In the spirit of the holidays, from now until the end of the year, I’m offering you and your staff free 24/7 access to eight updated Packer Smart Talk programming sessions that cover the basics of Talk Radio. They are packed with programming tips, audio clips demonstrating how the format is executed and action plans that can be downloaded for future reference. It’s a great review for the pros and an easy way to train those new to Talk Radio.

Click on or paste this link in your browser to get the key that unlocks all 8 online sessions. Or forward this link to members of your staff.

http://packersmarttalk.com/171201.html

Happy Holidays and here’s to a strong Talk Radio 2010!

Michael Packer - VP Programming – Radio America

I’ve put together a brief audio session demonstrating how the top rated hosts use three of these tips to make this work for them.

The session is now open.

Give it a listen at: http://www.packersmarttalk.com/

Your User Name: tsl

Password: ratings

Onward and Upward!

—-Michael Packer – Packer Smart Talk Tips —October 2009

PS. Need to bring new members of your staff up to speed quickly on the basic formatics of talk radio? Want to give your pros a quick review? Go to http://packersmarttalk.com/

Over the past few weeks I’ve been browsing the internet, visiting station web sites and monitoring local talk hosts. I’ve heard some great, informative, compelling shows and some that could use a little fine-tuning.

One ingredient I’d wish I heard more of is “Ear Candy”.

So I thought I’d invite those of you who’d like a quick review and hosts and producers new to Talk Radio to join me in a brief audio session about “Ear Candy”.

Give it a listen, check out the action plan and then put it to work in your talk show.

Password: candy

Onward and Upward!

—-Michael Packer – Packer Smart Talk Tips — September 2009

PS. Need to bring new members of your staff up to speed quickly on the basic formatics of talk radio? Want to give your pros a quick review? Go to http://packersmarttalk.com/

N/T PDs: This Month we tune-up the “I” and “T” factors.

I-FACTOR #1 The “24/24 Fresh Test”

A talk show with a high “I” (informative) factor will meet the “24/24 Fresh Test”. The content of the show will be packed with FRESH information that is of IMMEDIATE interest to the target audience.

vTalk Shows Gone Stale

It’s easy to identify a talk show that’s going stale. The host will be stuck in his/her comfort zone. Doesn’t matter that the president of the United States just inserted himself into a local police matter and called an officer’s actions “stupid” before knowing all the facts. Nope, the host will ignore the pros and cons of spinning that issue and just continue plodding along, head down, stuck in the old school rut of abortion, gun control, black helicopters,etc. Stale topics that could be booked and discussed next month, next year or the next century. Stuff that should only be part of the show when they become a top-of-mind issue in today’s news.

vThe Easy Fresh Fix

If the host is willing and supported by a strong producer, it’s easy to get the show back to the “fresh” mode. Filter the next show’s content through the “24/24 Fresh Test”. Is today’s show focusing on the most important issues, events and topics that are hitting the hot buttons of the show’s target audience? Those which have occurred in the past 24 hours or will be coming up in the next 24? If the answer is “no, that content is stale… toss it. It’s probably an issue that is dead… a real stinker.

I-FACTOR #2 The “I didn’t know that”

“TELL ME SOMETHING I DON’T ALREADY KNOW” - A well prepped host will discover new nuggets of information to pass along to the audience. If the host is doing an outstanding job of prep, when you are listening, you’ll find yourself saying, “Wow, I didn’t know that!”

vMake sure hosts and producers are using all available sources to prep.

For example, how many of the following links is your team using when on the net looking for those nuggets of information that will trigger the listener to say… “I didn’t know that”?

vShow prep – using Google News Alerts

Ø http://www.google.com/help/faq_newsalerts.html

vHow to use Google as a search engine

Øhttp://www.google.com/support/websearch/bin/answer.py?hl=en&answer=134479

vWeb Search Strategies

Øhttp://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CWHPf00Jkqg

vHow to search YouTube

Øhttp://www.ehow.com/how_2100111_search-youtube.html

vInternet Search Tools

Øhttp://websearch.about.com/od/internetresearch/a/whatissearch.htm

WHAT ABOUT the T-FACTOR? – Define your Target

vDo the host, producer and program director have the same clear vision of the target audience?

vIt’s very important that they are on the same page when defining the target audience.

Many times during a program consulting meeting, I’ve presented this challenge:

I ask these three key players to write down a description of the show’s target audience. You’d be amazed how many times the talk host, the producer and the PD all have different targets in mind.

Challenge: Try it and see what happens. It may be a real eye-opener!

Michael Packer – Packer Smart Talk Tips — August 2009

PS. Need to bring new members of your staff up to speed quickly on the basic formatics of talk radio? Want to give your pros a quick review? Go to http://packersmarttalk.com/

How’s the E-factor (Entertainment) in each of talk shows?

