Part 2. Written by Terry Doyle visit www.radiosolution.co.uk
Radio broadcasting either nationally or locally is less complicated that some programmers make out. There are two basic reasons why people listen to a particular station. They are entertained, informed or a combination of both by the station they listen to. Everything broadcast must flow from these two basic listener desires. All you have to do as a programmer is, be certain that you achieve those two things in every thing you do and you will be heading in the right direction.
The core problem with some radio stations is that no thought whatsoever is put in to competing for an audience. I stress the word ‘compete’ because that is exactly what you need to do all the time. One vital thing that local programmers miss is listeners do not categorise you in the same way as you categorise your station. You might say that you are a community radio station, or an independent local station or a commercial station. Be very clear that listeners just see you as a radio station and at best a local radio station. If you want to get them to think in a certain way about you, you need to tell them again and again. I refer you to my article on radio station positioning on how you can do this (www.radiosolution.co.uk/articles)
It is my view that programmer and broadcasters, particularly in local radio in the UK are complicating things so much that they are in no position to develop a clear and simple radio product. There are two reasons for this, either they don’t know how to build a radio product at all or they spent so much time just dealing with everyday problems (fire fighting) and spend no time at all on thinking about or developing an overall strategic plan to build that product. Of course, that is if they even have a strategic plan at all.
I know that community radio stations specifically struggle with cash flow. I know that they are in existence only because they rely on volunteers, donations to cover costs and earn what they can by selling airtime to keep the station on air. The lot of the community radio station is a tough one so everything must be done to squeeze the last drop of revenue to make the station succeed in what are very small transmission areas or crowded market places. If that is the case it’s vital to build a product that can attract the largest audience possible just to survive. The problem is that the audience has to come from somewhere and as most people listen to radio anyway, you have to take listeners from another station.
I worry about programmers that say they are not worried about the competition, they say they are different and what other stations do is not of any concern to them. That may be correct if you have built a wonderful radio product, a large loyal audience and a good station heritage and your station is a proven success over time. Very few radio stations can say that and those that do so have been around for years, well established and did not get there by chance. They got to where there are by good strategic planning, good targeting and implementation of programming focussed on the listener and they have changed their strategic focus on keeping their listener base rather than focussing on building it.
You do not build a loyal audience by trying to be everything to everybody. That is an old and now defunct theory and is no longer true. The listening preference of a 25 year old male is vastly different from that of a 50 year old female and you simply cannot target both all of the time and keep them loyal. Of course some community stations target different sections of the community like minority groups, underprivileged or those from specific faith or ethnic origin. The fact is they are doing the right thing by defining their target audience in this manner rather than by age. What is of real concern is those community stations who try to be everything to everybody all of the time and end up with no clear identity at all. That is the worst possible scenario…