radioatlantis said:
The older you get, the more important the memories are. You can not commit radio genocide to entire groups of people - especially, the largest number of retiring segment in the history.
You forget that radio must please two constituencies at once, the listener and the advertiser. There is no adbertiser interest in the 55+ group, because that group does not provide an adequate return on investment when advertised to on the radio.
We all grew up with the "elevator" or nursing home stations for the generations of our time that were expiring and radio seemed to know how to present it and sell it to make money.
Two things have happened... first, marketing has become more sophisticated, and, second, society has become more fragmented. Advertisers no longer shoot with a shotgun but with a rifle. Targeting is accentuated right down to the design of products today, as the field is too competitive in any area for "mass appeal" products.
By the way, as a former syndicator of beautiful music, I have to say that the format had a huge under-55 component at one time, and it was only when this group disappeared that the format started dying. Remember, in the 60's we had groups like the Hollyridge Strings playing the Beatles songbook, the Four Seasons songbook, etc, and every pop hit was covered instrumentally
THIS is the problem. Lots of people who run radio and own radio fashion themselves experts. While far from progressive, they can't seem to stand the thought of marketing a product under their corporate banner that they consider to be "outdated".
Nobody cares about perception, or no company would have hip hop stations. The fact is that formats are considered for salability, not for perceptipn. 55 and over formats are not profitable because in markets where agency business is essential to get, we find that no agency account has asked for 55+ with rare, rare exception.
They become inept at selling it because they don't have the creative bones to recreate it, repackage it and make it vital.
You can not sell with a team of sales stars something an agency has been ordered by the client not to buy. For the agency, that is the equivalent of defying the boss, and is the stuff account cancellations are made of.
The XM 60s channel that Cleveland Wheeler developed seemed to have no problem gaining a most favored status when arbitron rated it TOP TEN from within. IT also wasn't lacking in response from listeners - an enthusiasm most OLDIES radio and CLASSIC HITS can't seem to muster.
I already gave you the figures.. the average listenership is equivalent to that of a good station in Traverse City, Mi. And in 25-54, it is the equivalent of the capacity of the Radio City Muisic Hall for one performance. Hardly impressive.
When the powers over processes are challenged, they either steal something that works from somewhere else (Jack), bastardize it, change frequencies or give it a new name and slap something else in the box out to see if will stick. But anything beyond a cheeky music mix and a bunch of unproduced attitude liners with no live jocks and you won't find terrestrial radio genius bubbling from the wellspring.
The difference is that Jack (which is not stolen, but licensed from its Canadian creators) is successful when well done. In LA, where attention is given to doing new liners daily, and the station is "live" at all times with talented producers in the studio to capture and edit listener calls (the replacement for the jocks the Jack listener hates do much) the station is a top 5 biller and the #1 25-54 non-ethnic station in the market.
Radio has always been more prone to metamorphosis than radical change, as tastes moderate or mutate as opposed to changing over night. Radical change is dangerous, and often accompanied by long periods of zero billing. My first station, launched before I knew better, was one of radical change... no similar format on a whole continent, and no point of reference for advertisers to cling to... so it billed nothing for the first 7 months and I almost lost it.
There is definitely a market for the best music ever played and the original CBS (before they threw the towel in and went Jack) excuse that this audience didn't possess any appreciable spendable income and are not mainstream consumers, is about the dumbest thing I have ever heard.
The argument is much simpler: agencies have been told by their clients to buy demos that the products and services were researched against and developed for, and not to buy 55+ as it produces no return on investment. Agencies generally follow client dictates 100%, and refuse to listen to propositions that would lose them the account. Duh.
Problematically, is that all the young salespeople have no understanding of how much more impactive radio was before they were born so they can't identify with the passion for the music and the feeling about radio of yesterday that the core audience has. Most of them do not know the music unless they are discovers.
That's just crap. You can not sell to an agency what the agency has been told not to buy. The demos of each campaign are set at the highest client level, based on the client marketing department determinations, and will not be changed by sellers pitching the media buyers who have no ability to change a buy spec.
The biz mires themselves in formulas and statistics so that nothing else is more real to radio than a 12 person focus group thrown slanted questions so they can justify what they WANT to do in the first place .....same moronic method with auditorium and call out music testing.
Your ignorance of radio research is astounding. Methods that have proven over and over to create winning stations with large audiences are summarily eecuted in your mind.
Single anecdote. I had a researched classic rock station in a market of 17 million. We had #1 and a 20 share, playing a researched 450 song playlist. A competitor came on, with no research, with 1800 songs or more and promoted variety. 9 moths later, after never getting more than a 1.8, they changed format. Listeners perceived my station had better variety... because we played hits, and the other station played 70% stiffs. So much for research.
I love when these geeks start talking about the CLASSIC HITS that tested. Hey, if it sold a million or more and was a TOP TEN song, you be assure that it has a place in the format and NEEDS to be played. But we all know this isn't the case.
75% or more of the top 10 songs do not research today via the question of how much a person wants to hear the song today, on the radio. Most songs are passé, and not usable as they are played out, burnt out or embarassing. This single statement shows you have no knowledge of what the listener wants to hear. None whatsoever.