Ø Now more than ever, a talk show must be BOTH informative and entertaining. Does the host have a sense of humor? Do you find yourself occasionally chuckling when you listen? The host that is habitually angry can wear thin after awhile. Ø What is the host doing to keep an element of surprise in each show? The listener expects to hear their favorite host tell them something they don’t already know about the issue, topic or event. Are you pleasantly surprised when you monitor?

Ø Is the host using the 24/24 test for every show? Is the host/producer identifying the issues of the past 24 hours and those coming up in the next 24 that will push the emotional hot buttons of the listeners?

Ø Is the host avoiding “Evergreen” programming? See above. If the show’s content does not meet the 24/24 test, the show can be aired next week, next month. It’s a show that can be placed in moth balls. It’s simply not relevant.

Ø Is the host/producer looking lots of interesting audio clips to add color when churning topics… everyday? Is the host reading quotes or airing the actual news clips? Which sounds most interesting to your ear? Being read to or listening to the actual news clip that provides the attitude, tone and personality of the person making the statement.

Ø What about “Ear Candy”? Is the host/producer effectively using music, song lyrics, sound effects, etc to add sizzle to the show?

Ø What about the host’s interaction with the callers? Is it colorful? Good point-counter point? Exciting? Taking lots of calls vs. long boring monologues?

Ø Are the Screening guidelines being followed? Is the screener able to pick the hit callers consistently? The “sound” of the caller should match the target demo of the show. Are the callers up, bright, articulate, and colorful?

Ø How about show pace? Pump up the volume. Keep the show moving forward at a fast clip.

Ø Does the host do an outstanding job of staging? Setting up and churning a topic in a way that gets the listener EMOTIONALLY INVOLVED is part of the staging that brings the entertainment factor in play.

Coming in August - PD: Summer NT Tune-Up Part Two Checking your talk shows’ “I” and “T” Factors

- Michael Packer - Packer Smart Talk Tips - July 2009

PS Need to bring new members of your staff up to speed quickly on the basic formatics of talk radio? Want to give your pros a quick review? Go to http://packersmarttalk.com

“There’s really only one rule in talk radio, and that is that, whether you’re on the left or the right, you can never be uninteresting,” says Dennis Prager, a syndicated conservative host based in Los Angeles. “You can be an idiot. You can be a moral fool. You can be primitive. But you cannot be boring. Every sentence must hold the attention.” This led to the rise of the Nineties “shock jock” - men (it was always men) who would push at extremes, or maintain a constant wattage of outrage, to keep their followings - There is, however, a very large potential spanner in the works. It revolves around demographics. Put bluntly, right-leaning talk’s audience is dying off. A recent profile of Limbaugh by Vanity Fair claimed that the average age of his listeners is 67 and rising. Fox’s average viewer is said to be in their seventh decade. In a changing world, against a President catapulted to power with a staggering majority of the youth, they may (in the long term) turn out to be onto a losing bet” (read more - Guy Adams - The Independent U.K.)

OK, Mr. Guy Adams, here the deal…

I’ve been watching the demos in Talk Radio since 1978. In my 31 years experience in programming and consulting this format, I’ve not seen any indication that the talk radio audience is “dying off”. In fact, back in 1978 there were only about 50 news and talk radio stations in America. Today, I did a search and found 641 news talkers, 994 talk stations and 409 listed as news stations. That’s over 2,000. Not to mention all the cable news talk shows, etc.

Mr. Adams, here’s how it works…

Sure there are people who listen to talk radio who eventually die, don’t we all… eventually? But those listeners are replaced by new listeners who are just discovering the talk radio format. Over the years, we’ve seen that the typical listener to music radio begins to get interested in spoken-word formats around the age of 30-34. That’s the age of “enlightenment”. That is the period in life when people start raising families, note how much they are paying in taxes and become more aware of how politicians and governments are trying hard to nibble away at their rights. It is then that this audience starts dividing up their time between their favorite music stations and their favorite talk stations.

To assume that the talk radio audience is “dying off” (left or right) is to assume that no new talk radio listeners are entering the pipeline. That is just not so. Never has been the case. In fact, we are seeing the growth of more “progressive” left leaning talkers and the move of more FMs into the talk format. Moving forward, it may be that talk radio is delivered to listeners by different delivery systems, like the internet, but trust me Mr. Adams, the appetite to listen to talk radio will remain and continue to grow.

Bottom line, to put it bluntly, the idea that the talk audience right-leaning (or for that matter left-leaning) is “dying off” is absurd. Do your homework Mr. Adams.

Michael Packer June 2009

Just remember: Promise only what you can deliver. NEVER use a liner that does not match what you actually do on air. It’s better not to air a liner than jeopardize your station’s credibility.

Recently I was rereading Jack Trout’s Differentiate or Die. If you’ve read Ries and Trout’s 22 Immutable Laws of Marketing and Positioning: The Battle for Your Mind, you’ve seen some of this before. Trout’s strength can be called branding, positioning, differentiation — they’re all closely related. In Differentiate or Die Trout, and his co-author Steve Rivkin, contend that the only way a company can survive is to differentiate. This is true for radio stations too.

