A Loyal Reader Writes:
“On my radio show, I am not allowed to mention ‘Dancing with the Stars’ or that the newest iPhone is being released.
“That’s because our manager believes that saying these brand names during the normal course of conversation will give brands free air time and thus engender a potential loss of revenue for the station.
“Quoting from his critique of my program: ‘Speaking positively about local TV channels/media is giving them air time and unpaid publicity.’
“What’s your opinion?”
Your job is not to avoid giving unpaid publicity to other businesses or media outlets.
Your job is to engage your radio station’s listeners.
The easiest, best way to engage your listeners is to enter the conversations that define their daily lives.
Half your audience watched “Dancing with the Stars” last night, but you’re supposed to ignore that and instead try to get them interested in the fact that this is National Dental Hygiene Month?
Your listeners lined up outside stores the night before the new iPhone first went on sale, and instead of talking about that you’re supposed to encourage them to call to vote: “What’s your favorite color — red or blue”??
I suggest that your manager ask every one of your station’s listeners, “Why do you listen to this station?”
I predict:
• Many will say, “I like the music they play.”
• Some will say, “I really like their DJs.”
• Not one, however, will say, “I listen to your station because you never give free publicity to competing media or to businesses that don’t advertise with you.”
Why is that important?
Because a commercial radio station cannot survive without listeners.
Yes, “radio advertisers pay the bills.” But advertisers go where the listeners are.
The more relevant you are to your listeners’ lives, the more listeners you attract and the longer they listen.
News Flash:
Everything your audience does when they’re not listening to you is your competition.
If they’re watching the World Cup, they’re not listening to your music program.
If they’re at a concert, watching a movie, or reading a book to their children, they’re not listening to your station.
Following your manager’s (and many managers’) logic, that means you should never talk about the big local concert, the blockbuster movie…or children.
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Spot on! As if thousands of listeners would rush out to buy an iPhone just because of hearing their favourite presenter saying it! There are many radio managers out there doing their level best to kill personality-driven and listener relevance radio!
I agree 100% Dan, with one exception. Many years ago I was doing an evening show. The afternoon guy saved his final break each day to say, “You’ve got a great night of TV ahead”, and would then run down the entire prime time schedule on all 3 networks. Its hard enough to compete with prime time without an unpaid promotional announcement leading into your show. 🙂 I still pulled good ratings, so in the end it didn’t really matter. I just thought it was kind of jerky to think the listeners would turn off their radios after his show was done.
News Flash: NO ONE will say they listen to a station because they ‘like the music”. No one likes hearing the same songs pounded over and and over and over.
In the real world, It’s the one thing that ALL listeners universally hate, yet ironically it’s the one thing that so called “PDs” universally love!
Music radio commited industry wide suicide long long ago. It’s over and it aint coming back as long as clueless and spineless PDs keep getting hired by clueless spineless management.
And what if the music industry said “no more playing our tunes – people won’t buy them if radio makes it free to listen!” Those stations would have a lot more time to talk about even less!
Sea Bass, go troll elsewhere. Stations play popular hits in tight rotations because a) they’re popular, and b) most people don’t listen to a station all day. They average 3.5 hours per day, and therefor stations should be playing top hits at least 3 times a day. Now, if you factor in morning drive, lunchtime shows, and afternoon drive, that’s 3. If there’s an evening show, they may play it too. It’s actually more varied now, in the old days “Top 40” meant 40 songs, over and over. You have to keep playing them, in case someone didn’t hear it. Then, you’re just the station that doesn’t play the hits. You’re welcome, hope this helped you out!
@Dave North: Agreed. There certainly is no point in saying to your listeners, “Okay, now’s a good time to turn off your radio and go watch a few hours of TV.”
When I worked at a rock station in the 80’s, we weren’t allowed to talk about music videos because MTV was “the competition”. That brilliant program director went on to become a consultant.
What an absolutely inane policy. It sounds like 1968. Having spent nearly 50 years on the air, I remember working for a station many years ago that had that policy and another, just as stupid, that said never play 2 female vocalists back to back. This is pure ignorance that will send listeners to stations that do, indeed, talk about the lifestyles of their listeners.
If the rule existed because that’s ALL the announcers talked about, I could see why the manager might make the rule (tho I think it’d be the wrong rule to make). But a general ban? Psh! Our lives are our show prep…just as the listeners’ lives are show prep.
This sounds like a real small market “old school” manager. The kind of guy I worked for in 1974.
Ignoring what the audience may care about is a great way to make your show as irrelevant as possible.
how can this “manager” BE a manager?..
classic tunnelvision
I worked in a college town in the south and was not allowed to talk about “the game” because we didn’t air the games. Because, you know, nobody living in a college town in the south ever talks about football.
A co-worker and I both had the unfortunate experience of working for the same incompetent PD (on separate occasions…interesting to compare stories later). This guy didn’t necessarily have a “Don’t talk about any TV shows” policy, but she told me about an incident where he told her not to talk about the show, Survivor because “nobody watches that.” This was during Survivor’s debut season when it was pretty much the hottest thing on TV. Always fun to work with some giant ego in a leadership position who arrogantly believes, “I’m so important that surely all our listeners think as I do; therefore, if I don’t like something then no one else must like it, either.”