|
Since Good to
Great swept onto the scene, good managers and companies have
sought ascension to “great.” If only the sheer will to effectuate
this leap was enough. Alas, radio companies are finding that
traditional benchmarks of “great” are elusive and incomplete.
Consider the
original validation for general market radio success: ratings and
revenue. This duo reflected easily measured empirical data. One
without the other meant “not good,” and certainly never “great.”
Today, the two
pronged bell-weather for radio success has become clouded by the
reality of our times: dollar input versus dollar output, and the
return per dollar-spent. Non commercial public and Christian brands
are measured by fundraising, though more and more are taking ratings
seriously and realizing they can compete. In a standard cluster of
commercial stations, the gap between good and advanced performance
rides on non-empirical measurement. This missing piece of subjective
aesthetics appears to be confusing many companies, leading to
performance frustration.
Management coming
from a historically process-oriented background struggles for a
connection to the concept that says, “Even though your field
leadership may exist in a diffused setting, you can create the
climate which distinguishes the difference between conventional and
acceptable goals, and inordinate “greatness.” The breakdown occurs
when companies are either too anxiety-saturated by financial models,
or simply lack the awareness of what we refer to as “The Third
Dimension” required for greatness beyond ratings.
Radio’s “Third Dimension” Defined
One day in the
history of legendary KVIL Dallas/Fort Worth, group programming
architect George Johns went over to Neiman Marcus and asked to buy a
mannequin. Then, he asked an attendant in the women’s department to
dress the mannequin in fashionable attire. George placed his newly
acquired friend in the KVIL studio replete with a sign hanging
around the mannequin’s neck that said, “Convince me!”
Radio has always
played music, unless of course the format is a spoken-word brand.
Radio has always sold its music as an identity, and when its music
brand created ratings, it sold those too, based on quantitative
return. To accomplish this process, radio needed two essential
components, aside from its physical assets: songs to be played, and
jocks to facilitate them. Some stations and companies were more
effective than others, but typically, the execution of a format was
largely due to the leadership within the halls.
The report card was
simple: ratings + revenue = the corners of the manager’s mouth
pointing up.
But with
consolidation demand for more yield, more complex structure within a
building or a company (often merging two or three former competitors
with lingering animosity under a new tent), plus fewer resources of
every kind, suddenly radio could no longer afford the luxury of
two dimensions in its programming scheme, much less three.
Today, a high percentage of today’s cluster programmers are stuck in
a monochromatic world with station talent delivering one-way,
non-reciprocal messages from the control room-out, with all of the
warmth of flight announcements at LAX.
The Third Dimension
is based on this proposition:
Even though ratings
and revenue remain two critical barometers of success, “greatness”
can only be claimed when leadership creates a culture of
consensus-building among the staff, to create a total listening
climate that goes far beyond the songs and talent themselves.
At least 75 percent
of radio stations coast-to-coast, regardless of market size, insist
in sustaining sonic packaging from the past, with all of the élan of
announcing school hot lunch menus. Talent is seldom coached under a
set of parameters mutually accepted by the program director and
their talent. The “wall-of-jock” continues, manifested in words and
phrases listeners never did embrace, much less relate with in
today’s ‘Me’ environment.
Sittin’ in with ya
on a Saturday (heard recently in Tampa)
Comin’ up next
hour…
More music
on-the-way from_______
Want more
details? Call 1-800-boring…
Keep it right here
(or else?)
Straight up four
o’clock….
That’s music
from_____
We’ll be right back
after we pay some bills…
This is but an
appetizer on the long list of one-way, disempowering station-speak
that has been left in the dust by time and reality.
The Third Dimension
requires another tangible, measurable, and necessary element in
station greatness: sound crafting away from radio, and toward
“companionship.” Only companies who can hear the difference
and accept the commitment and consequences can play!
This will require:
(1) Competent
programming leadership with “hearing” and insatiable appetite for
going
where radio
has seldom gone, and then, only in limited incursions. KVIL (Dallas
Ft.
Worth)
understood this in 1977. Magic 98 (Madison) got it in the 80’s, and
gets it
today. KBCO
“had it” from day one and never let go. WAVA did it very well. These
exceptional
stations became--to hijack a phrase--entertainment stations
as opposed to
format radio.
(2) Non-negotiable
company standards that require all clusters and stations to seek the
Third
Dimension, moving performance to work from the listener back,
instead of
from the
control room-forward.
(3) A process that
endows a mandate to address The Third Dimension, and the culture
to achieve
it. This means staff development ideas for coaching highly tangible
measurement
of a seemingly intangible standard. It can be done, and some
stations
are
practicing the process day-in, day-out. System + commitment + skill
= great.
(4) The complete
buy-in of a “culturalization” flying into the headwind of radio
econometrics.
A minimum investment of time, effort, and resource are the ticket
for
admission. Unless we agree to the need, then commit to the process,
it doesn’t
happen.
Iconic UCLA
basketball coach John Wooden had it right: A little better today
than yesterday.
Rebellious Creativity
The absence of
money or expertise is not an excuse for accepting “good
enough is good enough,” though it’s routinely viewed that way.
The Third Dimension
of “great radio” goes beyond the songs, beyond the imaging, beyond
the jingles, logo, web page and marketing. In fact, it goes
beyond conventional imagination.
*Talent
coaching on a weekly basis, with scored performance, and outside
exhibits of people doing it “great.” Talent must expect it, PDs must
require it.
*Lessons
in writing promos first-person and for “eye contact” under a cluster
standard of “different and better.” Promo writing and production
nationally gets
a
C-plus grade at best. 50% of a great promo starts with the word
processor.
*Imaging
that is listener empowering, coming from benefits, instead of
station attributes. There is a difference between the two.
*Morning
shows that come from listener inclusion, with actors and cast
members
who
actually turn and face their audience speaking to them singularly.
*Talk-points that speak in word pictures, and deliver emotional
content
as
opposed to radio babble (the equivalent of bringing sand to the
beach).
So, which would you
rather hear your midday talent say today?
On the way
next hour, some music from Aerosmith.
The Police and
the Stones on 99.9 KADG
or…
In the
next twenty minutes…emotions are sweet, every breath will be
watched, and some Puerto Rican girls are just dyin’ to meet cha…on
99.9 KADG
No company can get
a hall pass to “great” without relentlessly chasing a layer of
execution not found on most stations and formats. It is truly not
crowded at the top, if for no other reason than many radio cultures
are not prepared to put the values and processes in place to get
there.
Audience
Development Group believes that some tenets for “great” never change
with the passage of time. Exceptional sound-crafting fits into our
model of the “Brand Depth Pyramid.” Picture this pyramid on your
desk surface: the base component must necessarily be music accuracy,
accounting for 40% of the substance from the base-up.
The next layer
comprising 20% of the Brand Depth Pyramid comes from morning show
success: fit, relevance, casting and market-wide recognition. The
remaining 40% stacks a confluence of station-wide “pharmaceutical
atmosphere” (it makes listeners feel better), created by talent,
imaging and external marketing.
Unlike other
endeavors, radio requires creativity over resource, innovation over
years in rank. So, even relatively new and basic companies, can make
a conscious decision to rise to the rare air of The Third Dimension,
assuming they can hear it, desire it, and will settle for nothing
less.
E-mail me:
tim@audiencedevelopementgroup.com
---------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Tim Moore is a managing partner with Audience
Development Group.
|