Let’s take a quick look at how these basic principles can be put to work for your Talk Radio station.

• REFLECT THE TALK FAN’S ATTITUDE

Objective: Show that your station attitude is a mirror of the issues oriented talk fan’s attitude. Remember the talk fans are rebellious and don’t believe in sacred cows. They love to hear the sizzle when the feet of the movers and shakers are held to the fire.

Following are examples of liners we’ve used when differentiating our stations against an all news station or a talk station that avoids controversial issues.

NewsTalk Radio 1270, WXTX… Tackling the hottest issues, like no other Detroit Radio Station. NewsTalk W-X-T-X.

TalkRadio 1270, KBQQ… The Power of Your Free Speech… in Action!

TalkRadio, K-B-Q-Q.

NewsTalk Radio 1270, WXTX… Asking the Tough Questions, like no other Detroit Radio Station. NewsTalk W-X-T-X.

• TALK FANS AND THE POWER OF INFORMATION

Objective: A BIG talk fan hot button is NEW information. They love to tune-in and hear “something I don’t already know”. Show through liners that your station satisfies that hunger.

NewsRadio 790, WJBZ… Delivering the story behind the Headlines…. NewsRadio WJBZ

NewsTalk 560, KTSZ … Digging deep to uncover the inside story… NewsTalk KTSZ.

TalkRadio 910, WCVT… The More you Listen, The More you Know… TalkRadio. WCVT.

• TALK FANS LOVE TO TALK BACK!

Objective: Talk fans have discovered the power of free speech in Talk Radio. This is one of the reasons its popularity has mushroomed since 1990. Show through liners your station understands this and gives them the opportunity to get on the air and sound off!

TalkRadio 740, KHBQ…Put the power of your free speech in action! Phone 644-3476 and Get on Line! TalkRadio KHBQ.

NewsTalk 850, WBZT… Sound off!, Express yourself! at 644-3476. NewsTalk WBZT.

NewsRadio 1350, KQRS… Turn your phone into a microphone and Talk Back! at 544-3476. NewsRadio, WBZT.

OK, you get the idea. Put your creative juices to work, point out your competitor’s weaknesses by showing how your station is different and drive the PD across the street crazy! —- Michael Packer www.PackerSmartTalk.com

It remains to be seen whether this will be a direct fight against the Fairness Doctrine itself, or one that involves a battle against indirect measures to censor such as the creation of localism and diversity guidelines for programming monitored by “advisory” boards.

Since the announcement of our Fairness Doctrine Fight, radio has been attacked on other fronts as well. The little known Spectrum Tax for radio stations in the Obama budget and Nancy Pelosi’s proposal to loosen media consolidation rules to aid newspapers are new fights that appear to be singling out radio. Is it Fair for newspapers to have one set of rules and Talk Radio and the broadcast media to have another?

This is a fight for the future of radio and right now we are building an online army of hosts, announcers, producers, engineers, local leaders, friends and family who value free radio in our lives and in our communities. There is strength in numbers. We can win and we need your help.

In the coming weeks we will be making PSAs and web banners available for your stations to help educate and motivate your listeners to this threat. You can lead this fight in your market.

This cause is central to our industry and we appreciate you spreading the word. I look forward to any feedback you may have.

PACKER: When a talent falls into a rut. When the surprise factor is gone and the listener can predict what will happen tomorrow on the show, the host is in trouble. The thrill is gone. The listener becomes desensitized and searches for other forms of stimulation.

QUESTION: What’s better- guest interviews or lots of calls?

PACKER: Given a choice, quality callers interacting with a well prepped talk host is what most listeners prefer. But that assumes that there are plenty of calls, the quality of the calls are outstanding, the host is a super personality and the show’s content is on target.

QUESTION: Are “regular” callers a good thing or a problem?

PACKER: Other than the 2 or 3 that are really colorful sidekicks to the show, “regulars” can be deadly. If the same people are allowed on too often, the show begins to sound like a small daily meeting of the same people talking about the same things over and over. The show’s surprise factor vanishes. The program becomes too predictable. The host and the regulars may be entertaining themselves but the listeners will be gone.

QUESTION: How important is it to hire strong producers-what do you say to stations that rely on interns and call screeners to produce their shows?

PACKER: First, a talk host who’s serious about pleasing the listeners and generating ratings will want to control the day-to-day programming of his/her show. The host will rely on producers, interns and screeners to support programming objectives.

A host who thinks doing a show means just walking into the station and waiting to be handed a script and spoon fed information shouldn’t have the job. Put the screener, intern and producer on the air!

QUESTION: Who in talk radio deserves more respect/credit than he or she gets?

