IN CHAOS, RADIO CAN FIND OPPORTUNITY

[Holland Cooke]

Ripped-from-the-headlines:

AMERICANS DRIVING LESS, SHOPLIFTING MORE.
Consumer Confidence Index Hits 16-Year Low.
TREASURY DEPT. SEIZING STIMULUS CHECKS TO PAY CHILD SUPPORT, STUDENT LOANS, BACK TAXES.
Kellogg's reduces size of cereal boxes, not price. Eggs cost 30% more than a year ago.

If you’re earning your pay, you’re constantly eavesdropping.
Throughout your day, you overhear what people are talking about on Main Street USA, and you program accordingly.
Lately, the conversation you’re hearing demonstrates listeners’ voracious appetite for what consultants call “survival information.”

4 tips for sounding uber-relevant to coping listeners (and extra-memorable to Arbitron diarykeepers):
http://hollandcooke.com/chaosopportunity.html

Holland Cooke
News/Talk Specialist
McVay Media
www.HollandCooke.com

 

[del_griffith]

I read the link. Interesting and insightful read.

So what you're recommending that as a programmer, we should be doing as Rush and linking into the "I want it and want it now" mentality of our audience, if that indeed the psyche of our audience?

 

[smedge2006]

All Rush's ridicule of fuel-efficient cars (remember the Elvis-parody "In A Yugo....") and celebration of SUV's and urban sprawl are probably a big reason why gas is so expensive in the first place...

 

[Holland Cooke]

reading the room

I read the link. Interesting and insightful read.

Thanks for saying so...but be careful.
Be VERY careful, complimenting consultants here...

So what you're recommending that as a programmer, we should be doing as Rush and linking into the "I want it and want it now" mentality of our audience, if that indeed the psyche of our audience?

I added the bold emphasis to your "if" above.

My kudos for Rush's technique were more of an example than a recommendation.
If you're coming-from-where-he's-coming-from, and working-the-same-crowd, that's their mindset, so it might make sense.

My underlying point was: eavesdrop, every-waking-moment, to ascertain where-folks-are-at. Their concerns, etc.
Then do-a-show as-relevant-as-possible-to those concerns.

 

[del_griffith]

Thank you for the feedback.

I was just thinking of the irony of Rush's audience of "I want it now" attitude and that of another conservative talker, Dave Ramsey, who is about contentment, saving and waiting until appropriate before purchasing.

 

[DToTheJ]

... another conservative talker, Dave Ramsey ...

Dave Ramsey is a finance-oriented host. Just because he does a show for Roger Ailes' Fox Business Network doesn't necessarily make him a "conservative host".

 

[del_griffith]

Other than his rants about the need for gov't intervention on credit card and check cashing operations, he's probably to the right of Limbaugh.

 

[gr8oldies]

Or we can have the leftsist dream, all being packed like sardines in governement-operated highrises in big cities.

 

[Don62]

Other than his rants about the need for gov't intervention on credit card and check cashing operations, he's probably to the right of Limbaugh.

Yeah, he's a typical conservative. No governmental programs or interventions at all, except the ones he wants.

 

[smedge2006]

Ramsey also delivered a rant opposing efforts to take away tax exemptions from contributions to school athletic departments -- perhaps a function of his roots -- why, heckfire, if they ain't no football in Knoxville, why bother with a education in the first place? ;D He was also virulently opposed to Amendment One in Alabama, a plan to change the nation's most regressive state tax system, and has opposed a state income tax in Tennessee. Thus, he consistently supports the tax policies that have kept those two states at the bottom of the national pile.

So, yeah, I'd say he's conservative. Let's face it, Fox wouldn't have hired him if they didn't think he was simpatico with their worldview at some level.