messaging, plays MP3s, download and play video games

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Chapter 14Programming, Production and Measuring
Success
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• Radio is under attack.
• Cell phones represents the
• convergence of technology
• keyboard, e-mail, text
• messaging, plays MP3s,
• download and play video games,
• built-in camera.
• Many portable MP3 players hold
• more music than a radio station can
• play in a day.

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• We do not listen to technology, we listen to
  people who use technology to entertain us.
• Radio must return to its roots of presenting
  enter-
• taining personalities and real-time interaction
  with listeners.
• Good programming is based on research,including
  psychographics, not hunches or guesses.

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Arbitron Audience Ratings

• The book radio talk for the ratings.
• Stations are usually rated four
• times a year. In about 100
• top markets Arbitron
• measures ratings continuously.
• The book is issued to subscribing stations.

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Average Quarter-Hour

• AQH is one of several measures of listening.
• Estimated number of listeners for at least five
  minutes in any given quarter hour of a daypart.
• Broken into demographic age groupings 18-34,
  18-49,25-49, 25-54, 35-64 male-female.

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Average Quarter-Hour (cont.)

• AQH Rating
• AQH listeners\Population
• X 100
• AQH Share
• AQH listeners\All radio listeners
• X 100
• AQH tells advertisers
• how many potential people
• may hear their ad.

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Cume (as in cumulative)

• Average number of different listeners who tuned
  in for at least 15 minutes (five minutes) in a
  week.
• Tells advertisers how many different people may
  hear their ads.
• Cume rating Cume listeners/Population X 100

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Time Spent Listening

• Number of quarter-hours the average person spent
  listening,
• either by the day or week.
• Measures loyalty of listeners to a station.
• Tells advertisers chances of a listener hearing
  an ad more than once.

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Music and Format Selection

• Music is a commodity, dependent on desires of
  customers.
• Music is a tool to attract listeners, depending
  on the target audience of the station.
• Some formats do not depend on music (see 14.2, p.
  348)

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Researching a Market

• Three main elements
• Footprint Coverage area of a stations signal.
  Also important to know competitors footprint.
• Population Also, the demographic makeup.
• Competitors Formats? Compete or counter program?

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In-depth Format Analysis

• Listeners are customers they spend their time
  instead of money.
• Two types of customers (1) not being served at
  all, (2) not being served well.
• Hole in the market? Standard format?
• Weaknesses of other stations?

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Selling the Target Demographic

• Are there advertisers who will pay to reach the
  target audience?
• See figure 14.4. Profile of alt rock audience.
• Stations do quantitative and qualitative
  research outside firm or in-house?
• Audience surveys and focus groups.

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Program Directors Duties

• Four objectives
• (1) presentation exciting enough to cause
  listening.
• (2) flow causes listeners to listen longer.
• (3) Air staff trained to communicate with
  listeners.
• (4) Listeners must know who theyre listening to,
  and be able to recall station.

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Music Mix and Rotation

• Play clocks (14.5), may change from daypart to
  daypart.
• Promote smoothest music flow and longest
  time-spent listening.
• How often to play the current 1 hit? How often
  to play recent past hits (recurrents).
• Based on research, largely computerized.

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Program Elements

• Other programming elements
• Traffic reports? News?
• How often (and how) to give time and temperature.
• Talk over music intros?
• Back announce songs?
• P-D creates and enforces the rules.

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Formatics and Inventory Control

• Commercial inventory must not intrude too much
  into the format.
• Commercials can become a tune-out factor.
• P-D determines how stop sets are presented,
  number of spots, order.
• P-D involved in deciding what types of spots will
  be accepted.

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Coordinating All Program Elements

• P-D uses all elements to create a living,
  breathing station.
• Station develops a personality part of
  positioning, creating an identity.

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• Extra slides below this one

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Strategy and Tactics

• Program director decides on strategy and tactics.
• Strategy is the overall plan (adopting alt rock
  format to reach 18-34 men).
• Tactics are the specific steps
• (music rotation, stop sets,
• announcers attitudes,
• promotional events, contests, etc.)