Baby Boomers Cause Format Fragmentation

Recent Studies Show That In Hitting The Core We May Be Sacrificing Cume

Although today's Urban radio audience has traditionally been a rather fixed commodity and always brought in a uniquely wide age demographic, that target audience is changing as the median age of the baby boom population of the new "Generation Bling" rises.

The overall popularity and acceptance of recently spawned format genres, specifically Urban AC and now even Hot Urban AC, have occurred because of the need to continue to target the aging, so-called baby boomer generations. This time I thought we would take a look at this group of listeners and how they impact the format and cause increasing fragmentation within the format.

Balanced Rotations For Adult 'Music Freaks'

Every survey will show that when asked, adults almost always indicate they want a better variety of the hits they like. The problem is, what do most adult listeners really like? And what don't they like? Keep in mind now, these are the "adult music freaks" and their answers may vary from market to market, from daypart to daypart, but they're all easily found using basic research. One of the problems a lot of mainstream Urban stations are having is going overboard with some songs, getting too hung up on requests and playing certain songs too frequently or at the wrong times.

When an Urban station caters to fragmented segments of the audience, it has to use caution. The key is to pick and play all three categories of hits in the proper rotation. The three categories are: "them that is," "them that was" and "them that will be." It's fairly easy to pick "them that was" -- those are the oldies that really made it in a particular market. It's not so hard to pick "them that that are" -- those are the current hits. The real challenge is finding "them that will be" -- the future hits you must play to maintain a fresh presence for your station.

The key is always "balanced rotations." I have said that for many years and in many editorials. Urban stations, particularly Urban AC stations, don't rotate their songs fast enough. And a long and winding road of analysis has taken me to an amazing conclusion. Much of the format is so focused on its core that it has lost a

sense of balance in its audience composition, a balance that is critical to success.

If you begin with the question of "how effective are the rotations in reaching their audience?" you have to analyze the percentage of each station's core and total audience that heard a song at least once during a week of heavy rotation. It would be reasonable to assume that programmers hope their core P1 audience hears their station's power rotation songs at least once a week. Of course, programmers hope that the rest of the audience will also be significantly exposed to power rotation songs.

The reality is, if the format were not rotating its songs effectively, both of these percentages would be very low. For example, you certainly wouldn't put a power rotation song where only half of your core audience would hear the song in a week and a mere 10% of your total audience would be exposed to it. In a case like that, the station's core audience would barely be familiar with the song even after weeks of power rotation airplay.

The Polarization Problem

There is also a polarization problem. One of the first things that went through my mind when I looked over a major-market station's playlist data recently was that the industry perception about slow rotations, especially for Urban AC stations, is clearly wrong. A large majority of stations in the format have a heavy rotation that is reaching their core audience very effectively -- in some cases, even better than their Rhythmic counterparts. But it didn't take long before I noticed that while the format does well with its core, it does significantly worse at reaching its cume audience. The question then becomes, how can a format have a rotation that is effective for its core but ineffective for its cume? I mean, aren't we talking about the same things? This is where the concept of polarization comes in. If an Urban AC station had a large P1 audience, very little P2 or P3 audience and a large P4 audience, the P4 audience made up of very casual listeners would drag down the effectiveness of the rotations.

Let's look at it a different way and see if Urban AC P1s are actually "super listeners" while the remainder of the audience P2s are very casual listeners. In all formats P1 listeners deliver most of the average quarter-hour (AQH) for the format. I'm sure you've heard of equations such as P1s make up 35% of your audience and that 35% account for 70% of your ratings. With very minor differences, this equation is the same across most music formats. But if Urban AC P1s were actually "super listeners" they would contribute much more than 70% to the overall ratings. The reality is that Urban AC P1s deliver a

percentage of AQH very similar to P1s in other formats.

So to go back to the issue that Urban AC stations don't spin their records

fast enough, it may be because Urban AC core listeners are actually different from other formats' core listeners in that they have a smaller-than-average core audience. But that audience is much more loyal and listens to the radio significantly longer than other formats' core listeners. This would explain why the format's rotations work well for its core audience but not for its cume.

The answer ultimately comes down to whether it is healthy to have a smaller yet more loyal core audience. I have noticed that a lack of balance in audience composition is very rare in successful stations. In fact, it almost goes without saying that having a larger core audience makes for a more successful station.

Growing a core audience is helped by balanced rotations because rotating your records faster actually increases your cume. Some program strategists say that there is often a side effect -- that it also lowers your TSL. Paradoxically,

the solution for Urban stations with a small core audience may be to rotate their records faster, at the risk of alienating some of their older core, but replacing it with a healthier and more balanced new core. It's the "growing-shedding" theory. You have to grow more than you shed, and you want to grow an audience that can stay with you.

When an Urban AC station becomes classic-driven, the obvious goal is to attempt to satisfy those older listeners who don't want to hear the songs their kids and lower-end counterpart want to hear. The problem is, no matter what your liners and advertising say, people only come to conclusions based on what they hear.

A lot of young and first-time PDs who move up from being MDs look to make an immediate statement. They want to make an instant name for themselves. So they program a lot with ego and emotions. They fail to maintain balance in their music programming and, if they don't have the budget or the bodies to do some serious research, and then interpret it properly, they get into trouble quickly. That's why we've had so many changes in the format lately.

In their defense, most your programmers need more time than they are being given by the GMs. In a highly competitive, heavily fragmented market, a year or two just seems too long to go without a definite uptrend for many GMs. So they panic, hire a new PD or allow themselves to be guided into a format change by a research firm or consultant, who stands to gain if they can scare the station into going down a path where they will need some research "refills" the research company or consultant can provide.

What many consultants and researchers often forget is that are some uniquenesses about the Urban format. Urban adults are hip, and they like tempo and freshness. They aren't just crazy about ballads and oldies, which unfortunately are some stations' main attraction. But for a lot of well-run mainstream Urban stations, careful dayparting can keep their lower end happy while they concentrate on the adults.

Another risk that doesn't need to be taken is the one where you try to be all things to all people. This happens when you're kind of classic, but you also play some new music. Then you become a lot of neither. There's a thin line between being the best of both and a poor average of the two. If your station is a poor average of the two, you're in trouble.

So keep in mind the "baby boomer fragmentation" problem, balance your rotations, give these things time to develop, and, above all, don't despair. Despair is when your transmitter gets struck by lightning on Thursday, which is the same day your chief engineer quits. Despair is when you're the new program director at a heritage station going up against your old morning team at a similarly formatted station being run by your ex-assistant, whom you trained, using your old music list, which you just tested.

Word.

(Next week we begin an incredible, four-part series for Black History Month. Don't miss it!)