Look Forward, Not Back

Rear View Mirrors Often Distort Realities

As the radio industry meets its future, it's important to know how to make the right decisions. Musical shifts in the format, PPM and competitive market changes have caused many Urban brands to veer off the track. Everyone in Urban radio agrees that things are not the same as they used to be. People are smarter, technologies are faster and competition is more fierce.

PPM has shown us now that listeners don't have huge amounts of time as their lives become busier. We used to think daily Time Spent Listening (TSL) in afternoon drive, for example, was around 20 minutes. It's closer to 10 minutes. Growing morning drive TSL is a real challenge as well. Listeners get in their car, duck in for a morning coffee and then give you 10 or 15 minutes before they hit the office door and that's it. From a usage standpoint, PPM makes building cume really tough. That's because we live in a scratch-and-win radio world with instant payoffs. Don't fall for road lemmings who destabilize your format. They key here is to look forward, not back and understand how to be appealing to a wider demographic.

Even though we're running in the fast lane, we're still can't leave the adults behind. We have to make better choices quicker. While the road that carries these smarter, faster people and smarter faster technologies is filled with potholes, it's also loaded with opportunities.

We come to forks in that road more often and we've got to make the right choice. Competitors change formats, while creative talent (local or syndicated) come and go.

Demographics are more important than ever. Demography is the study of populations. We all know the baby boomer is aging and we know the family unit is changing. Faced with that knowledge we can somewhat predict what will happen, anticipate the impact and shift gears. The aging population powered by Generation X, Generation Y or even Generation Jones is the best-educated, most-informed group in history. These smarter, faster folks have so many choices they feel constant time pressure. They may be comfortable with their ability to make choices. But before they do, they want their music and information presented to them in an easy-to-digest manner

Let's look at this from your station management's point-of-view. Management's always complaining that they can't sell the 12-24 numbers on your hip-hop station. Is that just an excuse sales people use when they don't reach their quotas or because they don't really like or fully understand the format? They will say that it used to be easier to sell Urban radio. But the reality is that many sales-driven Urban stations softened their sound in an attempt to recoup some adults, only to eventually allow another format competitor to score. So now the numbers aren't there and even though the station is still an effective medium, it's more difficult to justify the rates for a station that has lost audience.

Many present-day failures of some Urban stations have been hastened by a crosstown competitor (in some cases, a Rhythmic, Urban AC or Top 40 station often in the same building). In the case of the Rhythmic or Top 40, they often wind up snatching the 12-34 year-olds because the soft Urban station can't bring in adults quickly enough to replace the ones who left.

What the sales and management people seem to want is an Adult Urban station. The only way this happens is if you're fortunate enough to have an extremely strong, adult-appeal morning show. Tom Joyner, Steve Harvey, Rickey Smiley and Russ Parr are syndicated examples of this type of show. In Memphis, WHRK's Mike Evans and WVEE Atlanta's Frank Ski are examples of local morning shows that have been able to deliver adult numbers and still play hip-hop jams.

Mornings are not only key, without them you've got no chance to capture and keep the audience that can move the adult needle. Why, you ask? Because let's face it: Adults don't do a lot of listening at night. I understand the motivation of a straight-ahead, pure Urban station to try skew older to attract upper demos, but a pure Urban AC has a much better chance of satisfying those upper demos. Many of these hybrid Urban stations will wind up losing. It's dangerous for an Urban station to dump most of its currents and load up on recurrents, ballads and gold no matter what the research says.

A smart Urban station can attract more adults without making major format changes. As we mentioned earlier, a strong morning show is the first step. The second move is to give the adults more than a steady diet of non-stop hip-hop and jocks who are simply trying to appeal to the "shout-outers." There's a lot of good hit music that tests great with adults, yet isn't being played by Urban radio. The answer is not to just air a lot of gold and ballads. Attracting more adults involves skillfully blending the music, along with really creative content, promotions and marketing. But again, a word of caution: Leaving a successful 12-34-niched Urban station to move into a hybrid situation is a dangerous path to take regardless.

From a pure business standpoint, especially in today's competitive environment, it's a dream come true if you can be successful with young adults and still do well with adults.

Occasionally it can be done. And when it's done well, the music mix becomes another key factor. Lots of programmers begin to exclude certain types of hits and get into trouble. From a pure numbers point of view, an Urban station should have a strong 12+ showing. But advertisers -- including beers, soft, drinks, clubs, grocery, auto dealerships and department stores -- wrongly penalize Urban stations with a high teen composition. Some managers are running away from teen numbers. They don't want to defend have a huge teen share. I say learn to sell what you've got. Don't apologize for them. There shouldn't be a problem if you really think it through. Younger Urban formats have to understand that additional revenue may have to come at the expense of other media, rather than throwing yourself into the 25-54 quandary. There's a ton of revenue generated in the marketplace by 12-34s and we have to sell against television, cable and some print and Internet media.

The other part of the problem is that advertisers, media buyers and agencies are into buying safe. These people need to realize there are really few risks and lots of benefits in buying a younger demo station. For many products and services, the 25-54 demo is too wide. Someone 25 is having a baby, while someone 54 is having menopause. And that leaves everybody in the middle, where there is still a lot of room.

Urban stations are not audience-driven. If you shirk the 12-34s, you risk losing the adults you already have. When Urban stations increase their ballads and gold, they lose their freshness. This ultimately hurts their 25-49 composition. Certain artists might not seem likely to work for adults, but later prove viable for that demo. An Urban Adult station could miss a whole musical trend and that could blow the lower end of its saleable demographics for a couple of rating periods or more. That's foolish and dangerous.

Part of the problem is that Urban radio failed to realize the fun and image aspect of the format, which is still very attractive to older females. Many Urban stations have become almost sinister sounding. They've over-positioned themselves with nasty, growling sweepers that turn off older women. These sweepers need to be benefit-driven, less combative and more fun.

Narrowcasting to a certain type of music leaves too much room for error, even with the best callout research (for those few stations that still have it in their budgets). The niche you put together in the fist two books may be gone in the next four or five. The risks involved in shelving true Urban for a hybrid Urban AC and then returning to straight ahead Urban are real. Going into Urban AC cold with a complete station repackaging is one issue. Backtracking is another.

Your job as an Urban programmer is to build your 12-34 base with as much integrity as possible. Then focus your efforts on the 18-34 audience without giving up the 12-34s or 25-49s. The goal, especially with the Arbitron's PPM, is to continue to build cume. If executed properly this is the challenge for future success for Urban radio.

The new road is real. So are the opportunities and the potholes. Objects in the rearview mirror often appear larger than they really are. The battle for a sliver of the 25-49 year-olds is much greater than competing 12-34. Remember, people don't listen by age. They listen by psychographic types and profiles. You're much better off being the top station 18-34 than #12 25-49.

Word.