lash said:
Mr. Eduardo and Oldies Cat
Please stop hiding behind your national research or what you call demo facts. I'm not saying that an oldies station doesn't need tweaked to try and skew a younger demo. What I am saying is that radio forgot how to program, adapt, and return to hits local roots.
"Demos" are facts. A demo is an abbreviation for a demographic subset of a population under study, local, regional or national. Since demos are based on binary (yes or no) data on people, there are ONLY "facts." You are either Black or not. You are 18-24 or not. You are male or not. You are a resident of Smith County or not. There is no interpretation of demos.
And radio stations do not program by national research, at least as far as any stations I know. We research local listeners in the local market, and identify those people who are listeners or potential listeners in each station coverage area.
Radio has not forgotten how to program. Radio has learned that the way we programmed in the 60's is not what people expect today, and we program for today's listener and try as hard as we can within the restrictions of each market's radio economy to do as good a job as we can.
"Local" only means that a station appeals to folks in a particular area. As a poster on anther board said, "Localism, in radio terms, should be defined as What do the people in my market care about? What makes them laugh? Think? Feel? How can I create empathy in a realistic way so my audience will remember me? Localism is NOT talking about the local school board election results. It's talking about what's meaningful to your listeners."
Being local by having bad jocks or talent on in a local studio is not local. It does not satisfy local needs. It is just bad. Delilah is "local" nearly everywhere, because she talks about problems women everywhere have. Rush talks about the political and social issues of his constituency, and he is "local" as he appeals at the local level by addressing local interests, even if they are national at the same time.
I don't know you, or have heard of you. List the stations if you will, (oldies or otherwise) you have programmed.
I don't know if this is addressed at me, but here are just a few. KRCD-LA, KLQV-San Diego, KBRG-San Francisco, KRDA-Fresno, KRGT-Las Vegas, KOMR-Phoenix, KOVE-Houston, KLNO-Dallas, KINV-Austin, KBTQ-McAllen, KKRG-Albuquerque, KCOR-San Antonio, and those are my active ones. In the past I have done oldies, classic rock, etc. My first oldies station was "Million Dollar Music " WEEL in Farifax, VA, in 1970 when it was one of less than a dozen oldies stations in the US.
If my company which plays oldies or country oldies were to rely on media buyers, I would have gone out of business 20 years ago. Sure, our ratings are strong enough to enjoy buys, but we certainly don't rely on it. We do it the old fashioned way, we actually go out and sell it. I've programmed major market stations, and have seen how salespeople are trained. They are mostly order takers, rarely leaving the office, waiting for the phone to ring.
Some markets, including most of the ones I listed above, are markets where most of the business is transactional, and high ratings and good demos are needed to be bought. Since media buyers only negotiate rate, not demos or campaign specifics, I think you were barking up a tree with no coon in it. And if you think that getting agency business is sitting by the fax machine waiting for orders, you are wrong. It is harder work than local direct, as cnsiderable business knowledge is needed to deal with knowledgable marketers.
The vast majority of group owners can't keep an oldies station alive for three reasons. 1) young PD's for the job and 2) relying on agency buys and 3) no marketing effort.
In the major markets, stations with 55+ demos do not get bought. It does not matter how old the PD is (when I was 19 I was PD of a beautiful music station). Marketing is commensurate with market billing potential, and agency buys are essential in the larger markets.
Instead we have canned voice tracked airstaffs working multiple markets, playing the same 300 oldies over and over again, and in disgust I add: The Corporate Radio Group NATIONAL contests. What idiot thought of this?
... probably the same sort of idiots that thought up the NBC, CBS and ABC radio networks in the 30's... OK, the Red and Blue for purists... or networked TV in the 40's or syndicated shows in the 50's.
The fact is that there is less voice tracking now than in the 70's, and national contests are now very rare.
Wanna take the wind our of a radio stations sails? Take away its fast, simple, easy and fun LOCAL contests, and replace it with a one a 100 million shot to win a million dollars. Who cares! Be creative like John Long, or any of the RKO programmers used to be.
Since most listeners don't play contests, and we do them as much to raise the enthusiasm of the jocks as to attract listeners, this is a silly point.
Remember how radio USED to be programmed? Local, Local, Local! Local music research, airstaffs, contests, local news etc.
Music research is local still. Airstaff may be local or not, depending on the show. Who ever beat Stern with a local "wannabe"? Most of us don't do contests most of the time, and those that do do them mostly locally. And most markets have one r more news voices, and the rest of us fulfill other needs.
Again, what radio "used to be" is simply bad or out of date in 2006. It was great, just like the 57 Chevy. But most of us don't want to drive one of those today.
Do you think this changed over the last 20 years? It certainly did not! But the big companies since 1996 worked to change the rules. Why? Cause their LAZY!
No, things change because society and people change. Don't get stuck in a rut, and move on.