PACKER: Great Call Screeners and Board Operators deserve a standing ovation daily! The screener is your instant music director who delivers the hits to the talk host. The quality of calls can make or break a show. The person running the board is like the conductor of an orchestra who blends all the pieces of the show together into one harmonious sound. Great board operators program the show, minute-by-minute. They know how to seize the moment and air just the right audio clip, music or sound effect to add color and sizzle and make the talk host sound great.

QUESTION: What’s more important to the success of a show or station, formatics or raw talent?

PACKER: In talk radio, without talent, all the formatics in the world will not generate competitive ratings. A manager quickly finds out how important it is to keep talent happy when a station loses a host and searches for a replacement. Finding, developing, and grooming a talk celebrity is a long difficult job. Sure hosts have their eccentricities and can be difficult, but those types are usually the most talented. The role of programming and formatics is to help the talent maximize their ratings potential. Back them up with a well trained support team and make sure they have the tools to win.

Bottom Line: Respect, cherish, love your talent, just like your kids. Remember, you’re paying your talk hosts to express their opinions. The good ones will kick up dust and stir up controversy. So, protect them from the negative feedback you may get about them from other station personnel, angry listeners, clients, etc. Support their efforts and do everything you can to help them win.

—-Michael Packer – Packer Smart Talk Tips — March 2009

PS. Need to bring new members of your staff up to speed quickly on the basic formatics of talk radio? Want to give your pros a quick review? Go to http://packersmarttalk.com/

At this moment, on my computer’s desktop, one of the windows I have opened shows a financial page. Right now, I can see that GM will open today at $2.89 — down over 90% from a 52 week high of $29.28….. And, I see the Real Time Headlines posted within the last few minutes announcing that Chrysler and GM will widen buyouts, (more people fleeing Michigan) and a breaking story that Ford sales dropped 40% last month.

I’m based 30 miles north of Detroit, ground zero of the motor city meltdown – the former automobile capital of the world, and I need my latest auto news and commentary NOW…

By the way, earlier this morning, it took a while but I finally located my newspaper down the block. Seems that after being thrown toward my driveway, it gently glided to a stop in a neighbor’s yard. Noticed lately how light your newspaper is getting? Must be the lack of those full page ads.

Anyway, I opened it over my coffee and read the cut and paste job from yesterday’s news… yep the very news I read yesterday on my computer.

I called and cancelled my weekday subscription.

Which brings us to, IMMEDIACY vs. “Evergreen” programming.

Time was in N/T programming sessions, we’d discuss the importance of a show passing the 48/24 test. We would search for the news spins that made good talk radio fodder. Events and issues that occurred in the past 48 hours and those we thought would be coming up in the next 24.

A few years later, we tightened that up to 24/24.

Forget all that. Now it’s IMMEDIACY. To produce and host a news talk show that attracts and holds listeners…. You’ve got to focus on what is happening right now.

If what is scheduled for today’s show could be booked tomorrow or next week, it fails the IMMEDIACY test. It’s an “evergreen”, the embalming fluid of a news talk show. Today, “evergreen” booking and programming in news talk radio is lazy programming. It’s a waste of a listener’s valuable time. There are too many choices and sources of immediate news and information to settle for any news talk show that smacks of “Evergreen”.

Question: What is the guest going to say about today’s hottest news issues that the listeners have not already read or heard? What is the caller going to discuss that’s relevant to today’s topics?

What do news talk fans tell us over and over? “Tell me something that I don’t already know”. Tell me something that I can’t print off my laptop right now.

If a News Talk show is not based on IMMEDIACY it’s stale. It’s old school. It’s snooze talk… Wake me when it’s over…

—-Michael Packer – Packer Smart Talk Tips — February 2009

PS. Need to bring new members of your staff up to speed quickly on the basic formatics of talk radio? Want to give your pros a quick review? Go to http://packersmarttalk.com/

Here’s a time saver tip that will give you at a quick snap shot everyday of what’s being aired on each of your local talk shows. It will not tell you how the shows actually sound but this tool will give you a sense of the content and flow of your station’s programming.

Below is my “Week-At-A-Glance” show tracker that I’ve used for years. It only takes a moment each hour for the producer to complete and each day after the show, it’s emailed to the program director.

It’s easy to put together. Just create it in an Excel spreadsheet with the following columns.

Check out the tracker below starting at the first column on the left.

· Column #1 Day / Hours

First column shows the day broken into hours, and each hour divided into quarter hours.

That way, if the topic or guest changes in the course of the hour, you can see the flow of the content.

· Column #2 News Hooks

What topics were being churned? What was the hook being used to generate calls? What was the purpose of the guest appearance and how did it relate to today’s hottest news talk topics? Just a few short words are used to describe the content.

· Column #3 Guest(s)

Name of guest aired — this may be a newsmaker on the phone, a guest in studio, anyone not a member of the show.

· Column #4 Audio Clips Available

This shows the number of audio clips that were made available to the host that related specifically to what was being discussed in that hour.

· Column #5 Audio Clips Aired

How many were actually used.

