One of the most important lessons in radio is also one of the simplest: know your audience.
It’s a lesson we preach to advertisers. It’s a lesson we use when building clocks, choosing topics and developing programming strategies. Understanding audience behavior is fundamental to everything we do.
That’s why I’ve been scratching my head over the RNC Midterm Convention being scheduled during the opening two nights of the NFL season.
A Collision With Fan Habits
To be clear, this isn’t about whether football is more important than federal elections. It’s not. And this isn’t a criticism of the people who put these events together. Organizing conventions is difficult, venues are expensive and calendars are never perfect.
But it does raise a larger question: If the GOP, which is more male and working class than it’s been in generations, prides itself on connecting with its base voters, why would the party schedule one of its major gatherings directly against the NFL’s opening week?
I was at the gym on Labor Day and, not surprisingly, the men aged 25 to 54 weren’t talking about politics. They were talking about the Seahawks and Patriots. The 49ers and Rams. They were talking about fantasy football, sports betting and the return of the NFL. They weren’t talking about a manufacturing speech in Dallas on a Wednesday night.
The NFL isn’t just another television show. It’s arguably the closest thing America has left to true appointment viewing. And opening week isn’t some random game in November. It’s the return of a cultural ritual that millions of people have been anticipating for months.
So when the GOP puts a convention up against NFL opening week, it feels less like an outreach strategy and more like a collision with one of the strongest habits their voters already have.
Attention Matters
And in news/talk radio, there’s a lesson here.
Attention matters.
As hosts, programmers and sales professionals, we understand this concept better than most industries. A conference can have a healthy turnout and still lose the battle for engagement. If half the audience is mentally somewhere else, that’s a problem no matter how many registration badges are handed out.
We know audiences have rituals: Election Night. Thanksgiving travel. March Madness. The Super Bowl.
NFL opening week has become one as well.
Successful brands don’t fight those habits. They acknowledge them and plan around them.
In fact, radio has historically been at its best when it understands audience occasions. Great programmers know when to lean into a major cultural event, when to capitalize on it and when to simply get out of the way.
That’s the bigger lesson here.
Audience Behavior Always Wins
The takeaway isn’t that football should dictate every decision. It shouldn’t.
The takeaway is that audience behavior almost always wins.
No matter how important we think our event, message or cause may be, people still make decisions based on the habits they already have. The best broadcasters understand that reality because we deal with it every day on the air.
And that’s why scheduling a major political gathering against the opening week of the NFL feels so odd. At a time when many Americans are exhausted by the constant political noise, asking them to choose politics over the biggest entertainment release valve in America feels like a fool’s errand.
Maybe November will prove otherwise. But if there’s one lesson radio has learned over the years — one it can impart to our friends in politics — it’s that fighting audience habits is usually a losing proposition.
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