• Get involved.
    We want your input!
    Apply for Membership and join the conversations about everything related to broadcasting.

    After we receive your registration, a moderator will review it. After your registration is approved, you will be permitted to post.
    If you use a disposable or false email address, your registration will be rejected.

    After your membership is approved, please take a minute to tell us a little bit about yourself.
    https://www.radiodiscussions.com/forums/introduce-yourself.1088/

    Thanks in advance and have fun!
    RadioDiscussions Administrators

Declining radio audiences

Deus Ex Machiato said:
We've all heard complaints from listeners who say "you play the same song three times an hour!" That's objectively false, but the perception is the thing. How do you overcome that perception?
Click to expand...

I can't speak for the rest of the programmer types who hang out here, but I always politely confront them to tell me which day and hour that happened in "so I can fix it, because that should never happen". Naturally, they can't do so, and my response is worded in such a way that prevents them from accusing me of not caring.
 
Normally I find the complainers find something else to complain about even if you change what they wanted changed. I just sum it up this way, some people build up and some people tear down and typically they are the ones saying life is unfair.

Had a buddy I worked with. He worked as little as possible to pay the bills. Then he'd complain everybody had 'nicer stuff' than he did. We still stay in touch...he's in government housing these days. He's still wanting 'nicer stuff' but won't lift a finger to get it.
 
b-turner said:
Normally I find the complainers find something else to complain about even if you change what they wanted changed. I just sum it up this way, some people build up and some people tear down and typically they are the ones saying life is unfair.

Had a buddy I worked with. He worked as little as possible to pay the bills. Then he'd complain everybody had 'nicer stuff' than he did. We still stay in touch...he's in government housing these days. He's still wanting 'nicer stuff' but won't lift a finger to get it.
Click to expand...

There's a difference between "complainers" and those who are trying to change things. In my current job, we've got our fair share of complainers. "This sucks, why doesn't someone fix this?"

Over the last few months I've been working with product designers and engineers to fix the things that suck. It's not easy. Whenever I get a meeting request from that team my first impression is "oh crap, there goes two hours of my day I'll never get back." They ask probing questions, drill down on my answers, and at the end I've wondered what the whole point was. Then a couple weeks later they come back with a mock-up of the new UI and I'm like "this is awesome. Can you fix this one tiny little part?" In the last couple of years, the interface and tools we have is head and shoulders better than it was when I started. Because they're not too precious about it and are receptive to honest criticism.

I'm sure there are people in the radio business who are like that. Passionate, dedicated, and screaming from the rooftops that "if we don't change, we'll die." I'm just not hearing it come out of the speakers. If the numbers are any indication, neither is the audience.
 
You might not hear that from the speakers because we project the style and wants of the target audience as dictated by the program director. In a sense we're acting, playing a part. But the audience still listens. Look up radio listening in the USA and time spent weekly.
 
Deus Ex Machiato said:
I'm sure there are people in the radio business who are like that. Passionate, dedicated, and screaming from the rooftops that "if we don't change, we'll die."
Click to expand...

The guy who owns the stations in New Mexico that I consult considers me to be the PD of one of them; it is the station I consider to be the flagship of my Classic Hits format The Eighties Channel™. Even though I have complete control over that station (all he does is plug in the commercials) he has often come up with ideas to improve the format. And more than half the time, he either has a great idea right out of the box or his idea has the spark which gets me thinking.

Trouble is, there aren't enough station owners like him.
 
Kelly A said:
Traditional radio isn't able to compete with on-demand or social media at the same level because it's broadcasting.
Click to expand...

I'd put it this way: It competes, but no individual station gets the kind of numbers they did before the internet. But then again, when the FM explosion happened in the 70s, the shares for AM stations dropped. When docket 80-90 happened, shares for heritage stations dropped. So what you're seeing now is the same thing. Sirius has over 100 music channels, plus more channels on their app. But they don't monetize them on a station-by-station basis the way AM & FM stations do. They monetize the aggregate. Same with Spotify or Apple Music. The numbers for everything on a station by station basis are lower because of all the choices.
 
TheBigA said:
Sirius has over 100 music channels, plus more channels on their app. But they don't monetize them on a station-by-station basis the way AM & FM stations do.
Click to expand...

This gets me wondering, A. If there was a way to (and I'm sure there either isn't or they won't) break out each of the SXM channels and rank them as share of all listening, the way Nielsen does for radio, would they be performing any better than terrestrial AM/FM?
 
K.M. Richards said:
This gets me wondering, A. If there was a way to (and I'm sure there either isn't or they won't) break out each of the SXM channels and rank them as share of all listening, the way Nielsen does for radio, would they be performing any better than terrestrial AM/FM?
Click to expand...

My sense is that their biggest music channel is The Highway, and audience might be in the range of about 3 million. But that's a guestimate, based on 34 million subscribers. That's about half of what some syndicated conservative talk shows get. I think I saw that Howard gets 5 million.
 
According to HypeBot.com, the 5 most popular channels among subscribers are:
1. Howard 100/101
2. The Highway
3. Hits 1
4. The Pulse
5. Octane

A bit surprised that the Beatles channel didn't crack the top 10, it was a powerhouse with preferred bandwidth for a long time.
 
OldYeller said:
A bit surprised that the Beatles channel didn't crack the top 10, it was a powerhouse with preferred bandwidth for a long time.
Click to expand...
Three explanations.

  1. The Beatles are a band from a long ago era. The band broke up 54 years ago, aging their original fans between their mid-60s to around 80. Almost no companies consider someone in their 70s their prime customer.
  2. SXM's single artist channels aren't for everyone. Even if someone likes the Beatles, it's unlikely that they were just dying to hear a deep cut off of "Yellow Submarine." But these single artist channels do probably tickle an itch for a particular variety of subscriber SXM wants to reach.
  3. As K.M. alludes to, the HypeBot.com list probably isn't authoritative.
 
K.M. Richards said:
Not surprising. They won't even provide a way for subscribers to report their terrestrial repeaters being off the air:
Click to expand...
OldYeller said:
According to HypeBot.com, the 5 most popular channels among subscribers are:
1. Howard 100/101
2. The Highway
3. Hits 1
4. The Pulse
5. Octane

A bit surprised that the Beatles channel didn't crack the top 10, it was a powerhouse with preferred bandwidth for a long time.
Click to expand...
Is this based off listener surveys?
 
Status
This thread has been closed due to inactivity. You can create a new thread to discuss this topic.


Back
Top Bottom