· Column #6 Calls Screened

Number of calls available that hour for airing

· Column #7 Calls Aired

Number of calls that made it to the air that hour

Show-At-A-Glance

When you open the email each day, at a glance, you get a feel for the show. It’s a quick way to go back and listen to a specific segment, identify a hot moment you want pulled for a promo, etc.

And over the course of a week, you begin to see if the show is on target.

Horizontal Programming

This is also an easy way to track the flow of the show day-to-day. For example, what’s generally happening in the first hour of the show each day? If a person could only tune-in the first hour of the show Monday-Friday, what will that listener typically hear vs. if they tune in only the third hour? Do you see any interesting patterns?

Vertical Programming

Look at the flow of the show on any given day hour-by-hour. What’s happening in the second hour that will pull listeners across from the first hour?

Bottom Line

The Show Tracker does not replace the monitoring sessions where you actually hear what your listeners hear. However, I’ve found that this is a quick simple way for not only program directors, but producers and hosts to get a quick snapshot of what is happening on their show over the course of a week.

And it’s another time saver programming tool that helps you work smarter, not harder.

PS. Check out the online Talk Radio programming sessions at PackerSmartTalk.com

To get your password for 24/7 access, please go to: www.packersmarttalk.com

Happy Holidays and here’s to a Wonderful 2009!

Michael Packer - VP Programming – Radio America

In reviewing the management styles of the most successful stations, six immutable principles come to mind.

#1 The Client Principle: All clients are not created equal.

Question: Who is the station’s most important client? Answer: The Listener. To outpace the market, a talk station must generate lots of traffic for advertisers. The customers who move through the advertiser’s door and ring the cash register are the station’s loyal audience. Bottom line; make sure the number one client is a satisfied listener. The advertisers and revenue will follow.

#2 The Anti-Targeting Principle: Know Which Audience Not to Target.

Successful management does not waste precious resources chasing after listeners it will never get. It knows which image a successful competitor owns and will seek other images to build and niches to fill.

#3 The Thinker Principle: Allow only “Outside-In” Thinking.

Inside-Out managers tend to commit serious blunders when they make programming decisions based on internal agendas which have little to do with actual listener desires. Outside-In programmers do the satisfaction research necessary to discover the ever changing attitudes of core listeners. Core audience needs are then used as a reality check prior to every decision involving programming, promotions and marketing.

#4 The Higher Recall Priniciple: High Visibility is a Must!

Hire talent who seek celebrity status. Know the difference between the “good” talk host and “celebrity” host. The good host is serious about his/her talk show, does a super job of prepping, sounds great on the air and is able to inform and entertain the listeners. But, when the mike is closed, this host is out the door headed back to the house. Meanwhile, the celebrity host is just getting started. The “star” is a frequent master of ceremonies at social events, appears as a guest “expert” on television and cable shows, contributes articles to newspapers and magazines, blogs on the internet, has a web site, has a high profile in local charities, is cranking out a newsletter, working on a book, appearing in local plays, etc. Look for the stars who love high visibility.

#5 The “Super Listener” Principle: Keep Them Away From the Talent.

“Super Listeners” are spouses, relatives, friends, advertisers and callers to the switchboard who enjoy bashing the talk hosts. Some are critical fans who love to hate certain personalities. As long as no law is being broken, it’s management’s job to shield the host from these stormy showers of negativity. During “Super Listener” eruptions, management absorbs the heat while the talent focuses on performing for the audience. It’s not the clamor from the peanut gallery that causes experienced news/talk managers to panic; it’s the deadly silence that shrouds a vanilla host. No one comments and no one cares about the host who can’t make an emotional connection with listeners.

#6 The Minutia Principle: Hire only program and news directors who pay attention to the basics.

The dust never settles! These managers are obsessed with delivering quality programming one thousand four hundred and forty one minutes daily. They know that every talk show, newscast, promo, and promotion is either super-serving the core… or is off target.

PS. Need to bring new members of your staff up to speed quickly on the basic formatics of talk radio? Want to give your pros a quick review? Go to http://packersmarttalk.com/

They believe they have a great radio station that deserves a larger share of the ratings. They think all they have to do is change listener perception. That’s the major difference between Inside-Out and Outside-In thinking.

Outside-In Program Directors build on audience perceptions by making changes in the format or the type of personalities they hire, not by trying to force changes in the environment.

When the plane is falling, you don’t try to eliminate gravity, you focus on getting the plane to fly. In radio, you don’t fix the audience. You fix station content and formatics.

A Classic Case of Inside-Out Thinking that Bombed!

We once worked with a station that had a talk host who was clearly in trouble. After only four months in the market, Core Audience tracking indicated listeners hated the talent and were leaving the station during that time slot. Management chose to stick with their Inside-Out beliefs that with more time, remotes and promotions, they could prop up the show until the host won the audience over i.e. changed the environment. Three Arbitrons later, just as we had predicted Adult 25-54 AQH Shares had plummeted from 3.8 to 0.6.

