A Loyal Reader Writes:
“Our consultant recently said that he doesn’t want any online music streaming of our station.
“Why not? He doesn’t want to make it easy for our competition’s out-of-market consultants to get ahold of our playlist.
“Does that make any sense?”
It makes perfect sense.
After all, if you don’t stream your music online, then there’s absolutely no way that your competition (or your competition’s out-of-market consultants) can hear what you’re playing.
You see, if you stream your music, then your competitors’ out-of-town consultants will sit at their computers all day long and carefully write down each song as you play it.
But if you don’t stream your music, then there’s no way any outsider can figure out your playlist.
I mean, what’s he going to do — have your local competitor record your station for a couple of days and then have a part-timer spend a few hours skimming the recording and jotting down the names of the songs that played and the times they aired?
Of course, research consistently shows that the #1 thing listeners want from their favorite radio station’s website is the ability to listen to that station on their computers.
But your consultant is wise to ignore what would drive listener traffic to your website and instead to worry about a competitor learning what music you play.
Just in case my sarcasm doesn’t translate well here:
Your consultant’s logic and actions are idiotic.
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Brilliant Dan, much appreciated!
As with all radio decisions, a simple check of ‘what’s in this for the listener?’ would have sorted that one out. Madness!
Besides the paid info subscribers can pull up, there are free online sites I can visit tonight that will tell me not only what is playing now, it will list all the songs for the past week, including what time they played. (I’m fairly sure with one week of info I’ll not only know your playlist, I’ll have figured out your clocks.)
One site in particular also launches the video and has a live chat feature for fans of the station to connect.
Rather than be mired in worry and spirit killing paranoia, concentrate on giving your own listeners something so phenomenal EVERYONE will try and copy it (but they wont be able to because your unique consultancy skills will have given the programmers incredible support, guidance and enthusiasm to rise ahead of the pack).
Or- worry about not streaming, hiding your product AND check to make sure none of your competitors are on your FB friends list, or will ever see your promotional mailings(assuming you have the budget for that). Lots of billable hours there, coming up with FBI worthy security procedures to hide what we other wise work hard to publicize.
Too much traffic on the freeways already, we don’t need it on our website.(borrowing some of Dan’s sarcasm )
Dan… anybody can get just about any station’s playlist instantly if they subscribe to MediaBase 24/7 or a similar service. Why bother with recording the competition? Shouldn’t the consultant know this? The consultant sounds very self- interested and woefully out-of-touch, two traits that should raise one big red flag.
Wow. What other nuggets does this “radio consultant” have in their war chest? By following this advice, your station won’t be around long enough for the competition to have to worry about your playlist.
That is like trying to play football with a hockey puck! The whole idea is for entertainment….I wasnt aware that Radio was now a state secret.
Unfortunately, it may become a best kept secret.
What I can’t understand is what kind of moronic dung-licking GM or VP would hire this idiot as a consultant? These guys need to be thrown out of radio with great force.