SUMMER, 1993
Without this listener orientation, stations can easily fall into one or more of nine "traps" I've identified....traps that can be very costly in time, effort and (especially) money...
When many managers decide on a format for their stations, they look to the market. Sounds like marketing? Not always, because they often look at the radio market, not the listeners:
"Let's see now. We've got a CHR and a mainstream A/C, but NO Hot A/C. Aha! A hole in the market! Let's go Hot A/C!"
So much for their "market" research. These managers are thinking in radio terms, not listeners'!
This station -- we'll call it WQQQ -- positioned itself in the "hole" between the top-rated CHR and A/C stations. Did they get listeners from both? No...neither! A/C fans found it too hard; CHR fans found it "wimpy."
In marketing, you've got to be "something for somebody." But WQQQ was nothing for anybody. Without a "core" audience, WQQQ "peaked" at 1.5!
Remember: A "hole" is not a "hole" if there aren't listeners there!!!
Some managers assume that just by virtue of being on the air, they'll get their piece of the "pie."
The owners of KXXX expected that when they signed on a Country FM in the early 80's. After all, the Country share in their market was around 25%. Sure, there were already three other Country stations, but if they got a fourth, that would be a 6 share. Even if they got only one-sixth, that would be a 4 share...enough to be profitable.
Unfortunately, KXXX never "got its share"...it never cracked a 2.0! Why? Because the market's Country fans were already well-served by a Full-Service Country AM, a music-intensive "Continuous Country" FM and a livelier, more traditional, personality-oriented FM.
A prerequisite for marketing success is the ability to satisfy unserved listener needs or exploit a competitors' vulnerability. Neither opportunity presented itself to KXXX.
This trap is the opposite of the "Get Our Share" trap. Here, managers wrongly assume they can't succeed in a format because it doesn't have enough listeners to support it.
Around the same time that "Get Our Share" KXXX flopped, the P.D. of WAAA -- a legendary AM Top 40 station turned A/C -- fell into this trap when he evaluated format options for his declining station...
"Country," he said, "doesn't make sense because the FM Country WCCC only has a five share. Even if we split it, that's only a 2.5 -- no better than what we have now."
Research discovered otherwise... a group of AM listeners who loved country music, but who rarely if ever listened to WCCC. WAAA offered it, and quickly moved up to a four share.
Meanwhile, FM Country WCCC was hardly affected...we found a whole new audience for Country.
Radio is a curious business. People are attracted to it not just for money but as much or more for "glory." On the air or off, they want to be STARS.
But glory-seeking can sometimes cloud the judgment of its seekers. They want to invent the next "big thing" in radio...like the P.D. who proudly announced that his new format would be "on the back page of Radio & Records within a year." As if listeners cared!
They didn't...his station flopped.
Radio needs people willing to take chances. But as a radio MARKETER, I think innovation should be audience-driven, rather than ego-driven.
There are plenty of opportunities to satisfy listeners with new formats. For example, in the early 80's, we began discovering listeners who weren't satisfied either by Beautiful Music (too mellow, instrumental) nor A/C (too hard and contemporary). The Soft A/C format was born.
More recently, we've uncovered an "Adult Urban" opportunity in some markets -- more mellow, with lots of oldies and NO rap.
These innovations succeeded because they serve listeners' needs. And that's Marketing.
More managers would "follow the lemmings to the sea" than go out on a limb, whether driven by the market, ego or anything else.
These managers seem more interested in the latest industry bandwagons and trends than their own hometowns.
And all too often those "industry trends" are so WRONG for their hometowns.
My favorite Follow the Crowd story is about WKTU -- the New York "Disco" station that knocked off WABC and became Number One in in a very short time. It was assumed that Disco was the Next Big Thing, right?
Wrong. Disco was definitely not the thing for most markets, as a lot of trend-happy managers discovered the hard way.
In fact, even WKTU abandoned Disco to follow an early 80's trend -- CHR -- which didn't work out for them either.
Meanwhile, the desire for dance music remains strong in New York, as shown by the success of WQHT. And dance music is now truly "hot" in many other markets as part of the CHR format.
Times change and tastes change, but following trends blindly is always a bad idea. Remember: Listeners don't read the trades!
I also call it the "Beating Your Head Against the Wall" Trap. It means working hard to put over a strategy that just won't be put over no matter how hard you try.
Many radio people (especially programmers) are enamored of execution. They listen to their competition and almost always think they can do better. With better DJs, bigger contests, hotter production, more advertising and the "right" songs, they say, they'll "blow 'em out of the water."
Of course, P.D.s are hardly the only ones guilty. GMs often assume that if everyone just executes better and if they push the station more, they can put it over the top.
Sadly, it isn't always so. Even brilliant execution of a flawed strategy will get you nowhere.
One example was a station I'll call WEEE. It was the best Easy Listening station I had ever heard. And it had been at it for several years with dismal results.
Our research discovered there was simply little audience in its market for an Easy Listening station. So more time and effort would NOT make things better.
A format change, however, did. We found a great opportunity for WEEE with Oldies. A few months later, it was #1 25-54.
It amazing what you can do when you're serving listeners' needs, rather than "beating your head against the wall."
Please don't construe our discussion of Trying Harder as suggesting that stations abandon their strategies when progress is slow in coming. Nothing could be further from the truth!
Worse are stations that constantly change music mixes, slogans, logos and call letters so often listeners never get the idea of what they're all about.
These "chameleons" never seem to find success. Even if they did find the right "formula," they'd be off doing something else before listeners even knew it!