How Outside-In Programming Wins!

In Houston, during the mid 1980s, KTRH and KPRC were head-to-head Talk format competitors. From audience research, we discovered previously unrecognized reasons why listeners were tuning to KTRH. It wasn’t primarily for talk programming, it was for our news! An Inside-Out programmer would have focused on trying to prove to listeners that our talk shows were better than KPRC’s.

Instead, using Outside-In Thinking, we built on audience perceptions, developed programming primarily for news listeners and repositioned KTRH as News Radio 740. Within 18 months KTRH quickly grew from 12th to 3rd in Persons 12+.

Unless your goal is to blow up your format and start over with a new audience, obtaining Outside-In feedback from core listeners on a regular basis is key to keeping your competitive edge.

Bottom Line: Get lots of Outside-In feedback, treat audience perception as TRUTH and build on that information.

PS. Need to bring new members of your staff up to speed quickly on the basic formatics of talk radio? Want to give your pros a quick review? Go to http://www.packersmarttalk.com/ and listen to the online programming session available 24/7.

]]> http://packerblog.radioamerica.org/?feed=rss2&p=93 http://packerblog.radioamerica.org/?p=92 http://packerblog.radioamerica.org/?p=92#comments Thu, 04 Sep 2008 12:20:03 +0000 MPacker http://packerblog.radioamerica.org/?p=92 Yes, it does cost to listen to your radio station! We’ve all heard the expression that radio listening is free. It’s true that the audience does not pay a monetary fee to tune into their favorite station. But, in reality, radio listening costs the audience what is most precious, TIME.

TIME they can spend doing lots of other things even if they are stuck in traffic in their car, bus or train. Aside from listening to your radio station while commuting, today your listeners are text messaging, talking on the cell phone, tuning to satellite channels, listening to their favorite song or book on their iPod or CD player, surfing the internet, watching a video, and the list goes on and on.

Each day, your listeners make a decision to invest time listening to your programming or show because they believe the return on their investment will be lots of valuable information and entertainment. The greater the return on their investment, the more they are willing to reinvest.

On average, listeners will invest around 50 minutes per day for News Radio.
The average for a good news/talk or talk station is 75 minutes.
Exceptional talk stations will report time spent listening (TSL) of 80 - 90 minutes daily.

Your goal is to outperform the average News Radio and News/Talk station by making sure your audience feels they will receive premium value for the time they invest listening.

Program Directors with high TSL stations make it happen with:
· Outside-In Programming - They keep track of the needs of their Core Audience and make sure they are met, consistently.

· Great Talent - They know the type of talent their Core enjoys. They chose and grow the type of hosts that fit that profile.

· Outstanding Promos - They look for ways to remind their listeners why it’s worth it to invest large chunks of time listening to their station. PDs use many different type promos in 5, 10 and 30 second bites to reinforce that message to the Cume on a daily basis.

· Consistent Quality Programming - They know that insuring quality programming means taking the time each week to sample enough of every show to insure every program and element on the station is on target.

· Minimizing the small on-air glitches - Over time, little on-air SNAFUS add up to sloppy sounding stations. Winning PDs quickly identify the technical and human errors and come up with solutions.

· Fresh, Timely Topication - They make sure their hosts are mirroring the issues and events that the Core is focused on that day.

And, the payoff? The investors (listeners) are willing to invest even more (time) and the result is longer time spent listening and larger ratings.

PS. Need to bring new members of your staff up to speed quickly on the basic formatics of talk radio? Want to give your pros a quick review? Go to www.PackerSmartTalk.com and listen to the online programming sessions available 24/7.

Is Your Competitor’s Ratings Crash Real?

If they’ve had pretty steady ratings trends over the past year, a remarkable one book drop may be a statistical fluke. Break out their ratings especially the AQH and Cume audience composition Monday-Sunday and find out which of their demos bit the dust. Then check out Arbitron’s sampling in those demos. If they were significantly low and had to be weighted up, it’s possible your competitor experienced a sampling anomaly, and will bounce back the next book. You can only hope they WILL overreact and start fixing what is not broken.

DANGER! If They’ve Hit Bottom, Their Troubles May Soon Be Your Problem!

If they’ve been on a downward trend and just hit a new low, consider their troubles a warning sign!

In the book “Predatory Marketing” there is an excellent chapter titled “Never Underestimate The Competition”. Author C. Britt Beemer writes:

“When a competitor becomes desperate, he may become dangerous. Why? Because desperation inspires risk taking. And when people are forced to take drastic measures, they could do creative things they might not otherwise have done. “What do I have to lose?” they ask themselves.”

“It sometimes takes a down period or lost market share to alert management to a danger signal. When a company gets into enough trouble, high level management finally begins to raise questions: “How did we get into this mess?” This is followed up by “What do we have to do to rid ourselves of this problem?”

