The Game Never Ends

Neither Do True Players

Unlike sports, where players, coaches, managers and owners immediately know the results of their efforts, the radio ratings game has a waiting period. The wait time is a lot shorter now for those markets measured by Arbitron's new PPM. But like sports, preparing for the next game begins immediately after the last game ends -- at least for successful stations.

Let's face it, winning the ratings game is more than just a four-week or 12- week contest between stations vying for the largest body count. It's usually a long-term strategic plan that is constantly in play. And that includes the time that the scorekeepers are not actually keeping a written score.

Time Is Not The Enemy ... It's The Glacier Effect

Until such a time that keeping score is done entirely digitally over the air, which could be right around the corner, today's radio still plays a game of top-of-mind awareness, one listener at a time. And it takes time to affect what happens in the top of a listener's mind.

Larry Rosin, of Edison Media Research, once said, "Perceptions are like glaciers. They are slow to form and slow to change." It is often rare that one market campaign or promotion that coincides with the monthlies or semi-annual 12-week score keeping period actually forms or moves that glacier.

What moves it is the cumulative effect of the long-term strategic plan. And let's remember that a key element in that plan is your station's daily on-air presentation, which is built on music, talent and imaging. One of the unfortunate challenges that all programmers face today is the fact that although they don't control the syndicated shows and voicetracking that airs on their stations, they are held responsible for their results.

Since it takes so much time to create enough top-of-mind awareness that you can add that body to your score column, you need to be constantly working on your plan, looking down the field at the next game.

The results of the Fall and Winter games are only a small part of the overall game. Waiting on the results to plan for the next book puts your station in a constant catch-up mode.

Sure, the Fall game results can have an effect on the plays you may script for Winter and Spring or vise versa, but they should not be the sole determining factor. Actually, the first thing you should do when you get ratings results is compare them to last year's seasonal results. What did your station(s) do last Fall and/or Winter? Compare like games, then take a four-game average to see how the current ratings fit in the bigger picture.

Because scorekeeping the radio ratings game often involves a play that happened weeks or months ago, many of the things happening on your station as you read this article are setting up your scoring drive for the upcoming games. And that game may not officially start until later this year or even in 2011.

So your game plan should be to score as many points as possible with every potential scorekeeper right now and throughout the year, not just during the official scorekeeping weeks.

Then, as you get closer to those weeks, make an extra effort to remind those bodies and minds that you count as yours which station plays the game they like best. Knowing where you stand is a crucial first step. And let's hope those who are taking a game break, waiting for the Fall scores, are on the opposing team. If so, you'll be able to spend the upcoming holiday season in a relatively sanguine frame of mind.

Word.