Why do they do it? For some, it's the Follow the Crowd Trap ....managers chasing trends. Other times, it is the result of radio's heavy turnover and the Hero Trap. New G.M.s, P.D.s and Promotion Directors want to put their "imprint" on a station, even when change isn't called for.
Most often, though, the Chameleon trap is simply a result of impatience. Managers, under heavy pressure to make things happen now and living in a world where even minor tweaks are noted, fail to recognize that listeners aren't that involved!
While some strategies result in immediate turnarounds, others take time to root in listeners' consciousness. We all prefer the "quick fix," but sometimes it's just not available, or perhaps not as desirable, long-term, as a strategy that grows more slowly.
An example is KAAA. Our research revealed that its positioning as the "second banana" CHR was a no-win situation. But we did find the need for a mainstream A/C, which could deliver much better 25-54 numbers. So KAAA made the big switch.
But in its first A/C book, all that KAAA accomplished was to "blow off" its younger audience. It didn't improve much among 25-54's, who continued to perceive KAAA as a hot hit station. As a result, KAAA's numbers went down.
Still, tracking research confirmed that the A/C opportunity was viable. What was needed was time, plus a stronger effort to communicate KAAA's new positioning to its target audience.
In its next book, KAAA began creeping up 25-54. Eventually, it became its market's #1 25-54 station. "Staying the course" was definitely worth it!
So how do you know whether you should "stick with it" or whether you're just "beating your head against the wall"? The answer is RESEARCH. Sometimes I think the most valuable benefit of research is to keep a station on course when rating services blips suggest that it is not.
Also known as the "Wanna Be" Trap, it involves confusing what we want with what we reasonably and realistically can achieve.
In a perfect world, what we want and what we can do would be the same. But in the real world, it sometimes isn't. In fact, we find that the single biggest cause of stations' failed strategies is targeting listeners they cannot realistically attract.
For example, look at what's happened to many CHR stations recently. They've added oldies and softened their sound in an attempt to be palatable to listeners over 25 -- the so-called "Adult CHR" format.
In many cases, all this attempt at moderation has led to is less enthusiasm and time spent listening among 12-24's. And unlike KAAA in our previous example, they may just not have much 25-44 potential.
All of this is not to say that difficult goals can't be achieved in radio. If a CHR can attract more 25-44's, go for it!
But wishful thinking just won't make it so! And if it isn't so, no amount of goal-setting in corporate boardrooms is going to change the situation, because all listeners care about is what they want, not what some station owner, G.M. or P.D. wants.
Marketing is the art of the possible. Ideally, a station has a number of possibilities and can choose the best. But what we "wanna be" is irrelevant.
Or the "Grasping At Straws" Trap. Or the "Quick Fix" Trap. With intense pressure to succeed in radio, the intangible nature of the product and a quirky rating system, it's not surprising that managers or owners become anxious and begin "casting about" for solutions.
Often the "solution" comes in the form of an individual...a "savior" who will magically solve all of a station's problems.
Sometimes this savior is a Program Director who has succeeded in another market.
This P.D. may have been successful because of his or her programming skills. Or he or she may have inherited a particularly strong opportunity or especially strong talent. Or he or she may have had weak competition.
There may be many explanations for this P.D.'s success, yet all too often, stations don't try to understand them. They're looking for someone to bring them the "magic formula" for success.
But P.D.'s are not the only saviors that stations pin their hopes on. Often it is a personality, either from the station's market or elsewhere.
Unfortunately, you can't always tell how much impact a personality has by looking at ratings. Some personalities can move an audience; most can't.
Finally, sometimes the savior isn't a person at all...it can be some other "quick fix." For example, contests are often used to hype a station's numbers...fine if the station's listeners are "into" contests, bad if the contest is diverting management from bigger issues.
KSSS, facing declining numbers, decided a major contest was in order. So it gave away a 250,000 home. But, since KSSS couldn't afford the home, a lot of tradeouts were involved...for the house, appliances, etc.
That meant that a lot of promos, mentions and extra spots. In fact, KSSS became entirely about this home giveaway and hardly anything else. The home became all that KSSS ever talked about. And it did a lot of talking.
Across the street, our client, KIII, was nervous. It's natural for management to get nervous when the competition is conducting such a major contest. But I was thrilled, because I knew that KSSS' big vulnerability was clutter, and its "$250,000 home" contest was sending its clutter factor right though the roof.
We reacted by doing absolutely nothing...no contesting and even less talk than usual. In contrast to KSSS, KIII's strategy was to be music-intensive. And it worked perfectly. KSSS' numbers went down, while KIII gained over a share point.
Of course, contests can be a positive. And strong P.D.s and personalities can make all the difference for a station.
But none of these "saviors" can take the place of a strategy based on market realities, not fantasy. Too often, managers reach out for a quick fix to feel better. Unless it makes listeners feel better, it won't fix anything!
All of our traps reflect a "radio mentality" where industry dogma takes precedence over listeners' needs, preferences and even common sense!
This phenomenon isn't surprising. Most people who are in radio are really "into" it. It's not just a job for them...its a way of life. Their friends are the people they work with. They "hang out" with record or concert promoters in their free time. They read the trades more intensely than their local newspaper.
In this cloistered environment, it is all too easy to lose touch with the very people we're putting on radio for...the very people who hold the key to our success or failure -- listeners.
The solution? Get out of the business! Not literally, but figuratively, get your head into "real life" and the way non-radio people think. The best way to avoid the traps is to develop a MARKETING orientation. That means a listener-, rather than an industry-orientation.
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