Warning Signals that indicate the Competition Is Waking Up:

They’ve just hired a consultant.

After several back-to-back ratings busts, it finally dawns on management that they might not have all the answers. Although a consultant is not necessarily a panacea, it can help to employ an experienced third pair of ears to listen to the station, provide insight from a national perspective and field local audience research. If the consultant has a successful history of helping management and talent get back on a winning track, watch out!

The PD has been canned and a New Program Director has just arrived.

The first thing a new program director must prove to management is that she/he is going to make a difference. That may mean the dust will fly, new programming philosophies will be instituted, some talk hosts will be fired or eased out, new liners, jingles, bumper music, and promos will hit the air all giving the station a fresher sound. Find out what the new PD’s ratings track record is. Is the PD’s niche in news, talk or sports? What’s the plan? Often, a PD will spill the beans to your local newspaper columnists and drop a few clues here and there about upcoming strategy.

Bottom Line: Avoid that feeling of SMUGNESS.

In today’s highly competitive environment, you can’t rest on your laurels just because the competition is having a tough time. When your competitor hits bottom, you may become vulnerable. Stay the course, continue to super serve your target, but carefully track your competitor’s efforts to re-assume a competitive position.

Picking the “Hits”: In talk radio, the list of topics, events and issues that were burning up the phones yesterday are gone. So, you begin each day at ground zero figuring out which “hits” will connect with your target audience. If you are surrounded with an excellent group of proactive producers and talk hosts, they’ll usually be hours ahead of you in discovering what’s hot.

“Real-Time” Programming: Talk radio is just about as close to “real-time” programming as you’ll get. There’s no putting a hit list “to bed” and waiting until tomorrow to determine if it should be changed. A successful talk show is alive, surfing the currents of events as they happen. Five minutes from now, if a new “hit” breaks out, you’ve got to break in with it, which of course preempts that list your drew up just hours ago.

Spinning the Hits: In music, you can hand an Elton John CD to a jock, and when it’s aired, it sounds exactly like Elton. A talk host’s “hits” are in the form of “sheet music”. The quality of the sound will be determined by the host’s performance which may range from that heard in Carnegie Hall to a struggling garage band. So, depending on how it’s spun, it’s possible for a dynamite hit not to sound like one.

Music Director: Talk radio’s music director is the Call Screener. Every call is either an ear-opening, entertaining hit, or it’s a bomb. Can you imagine your music director opening the studio door every two minutes and tossing another CD to the jock for airing? A CD the jock has never even heard? Now you can empathize with the host who is at the mercy of the screener who must decide in thirty seconds or so if the caller will hold the attention of the audience. And once the call is on the air, good or bad, the host has to deal with it. This position requires some very special skills and innate programming abilities. Call screeners should be well trained and well paid because moment-by-moment, they help make or break a show.

Anyway; congratulations on your new challenge! Don’t be surprised if staying on top of the issues and current events every day, helping the talk talent, producers and screeners with their needs and keeping the production, promos and bumper music fresh take up as much time as your music station. By the way, we haven’t even touched on your responsibilities for news programming but oops, we’re out of space.

WOW! They just discovered that little nugget of programming basics at Edison Media Research? Take a look at the following column I wrote over 10 years ago warning managers about this talk radio programming trap! It originally appeared in Radio Ink September 15, 1997. Some things never change. Don’t say I didn’t tell you so…

Scene: The Week Before:
The manager raced into Ms. PD’s office. “Sorry you’re the last to know”, he bubbled, “but we’ve just signed Mr. Big Name Marquee to a zillion dollar contract to host mornings.” Ms. PD immediately protested. “Mr. Marquee may be a well known personality who will attract instant Cume but,” she predicted, “the show won’t last because he has no experience as a news/talk talk host.”

“What a negative attitude”, grumped the manager. “Besides, it’s your job to teach Mr. Marquee how to be an outstanding host and turn all that curious Cume into large AQH Shares. See ya at the client party!” And off he marched to the sales manager’s office with plans to raise morning drive rates immediately to cover Mr. Marquee’s fat paycheck.

Week One: It’s Mr. Marquee’s big debut and he’s armed with his golden rolodex which is a virtual Who’s Who of all the buddies he’s made during his stellar career. A champagne breakfast is served to potential clients as they gaze through the studio window. Mr. Marquee is smiling as he kicks off his show by chewing the fat with his friends about the good old glory days.

Week Two: The party’s over and there are no more buddies to draft as guests. Mr. Marquee is taking a shot at openline, fielding calls from listeners who’d like to get his opinion about a controversial topic. Mr. Marquee frowns. No one told him he would have to have an opinion about anything. He worries that expressing his feelings might upset his circle of friends.

Week Three: The honeymoon’s over. It’s time for Mr. Marquee to tackle some really hot issues. Now if Ms. PD were programming a music station, she’d tell the jock which button to push and the computer would play the next song scheduled. But this is Talk Radio and when she hands a group of suggested topics to Mr. Marquee, it’s like giving him sheet music. Suddenly he’s a one-man band who’s never had a music lesson, but must attempt to play the hits.

