That's why in markets such as Birmingham, Charlotte, Baltimore, Washington and New York, Urban morning shows compete very well.

Urban listeners have the same kind of needs in the morning as people who listen to other formats. They want to be entertained beyond the hit music. Morning music should be familiar and uptempo. That helps listeners get out of bed and moving. They have to hurry to get to work, so they want to know about the weather and traffic. They want to hear news and current events so that they feel connected to the world and can talk intelligently when they're with their co-workers. They would like to be entertained and made to laugh, chuckle or think.

What we have to do is combine all these elements and then leverage what the audience remembers best. With Arbitron's diary methodology, recall is the key to securing diary mentions and high marks. For the most part, the same is true for the PPM. It turns out that what people remember best are moments of distinction. They recall "snapshots," which stand out in their recent memories. They don't remember every consistent moment no matter how consistent those moments were. In television, a show, game or movie is remembered for its highlights. Artists are remembered for their hits. A hit is remembered for its hook and a station is remembered for its "audio snapshots." So being consistently good is really a lot less important than being occasionally great.

Today's Urban format is affected by many things: a strong morning show, precise math, research and moments of distinction. There's one more thing that's important: Monetary motivation is still a healthy stimulant. Lack of it changes the status and attitude of programmers, music directors and air talent. It is true that all of these people, especially the decision-makers, need to begin to think more like business people today, so that year by year, more will become qualified to move up.

Yet more important questions remain: Will these people forget their old needs because of new needs? Will top management that has not experienced this type of programming close their eyes to current needs? Will they support their program people with sufficient funding and time to get the job done?

The Urban format is at a crossroads and what it all comes down to is the only way to win is to consistently brand your station. Play the best music for your targeted demo and offer unique and emotional elements that get right to the heart and soul of the listeners.

Word.