Urban Time-Shifters

Retooling The Edge

For many of us, the year 2010 has been one of promise and frustration, challenge and mediocrity. For others, it could well have been the turning point in their career - or the end of it. When we attempt to judge how good or bad a particular time or year is, it becomes very difficult because of developments that tend to be amorphous and difficult to define clearly.

Most of us remember a simpler time when there was one station, one programmer and one GM. Today it's hard to imagine a single PD or GM who's not responsible for an entire cluster of stations, while simultaneously either handling an air shift or managing a sales team. That thinking will not be abating any time soon and those who are surviving budget cuts are doing so because they're being handed heavier workloads.

Whether it's a help or a hindrance, we're all affected by technology. We're constantly hearing stories from the world of technology about the latest findings or smartphones that will forever alter the way we live. Such is the hyperbolic language we writers fall back on when contemplating a new change or gadget. We too are time-shifters, responsible for re-tooling the edge. Time-shifters, even the ones who are multi-tasking on steroids, are affected by technology. Technology and research are what we use to re-tool.

Despite what you may have read, heard or assumed, technology is just as much a part of Urban radio as it is for other formats. There are some who say that Urban P1s, for the most part, aren't technically savvy. This is simply not true. While we may not be leading, we're certainly not that far behind and in some cases, we are actually ahead of some other formats that I won't mention, but you can easily guess what they are.

Group-Ownership Benefits

One of the benefits of group ownership and consolidation is that many formats are now housed in the same building or on the same floor. So programming secrets, which might have gone unnoticed and unshared years ago, are now common knowledge within the building ... and station groups have been forced to share the knowledge and the secrets.

As a result, just like their non-Urban counterparts, Urban stations have been using their websites to build their databases; even podcasting is becoming less of an exception. So terms like "time-shifting" and "on-demand content" have slipped quietly into the lexicon of Urban programmers.

The next step for Urban stations is to use time-shifting more as a research tool. The notion of using the Internet for song testing has been used for all music formats for some time now. I personally have mixed feelings about it. When it works, it's great. When it doesn't, it can be costly.

Everyone in America seems to have an opinion about what's wrong with radio. That's good. What's not good is that most people's opinions are negative. There are simply too many things they don't like about it. We've got to change that thinking. We can start by making it hip. Those of you who have been reading my editorials for a while know that I'm a huge fan of "hipness." That, as much as anything, is what separates Urban radio from other formats that play our music. In addition to increasing the hipness factor, we've also got to get our stations out in the forefront again and change them from what they're becoming - an appliance - to something people want to be part of again.

Something a lot of young adults want to be a part of is a great, youn- focused Urban AC station. It's great to turn on an Urban AC station that claims to play the best mix of yesterday, today and tomorrow -- even if it's really a kind of hot Urban AC station with a 200-song playlist that's time-shifted into a Hot Urban AC station, which now has a 300-song playlist. But in about a year that station could sound old again and be in trouble. The secret is to use the results of your online research to develop a broader station than your competition and strive to maintain an adventurous and open-minded perspective when it comes to music. To do that you have to become more focused over time.

Urban AC programmers have to interpret their research carefully and avoid what they perceive as an active audience's demand for extreme music, which in turn, causes labels to flood the market with that product to meet that demand -- much of which ends up polarizing the core audience and driving them away.

Research Issues

Three of the major problems and challenges of online research are the same for any research project. There is integrity, screening and recruiting panel participation. A growing problem for many is the same problem that Arbitron faces in assembling its panel participants, especially with PPM -- and that is the increasing number of people who have signed up for DNC (Do Not Call) lists. Traditionally callout and other telephone research takes place between 5p and 9p local time Monday-Friday. Recently there have been some research firms that have begun urging their research panelists to migrate to their 24-hour digital music testing platforms. This requires that research panelists give up their e-mail addresses -- in theory, so they can participate in a music survey when it is convenient for them.

Another snag researchers have run into is a disappointing lack of participation by young males 18-24. This is symptomatic of the issue facing all research projects involving males. Men just don't participate in research like women do.

The problem is that these busy young males, whether straight or gay, are never really comfortable participating -- even if you bribe them with cash or a prize. They'll allow you to interrupt them temporarily and simply rush through the questionnaires and hook tapes so that they can get back to what they really want to do. Even the radio geeks who say they are happy to share their opinions about music and radio don't want to do this while they are sitting at the dinner table or enjoying their favorite video game or Tivo'ed television show.

Even though calls for purposes of research are permitted under the current legislation, many consumers feel getting a call at home, regardless of the purpose, is an intrusion. As a result, panel sizes have shrunk and completion rates have dropped significantly.

Pharmaceutical Positioning

The basic principle of research as it applies to radio is simple enough. Find out what most of the audience wants and give it to them. But recently research added another dimension - psychology -- to the mix. And then along came positioning. Now the challenge is finding out what the audience thinks they want and giving it to them. Instead of expressing the problem in terms of wants, the new focus is on needs. Imbedded in the psyche of the listeners, these needs are difficult, if not impossible to probe, even with the most diligent research.

Some programmers and researchers are now saying, "If you can't find out what the audience wants, find out what it thinks it wants. Then find out what they think they're getting and give it to them. Then tell them you're giving it to them." Regardless of which precept you buy, the positioning era of radio has arrived because what's important now is in the mind of the consumer and potential consumer of radio. What most of us hope to achieve with research is to find a huge hole of opportunity in our market that we can fill - a hole which is invisible to traditional research methods and our competition.

Finally, we have the problem of "cell phone-only households" that is also rapidly growing; these people simply can't be legally reached with traditional telephone callout methods. It is my feeling that nearly one-third of Urban listeners, particularly those 18-24 and male, fall into this category.

Many of these people are also more likely to be heavy Internet users. That means online testing could be a natural alternative for that demographic cell -- if you can find a reliable way to reach them and get them to participate.

In addition, consumers of all media are more conditioned to the on-demand world of 2010. They're constantly searching for new ways to get what they want, when and where they want it. That, too, is affected by time-shifting.

Some people would call time-shifting and re-tooling the edge "piecemeal initiatives." Piecemeal initiatives tend to "squeeze the balloon," adding pressure to the system, rather than releasing the air. What we want to do before we release the air is to fill it with fully-researched hit songs and compelling content.

Word.