Is Syndication The Problem Or The Solution?

Can Syndication Replace Compelling Local Programming?

Ask any Urban radio manager about syndication, and he's likely to tell you, if it enables him to improve his bottom line, he's all for it. Ask him how he feels about compelling local programming, and he will probably repeat his first answer. The truth is that in 2006 stations are looking for proven, standout personalities who can offer a broader concept of entertaining radio than many local air personalities can deliver. Whether it's Tom Joyner, Steve Harvey, Doug Banks, Russ Parr, Michael Baisden, or Wendy Williams, the fact is that stations have to face two situations: First, if a syndicated show can bring better numbers, that's something they have to consider no matter how they may feel personally about their local talent; second, they have to face the fact that they may not want to compete against one of these personalities if they should go to their competition.

Can stations save money by simply using syndicated personalities and better format strategies? It depends on whom you ask.

Syndication is what many stations turn to when they tire of playing the local personality game. Not that local personalities aren't important and can't win -- they are and they do. But if the local personality's contract is up and the numbers are going down, guess which one has to go?

Winning radio in 2006 uses a combination of format, research and personality to make its distinction in the market. Distinctively formatted stations take some organizing to set up, but once rolling they usually establish a broadcast "tone" that simply has to imitate itself day after day and stay fresh. And with a limited number of really strong personalities being developed, stations are leaning more and more to syndication to help them win.

It is not hard to see that nationally syndicated personalities in radio are becoming more popular than the dominant local personality in many markets. Lately, this is true for both Urban and Urban AC formats. The reason is simple -- nationally syndicated personalities can get ratings and make money.

Format Success & Disposable Personalities

Format success, like any other type of success, is often a function of timing and need. Based on what has worked in other markets, is there an untapped opportunity for that particular format? In light of the recent move to the "Movin'" formats, that's not an easy question to answer. At last count this Rhythmic AC format, as its architect, Alan Burns, calls it, is now up to eight stations and growing. So now the question becomes, is there a format area that is underperforming, and, if so, could "Movin'" make a difference?

Once a format decision has been made, management often defends its programming decisions by citing the many revenue opportunities available to stations that consistently deliver great ratings. Historically, successful managers seek the ability to schedule air personalities, both local and syndicated, whenever they want and for as little pay as possible without much regard for the personalities' desire to actually have a life or a steady paycheck. Talent is considered "disposable."

These "disposable" air personalities, on the other hand, like to have a predictable schedule that recognizes their seniority and protects their income and personal needs from the whims of these managers, many of whom came from sales and never sat in the "air chair."

The decision of whether to stay local or "import" a syndicated personality can be a tough one. Often, the decision can become mathematical. If 10% of listening can be expected in a format, but your market studies show only 6%, should you go after the remaining 4%? What about your station's performance or underperformance? Is that condition simply because the format is too crowded in your market? Or is it because your present local air personality is too weak to effectively penetrate and make a difference? If you are the decision-maker, any of those questions could definitely affect you.

Well, if you're a PD or GM and your format is not performing well, it may be for one of the reasons we just raised above. Or, is the format itself underperforming in your market? And if so, what can you do about it? Probably before you bail, you should look for ways to stay in the format and expand or improve your performance levels.

Let Talk Formats And Music

Before we blame the air talent, whether local or syndicated, let's look at the format and the music. Sometimes for an underperforming station, that's where the problem lies. Urban formats really came into their own in the late '70s and early '80s, when certain stations found that they could expand their audience potential by incorporating certain elements of Top 40 structure. In some markets, these Urban stations wound up demolishing the Top 40s' teen base and seriously challenging the adult females, who really get off on a well-run Urban music station.

Many Rock stations have been criticized lately for having moved their demos younger, not older. Many Oldies stations have just the opposite problem. As a result, in the case of the Rock formats, many wound up with an overabundance of boy teens. The adult audience had moved elsewhere -- in some cases, to Urban or to a Top 40, Rock-leaning station.

Some Top 40 and Rock stations attempted to return to their adult audience base by borrowing an Adult Contemporary trick. They tried to define their audience with oldies and recurrents rather than with current hits. In the case of the modern rockers, many had chosen to concentrate on dominating the 12-24s, hoping for some "spillover." What rockers and some Top 40s have in common is an audience that slants, on average, about two-thirds male. This is unusual because most formats and listening in general tend to favor females.

Part of the reason for the fragmentation and problems with Top 40 stations had to do with identity crises of self-denial. It doesn't want to be what it is. Urban stations often suffer from the same problem. Because of image and record-purchasing patterns, mainstream Urban stations found they always attracted substantial teen and even sub-teen audiences. The program and music directors were tired of sitting in meetings where the GMs and sales managers told them to get rid of the teens and get them some adults or find a new place to dwell.

In the past few years we have seen have seen mainstream Urban stations siphon off the lower demos and Urban ACs taking the upper demos. And often, in an attempt to please the sales managers and GMs, the station lost its audience base and failed miserably. What's the answer to fitting the format to the folks? As I've said many times, you can't find an audience for the format; you've got to find a format for the audience. Improve the overall sound of the station, be what you are, and then determine to be the absolute best at it. Get both the music and the presentation right.

Now, not only is that easier said than done, it also can't be done quickly or without proper support from management. If the station doesn't do any research and it's up against a competitor that is doing some research, I don't have to tell you what that advantage can mean. And yet, there are still many stations, some in major markets that are not doing any meaningful research. They're simply sitting there, going through the motions, hoping nobody comes into the market and does it right. That's ridiculous. Someone is eventually going to come into the market and do it right. Why? Because if they do, they are going to score.

