Is Your Radio Station Missing Something That Sacrifices Audience Share?

So, in trying to answer the question posed above, are we all missing something important on our radio stations that sacrifice our share of audience?

So, in trying to answer the question posed above, are we all missing something important on our radio stations that sacrifice our share of audience?

Other than an increase in competition, are we all missing something important on our radio stations that ends up sacrificing a share of the audience? Whenever I attempt to analyze anything, my mind goes back to my 25 years spent in the research end of our industry. I also hear my wife in my head… “Just put a pencil to it.”

I remember all the strategic market studies I designed that included perceptual mapping. These questions measured the value and importance of various elements and attributes on respondents’ non-existent, ideal, perfect radio station.

The respondent would rate the list of attributes on a scale of 1-10.  We would then ask them to rate the same items on their favorite station. The desired result is simple – map out how the sample’s favorite stations stack up against their perfect, ideal stations.

While the list was extensive, usually about 30-40 items for which radio stations are universally known and included things like:

Favorite Songs, Upbeat Music, Entertaining Personalities/DJs, Best Local News, Local

Weather, Local Traffic, Humor, Fun in the Morning, Most Informative, An Entertaining

Morning Show, Strong Community Involvement, Appealing Charity Events, Companionship Through the Day, Entertaining and Fun Contests, Appealing Free Stuff, etc.

Not all projects had the same list. They would vary based mostly on format. The partial list above was fairly universal for a music station.  

Without getting too deep in the weeds, the desired results would map your most important attributes to their ideal perfect radio station. In its simplest form, it would match the top five attributes of their favorite with their ideal. It would also track the bottom of the list the same way. This was often fascinating when a PD thought something important ended up tracking at the bottom of the list.

So, in trying to answer the question posed above, are we all missing something important on our radio stations that sacrifice our share of audience? One of the research truths I learned early on in all my years as Senior VP at Broadcast Architecture and then as President/CEO at Pinnacle Media Worldwide, was that the most successful stations took clear ownership of many of the same attributes.  

As far back as I can remember, stations that were in the top tier of ratings and revenue consistently owned the most important elements. They would often include Entertaining Personalities, Most Informative, Strong Community Involvement, Entertaining Fun Contests, and Favorite Songs.  

If you have not done a perceptual study like this, which includes perceptual mapping, I recommend it, but you can really answer this question on your own – as long as you are honest with your internal assessment. What attributes represent your brand best?

I can offer something that I learned that was consistently top-tier. “Community Involvement is one you should never sacrifice. Entertaining personalities is another, and after conducting hundreds of focus groups and one-on-ones, this goes right to “compelling, local content.”

In the final analysis, to know if you are sacrificing anything important, you need to ask yourself if the attribute is something that you’re able to consistently deliver. If it is not, then find the items that are important to the listener, which you are able to provide, and build on those.

We sometimes focus on items that are not that important. Is the news really that important for your station? If so, then make the news the best it can be. If the ideal station has a fun and entertaining morning show and your station does not stack up very well, perhaps it’s worth working on, but if not, having a bad one is worse than not having one at all.

If you are in a situation that does not afford the budget for a full-blown research project, why not invite thirty or so fans of your station to a focus group? Is it perfect methodology? No. But you can at least find out what is important to them and how you perform with those top ranked attributes.

All things being equal, you will end up with a list of what really matters for your listeners. The goal of course is to match your fan’s ideal. Look at the top stations in almost every market and you will find there are only about five things they focus on.  

Remember – “If you put your name on everything – you’ll be remembered for nothing!”    

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