Brian Wright “Primary Competitor”
Over the years radio stations have spent millions of dollars and man hours analyzing their competition. They have meticulously plotted everything from music rotations to the personal and professional habits of their competitor’s personalities and management. Stations have gone to extraordinary lengths to not let a single aspect of their competitor be overlooked, including collecting their trash just before garbage collection!
It is a wise thing to know your competitors well. They are going after the same audience you are and the pie is only so big, with razor-thing margins of error…But the BIG question is WHO is your BIGGEST competitor? To determine this you must ask yourself one question: What station has the group of people who could do the most harm to your station? Think hard!
After 40 years of accumulating experiential knowledge in this area the actual and factual answer is: Your own radio station! This is a big pill to swallow but it is most certainly true. At this very time, many radio stations are being torn down and apart internally, from all angles. You can see examples of this in other professions as well, like the NFL, NBA, Politics, The Banking Industry, etc. Sometimes this is done deliberate by a handful of people and other times it is a consistent series of bad decisions by people who don’t know what they don’t know. The radio industry has been its own worst enemy for years.
If you don’t want to fall to the enemy inside your gates your first step to victory is to acknowledge that you are very vulnerable to this very thing. The next step is to make it known to your staff that your biggest threat is internal and that you will do everything to defend your mission. The next step is to have courage to take the correct steps to hold the enemy in check because the threat never goes away. The time is now to act!
Brian is a 30 year radio veteran who has successfully served many companies over the years as Program Director, Operations Manger and VP of programming. After many years of success working for individual radio stations and clusters, Brian Joined one of the most trusted consulting firms in the country, Audience Development Group. For the last 15 years Wright has enjoyed building alliances with scores of stations in the US & Canada helping them grow in ratings and revenue. Contact Brian at brian@audiencedevelopmentgroup.com