We have talked about the most effective place to put your programming elements in recent editorials. Now, we want to review a portion of that strategy and then go forward to talk about what it can mean. Naturally, you want to put your key programming elements in the most listened-to quarter-hours. And since the largest numbers of tune-ins occur in the first quarter-hour, this is your chance to light up some numbers on your side of the board.

Making The Music Math Work

Naturally, beyond the air personalities, there is a lot to be said about the music rotations. One of the legitimate complains all radio stations have about syndicated personalities is that they often don't play enough music or the right music to keep the "music freaks" happy. The answer here is to be extremely careful with those daypart segments you can control.

Mathematically, it's possible for gain or lose some quarter-hours by playing your math right or wrong. With the music set up on computer, you can approach this from another angle, but it is necessary to quickly analyze your music's strength mathematically once it's set up.

You may have to do a bit of additional monitoring in order to analyze your rotations properly. And once you've done it for your station, you must then take time to monitor the competition. A music monitor has to be at least 24 hours long.

And if you want to be really thorough, you will do it for both weekdays and weekends. There is a definite difference between the weekday audience and the weekend audience. For one thing, the feeling is different. For another, time spent listening increases significantly on the weekends, when many people are not working or going to school.

This will also help you to determine immediately which air talent are "cheating" on the format and playing their favorites or just not paying attention. You might also find that certain songs are being ignored completely, because one jock, often the opinion leader, doesn't like them or feels that they should not be played and had spread his or her influence among the rest of the staff.

A couple of other things to look for: Does there appear to be a breakdown in the music rotation when the jock shifts change? What about when the parttimer takes over for the fulltimer? When there's a planned absence? What about the relief jocks? How are they handling the format? It's important to answer all these questions honestly and completely and then take the appropriate action.

How To Handle The Research Questions

We want to step aside the local vs. national personality issue for a moment and look at call-out research. Probably nothing confuses and affects Urban formats today more than call-out research. The question is, are most Urban programmers using it correctly? Or are they using it as an excuse for not adding a song because they say it doesn't test well?

The answer is simply that callout is only effective in measuring a jam that has established a reasonable pattern of familiarity. You have to analyze and interpret a song's favoriteness in relationship to its familiarity. Call-out can be very accurate in showing a hit that's fast out of the chute or a new track from an established artist. That doesn't apply to all songs. Some songs are first-listen hits. That still requires someone with an ear making music decisions. Other cross-demo songs, such as Chris Brown's "Say Goodbye" or Ne-Yo's "Sexy Love" are slow to burn in and very slow to burn out. So here again, a programmer has to apply a dose of common sense and interpret the results honestly.

Usually, in the mainstream Urban formats at any given time, there are no more than three to five true new smashes. Keeping this thought in mind, some smart programmers use layers of recurrents and some power gold songs to maintain tempo and freshness. For new jams, they focus on using songs they feel have the potential to become powers and that fit the sound of the station.

For Urban ACs, another thing to keep in mind is that the hit-process life cycle shows that the older an adult gets, the less important music is in their lives. They still like music. They still listen to and enjoy it, but they become less inclined to get excited about a new track, even from one of their favorite artists. So personality becomes crucial for these stations. And it's one reason that in many markets ABC Radio's Michael Baisden does so well.

So, with all those things in mind, don't forget to calculate or figure in the number of cumulative spins, not just on your station, but also in the market and the format, for those songs with crossover potential. You also have to take into consideration your station's efficiency in converting cume to quarter-hours.

Finally, if you are the only station in your format, when you do your music research, you may only want to test the P1s. Some may say that this strategy may inhibit growth, that you're preaching to the choir. The upside is that chances are you'll wind up superserving your core. That usually more than compensates for any errors you might make trying to expand your cume.

The other important thing to remember when including other stations' core audience in your sample is to make sure they indeed cume your station on at least a weekly basis. You don't want phantom cumers in the sample. And you don't want non-cumers. They will only serve to contaminate your overall pool.

I've found some of the stations I work with tend to ignore this rule because they don't understand it. As a result, these stations just accept respondents based simply on an Arbitron cume duplication table with no forethought of whether they pass the YKOL (your kind of listeners) test.

Spreading and interpreting the results of any research has to be done the right way. Otherwise you could be literally chasing away listeners. You should always try to look for jams that appeal to the core and the cume with a high degree of passion. Remember, favorites rule, regardless of the format.

Syndication, even with the right music and properly applied research, may not solve all the problems, but they often fool some managers into believing, once it's in place, that syndication can deliver the digits. These are the same managers who believe they save money by promoting a van driver to the program director. They have so little regard for the role of the programmers that they think by promoting a van driver and teaching them Selector, they can reduce their costs and gain absolute control. They think that with syndicated personalities in place he or she can simply push a button and the station can go on automatic and win.

Unfortunately, we cannot keep management from making ill-advised choices, but we can share some facts and thoughts with you that will shed some light on some of the decisions they make and the reasons they make them.

Nothing against van drivers, but the truth is there are no automatic formats or automatic syndicated personalities. Even the best ones still need skilled, experienced people to make them work. Skilled, experience people have to be properly compensated. And you can't work down to a price, you have to work up to a standard. And stations don't get to set the standard. The standard is set by the market. You can control costs, but you can't save your way to success.

Word.