It’s September — the most critical time for radio programmers. Summer vacations are done, and school is back in session or will be next week. People are beginning to get set in their new routines. Parents who slept later all summer are up earlier now to get kids off to school. Therefore, music morning shows need their best material. In sports radio, there is no bigger game than football. For some markets, it’s the college game; other cities are dreaming of a Super Bowl. There are places where great revenue and listenership come from high school football. Meanwhile, even though baseball is over for 60% of the teams, there’s a race to the World Series from Tampa to LA. Additionally, news radio is alive with the upcoming mid-term elections. No matter the format, you have the potential to have more listeners right now, so let’s get them.
As someone who programmed in New York for many years, September always saw a substantial increase in PUMM (persons using measured media). If we had a budget, it was the time for outside marketing, our best contests, and great content from all the talent. From now until December, your team needs to be as focused as those hitting the gridiron this month. This is also the perfect opportunity to examine all the basics on the air.
Refresh Your Imaging and Promotion Strategy
No matter the format, start with your imaging and promos. Is it fresh, or are you running the same stuff since January? You need to think of September as a “new season” and get your most compelling production on the air. Don’t change your signature lines, but get them redone to stand out. Z100’s “from the T-T-T-Top of the Empire State Building” will always live in the minds of New Yorkers, but over the years it was produced differently. If you have programming elements sponsored and have been running the same tag since the start of the year, check with the sales rep to make sure it still applies.
Your produced promos should create FOMO, and you should run them in high rotation. If you’re in music radio, your cume may have forgotten over the summer when your signature benchmarks air. Hopefully, you have a contest to promote and can hook in those with PPM meters who play contests. Keywords and call-ins are fine for big money. However, contests for smaller prizes should be games to appeal to those non-contest players who make up the majority of your audience. Sports radio has an all-new football season and, in some cases, a pennant race. Lots of promos are needed to make sure the audience knows when they need to tune in. Create those most-listen appointments. Moreover, remember that all radio stations have audience turnover as people’s habits and tastes change. This is the perfect time to sell the benefits of your station.
Optimize Your Music Selections
If you’re in music radio and don’t have a new library test for fall, do a re-sort. Go into Mediabase and run a most-played report on successful stations similar to yours. Create a combined panel of a half dozen playlists and look for titles you could add to your rotations. Additionally, look for songs that you are playing too much or too little. Check out songs that you may have played upon release and moved to recurrent, assuming they were hits. You could very well find a song that you’re alone playing 20 times a week that everyone else has dropped. When in doubt, leave it out. Consider a tighter list for the next few months; nobody ever complained about hearing their favorite song too much. Local research is always best, but when you don’t have it, look to the stations who do. It’s very safe to assume the iHeart stations in the biggest markets are always testing their music. Thanks for that, Bob, Rich, and Tom!
Align Your Team and Strengthen Content
This is also a great time to connect with your talent and make sure everyone is on the same page. Everyone should know the exact target audience of your station and which benefits are important to be selling. There’s nothing worse than listening to a station and hearing different positioning from midday to afternoons to the night show. Consistency is key. Furthermore, your content dayparts need to have their best material. If the morning show hit a home run with a bit in July, they could rerun it in a different hour. Remember, most of your listeners don’t hear more than 90 minutes of your morning show each week.
This is the time to view your radio station the same way NFL coaches look at their rosters on Sunday. Cut everything that will impede your path to success. Also, it’s the time to think about the upcoming holidays; we dive into that next week. Welcome to September!
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