All-Something All The Time
Written Jan. 20, 2010 by Larry Rosin in Content + Marketing + Research with 3 Comments
Looking for patterns and trends in PPM data as it rolls out in market after market is fraught with danger. Every time you think you find a consistent pattern, another market blows it up.
That said, I do think it is telling us a lot about radio brands. We have long seen, even in diary days, that complex branding is challenging. Ask any station that was "Howard Stern all morning, [fill in format name] all day." They could seldom get the second half of the story to attach itself.
One of the real surprises of PPM has been stations with 'no morning show' turning out to be highly competitive in morning drive. What are they doing instead? Basically, what they normally do. Whether it is Soft AC's playing familiar favorites, or all-news-all-the-time stations delivering 'Traffic and Weather Together Every Ten Minutes', stations that stay in format all 24 hours seem to be strengthened by their consistency.
Of course there are morning shows doing remarkably well in PPM. But by the same token a lot of stations that weren't getting much action in mornings with the diaries (especially Soft AC) are doing way better with passive measurement.
Sadly, these findings have put a lot of talented morning performers 'on the beach.'
But isn't this maybe what we are being told: Maybe when you are the Classic Rock station people really want Classic Rock no matter when they tune in. And if you are the Big Morning Show station...maybe you should be the Big Midday Show station and the Big PM Drive Show station too. Maybe the industry should be re-deploying its fired shows into stacks on one station, instead of the history of them being spread around on each, all competing with one another.
If studying radio for 22 years has taught me anything, it is that brands matter. Maybe PPM is telling us this. Whatever that thing you are famous for might be -- maybe you should be "All that, All the time."
Reader Comments
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The points you make are right on, Larry, but I think there’s another level of complexity here.
Seems to me there are two big questions facing operators with big morning shows, neither of which are being adequately dealt with:
1) Are the shows any good? Really? Do they have a well established, important relationship with a significantly large audience?
Some of these highly paid shows have nothing but longevity, and they truly suck. But some (including some of those turfed) have long and very deep histories, and are a real part of their listeners’ lives. You don’t want to throw the babies out with the red ink (if you will.)
2) Does the morning show brand match the station’s?
If you’re fighting the morning guy’s brand, which was the case with most stations and Howard Stern, you have a problem. But Ryan Seacrest and KIIS are dead perfect together. This goes well beyond “will the morning show play a few songs” and into the big question of “what does the station mean to its audience?” Seacrest’s brand compliments the Hollywood/showbiz/now/pop CHR. Howard crosses all music lines, and can’t be really said to be exactly compatible with the brand identity of any well-focused music station.
If you do your “stack personalities” idea-- which is a great one--- you ideally stack them on something that becomes a greater whole, building a compatible Station brand—like, for example, Fox News and its personalities. Love them or hate them, they all fit.
BTW, stacking Stern-on-Stern to make a 24 hour “All Stern” channel would work just as well in terrestrial syndication as it does on satellite—he’s certainly compatible with himself.
This leads us to a THIRD question about the rash of AM show firings: Is anyone at the big Operators smart enough and ballsy enough to make the correct judgments about their talent and brands-- and defend them?
I live in Phoenix, Arizona and I am 31 years old and I don't know one person who is going to be carrying one of these things around or who is?
Internet Radio is the future big media companies better brace themselves because Apple is going to be helping new media companies change media with as we know it today!
People my age and younger don't even listen to radio because all the radio big wigs killed it!
You guys may have degrees from Harvard, but all the degrees in the wold can't get you listeners without quality content. Content is King!
Harvard? Sir, I previously worked in radio, and still follow the industry. Not once in those 10 years have I met a radio employee that attended Harvard University, and I'm confident that I can go the rest of my life without meeting one.
People who go to that school usually take jobs that pay money.