Two things have piqued my interest lately ... one is the thread on here about how people think the product has gone stale (or too corporate). The other is a question presented on a LA subscription service about "what causes you to stay in your car and not turn off the radio." In almost every answer the connection was something that was being done by a personality on the station -- it had nothing to do with a song (flip side of the question is what causes you to turn OFF your radio...and that had a lot to do with music and stale presentation).
So...my question for those who want to step up....if you had a station that gave you the "keys" to do whatever you wanted (without fear of corporate retribution...) what would YOU give to the rest of us? It can be a stand-alone, a cluster, an AM or FM or satellite or net or whatever --- I just want to know if there are any lurking creative minds that would keep us in our car afraid to turn off the radio...!
Mine would go something like this....
a) Break away from the "more music" and "jukebox" competition. Set the expectation that you're not going to be 5 in a row or whatever. Get personalities that are SMART and, ideally, funny too -- but most of all, RELATABLE. Build a clock that has two or three song sweeps ... but also feature spots so you can do afternoon drive news, and add some depth (topic depends on who you're targeting). Short sweeps means more stopsets which can be shorter ... so you are asking people to sit through two or three spots at a time ... not 8 or 9.
b) Develop an instant allergy to a decade or decades positioning. There's great new music and lots of great old music. Kind of nice if one station can deliver both. If you're doing 2 or 3 "contemporary" (recurrent, new or whatever...) and the rest outstanding favorites of all time ... drawing from a huge library ... you get a great big "oh wow" aspect to your library. But, remember it's not about the music -- it's about the entire content; most of which is locally-focused material that you can't get on XM or a pod.
c) Bring back the "bigger than life" mindset. All the great early promotions were really basically cheesy --- but they were PACKAGED as the biggest thing to ever hit town; or else they were just plain "out there" and everyone recognized the bit was for fun and not a $2Million giveaway!! Dropping a piano in Qwest field to "hear what it sounds like" or weird stuff like that....just for fun. People like going to the "fun" parties, so why not create one that's around all week long?? Surprises on the air create the best TSL (it's the philosophy that drives Stern).
Seems to me with a mix like that you'd be able to stand up against national services and pods and so forth that are focused on delivering "just the music". Radio's answer will NOT be "just the music" and the sooner we can figure out how to build something else's that's compelling --- we can save our own skin.
So...my question for those who want to step up....if you had a station that gave you the "keys" to do whatever you wanted (without fear of corporate retribution...) what would YOU give to the rest of us? It can be a stand-alone, a cluster, an AM or FM or satellite or net or whatever --- I just want to know if there are any lurking creative minds that would keep us in our car afraid to turn off the radio...!
Mine would go something like this....
a) Break away from the "more music" and "jukebox" competition. Set the expectation that you're not going to be 5 in a row or whatever. Get personalities that are SMART and, ideally, funny too -- but most of all, RELATABLE. Build a clock that has two or three song sweeps ... but also feature spots so you can do afternoon drive news, and add some depth (topic depends on who you're targeting). Short sweeps means more stopsets which can be shorter ... so you are asking people to sit through two or three spots at a time ... not 8 or 9.
b) Develop an instant allergy to a decade or decades positioning. There's great new music and lots of great old music. Kind of nice if one station can deliver both. If you're doing 2 or 3 "contemporary" (recurrent, new or whatever...) and the rest outstanding favorites of all time ... drawing from a huge library ... you get a great big "oh wow" aspect to your library. But, remember it's not about the music -- it's about the entire content; most of which is locally-focused material that you can't get on XM or a pod.
c) Bring back the "bigger than life" mindset. All the great early promotions were really basically cheesy --- but they were PACKAGED as the biggest thing to ever hit town; or else they were just plain "out there" and everyone recognized the bit was for fun and not a $2Million giveaway!! Dropping a piano in Qwest field to "hear what it sounds like" or weird stuff like that....just for fun. People like going to the "fun" parties, so why not create one that's around all week long?? Surprises on the air create the best TSL (it's the philosophy that drives Stern).
Seems to me with a mix like that you'd be able to stand up against national services and pods and so forth that are focused on delivering "just the music". Radio's answer will NOT be "just the music" and the sooner we can figure out how to build something else's that's compelling --- we can save our own skin.