Interviews are even worse. He doesn’t know how to set up a segment and has no clue what to ask. In desperation, the producer feeds questions to Mr. Marquee though his headset (remember the movie Broadcast News?) and he dutifully repeats them into the microphone.

One Year Later: This little show of horrors is canceled and Ms. PD is back at square one, looking for another talk host.

Before the next “star” personality with no radio experience is signed, management might want to cover three simple points with the potential host:

· Are you committed to investing the daily prep time necessary to conduct an informative and entertaining radio talk show?

· Will you work with the PD to learn the programming and communication skills necessary to host a winning show?

· If you were hosting a talk show this afternoon, which issues, events or topics would you discuss with your callers?

Finally, here’s one for managers. How many ex athletes, comedians, actors, politicians and other heros with no radio experience can you name, who’ve made a successful long term transition to hosting news/talk shows?

What Say You? Shoot me an email and let me know your thoughts. Here’s my
email.

TV would air 5, and 10 second liners teasing their upcoming local news and 10 and 30 second promos for their shows.

I was at Detroit’s WXYZ Talk Radio 1270. We had a weak signal in a three-way battle with the 50,000 watt “blow torch” WJR and all-news WWJ.

We had a great line up of local talent and carried one syndicated talk show, Larry King.

My objective was to take our relatively small CUME and pump up the AQH Shares by extending time spent listening. Larger AQH would make us more competitive with WJR and WWJ which had much stronger signals.

Starting with a P12+ 2.7 share of the market, we built a strong team of local talk hosts and had a brilliant marketing and promotions director who developed some outstanding billboard and television campaigns.

But on a day-to-day basis, my job was to help the talent increase time spent listening to pump up those AQH shares.

Inventory was tight. Sales could not afford to give programming inventory in place of their spots.

So I did three things.

First, coming out of every commercial break, we started playing bumper music and used the first 10 seconds to air a short promo. We made sure that the talk host actually voiced his or her own promos. This introduced the listeners to other hosts in other day parts. I believed this was much more powerful than having a generic “station voice” record a liner to promote the host’s show.

Morning drive listeners were introduced to midday and afternoon drive shows. And those who tuned-in exclusively to hear a midday show were introduced to the late evening show, etc.

Second, I got Mutual Broadcasting to agree to play bumper music out of Larry King’s commercial sets and give us 10 seconds to promote the station. This had never been done in a syndicated show and it was the beginning of a trend that is now standard practice.

Third, I carved one minute out of programming (remember, we could not afford for sales to give up a minute of their inventory) and created a thirty-second slot each half hour where we could air a promo. By the way, it was a firm policy these 30-second avails could NEVER be used for sales purposes. Only to promote our shows.

I called these thirty-second promos SOL (slice-of-life) promos. Each week, our producers and talent would capture a couple of “Hot Moments” from their shows and we would edit them down to produce two “ear-opener” 30-second promos.

Every Thursday (“diary day”) the fresh new batch of 10 second and 30 second SOL promos would go into rotation.

I actually had a 168 hour grid mapped out so I could track the rotation of each show’s promos. No matter what show the listener tuned to, if they listened two or three days a week they would hear a promo introducing them to all the other prime shows on the station.

Results? The 12+ ratings at WXYZ trended upward for 6 Arbitron books in-a-row. The day-to-day listening increased. Audience recycling improved. Listeners were sampling shows they never even knew existed on the station. And the time spent listening went up dramatically as they stay tuned for the next show.

Our promo system was one of the strategies we used in Detroit to help our team grow and maximize their ratings potential. The station even with it’s weak signal zoomed from 2.7 to 6.0 in 18 months.

Today, television stations still run a lot more promos than talk stations. Plus now they run visual only promos at the bottom of the screen for upcoming shows and their logo can always be seen.

Today, most radio stations also air promos, but overall I still believe they could do more to take advantage of every second of promo time the syndicated shows give them.

At Radio America, we offer our affiliates fresh new promos every Thursday. Program directors have their production director log on and download SOL (slice-of-life) promos for Michael Reagan, G. Gordon Liddy and The Greg Knapp Experience.

Click the links below and check them out. They are 22 seconds long which gives you 8 seconds to tag out with the time the show starts, call letters and dial position. And there are two versions of each promo. Dry and already produced with music.

Airing them in all dayparts helps recycle your listeners, makes the network host sound like part of your local team and can help extend your time-spent-listening which drive AQH shares.

Onward & Upward!
Michael Packer
VP Programming Radio America

The G. Gordon Liddy Show
http://feeds.radioamerica.org/GGordonLiddy/

The Greg Knapp Experience
http://feeds.radioamerica.org/GregKnapp/

The Michael Reagan Show
http://feeds.radioamerica.org/MichaelReagan/