8 Critical Things Every Personality Needs To Know About PPM

As a student of marketing and media, I believe that inspiration and insight can come from anywhere. Over the years, I have personally programmed, consulted or advised multiple formats. And although I work mostly with contemporary formats like Rhythmic, Top 40, Hip-Hop, Urban, Hot AC, Urban AC and Inspirational, I’ve always had a special affinity for the Country format.

I’m not sure what I find most compelling about Country. It could be the “story-telling” that I hear in the format’s hit songs, the amazing “story-telling” capabilities of country’s top personalities (other personalities take note) or the values and passions promoted by the format (other programmer’s take note).

Maybe, it’s all of the above (or just the fact that my dad had an eclectic record collection).

But one thing I know for sure is, every time that I’ve had the opportunity to talk or interact with Country programming legends like Ed Salamon, Larry Daniels or Jaye Albright, I immediately see how “best practices” in one format can be modified for or applied to another.

In radio, some things are universal - regardless of format – and Country consultant Jaye Albright clearly demonstrates this idea as she reveals “8 Critical Things Every Personality Needs To Know About PPM.” Here they are:

1. No matter what anyone says, there are no experts yet. It's too early. We're all still trying to figure it out.

2. PPM loves music, so your greatest risk of audience loss is opening the microphone. Relevance and engagement are the name of the game. Content must consistently connect.

3. It's almost impossible to make the average listener spend any more time per occasion. Teasing a list of artists 'coming up,' is ineffective. Create events and ride the wave when they gain traction to increase the number of times your most loyal listeners tune to you.

4. There is no such thing as exclusive cume. Fortunately, your cume is much larger than you ever thought it was, based on recall measurement.

5. PPM metrics replicate the behaviors we see in music research, streaming audio audience flow, MediaEKG and other forms of behavioral research data on radio usage. The more you live with the data, the more it looks like reality. For example, you'll know when one of your heavy user households goes away, leaves town on vacation for two weeks.

6. The quality of the sample is a concern, of course, but, due to panel management, it appears to be better and more consistent than the randomness of the diary samples, which are getting worse and worse due to the growth of cell phone only homes.

7. The transmitter may be on the air but if the encoder isn't working, you are functionally off the air. Ditto with your stream and HD side channels too. Some extra meters to read during your shift.

8. You have twice as many competitors for your listeners time as the diary led you to believe. On the other side of the same coin, you get sampling from many more other stations than we previously thought.

Thanks for sharing your tips, Jaye! More from Jaye here.

Geometric Insight: I couldn’t agree with Jaye more. In today’s competitive environment, I tell the personalities all the time that they must evolve into authentic, engaging, multi-media brands now to remain relevant to listeners/users in the future and beyond. Under the PPM, every aspect of your on-air presentation has to be more compelling and seamless each time you open the mic. Everything is an event! And you must create “appointment listening” programming opportunities (read: events) on your station or show to encourage repeat tune-in vertically, along with increased horizontal (day-to-day) tune-in, to move the ratings needle in a PPM world. Let’s be real, you can only stretch time-spent-listening (TSL), or average-time-exposed (ATE), so far as “time-squeezed” listeners encounter more daily distractions amid a plethora of media choices and marketing noise. Are you PPM savvy - and ready?

Avoiding Marketing Mishaps

"Satire is a lesson, parody is a game."

- Vladimir Nabokov

Here's a lesson in the creative marketing process...and how it can easily go awry!

[View video]

What are you doing to ensure that your creative process remains focused and on track? Don't get lose sight of your goals and objectives. Design your marketing and promotional campaigns for ratings, revenue and client success by effectively managing your creative process.

[via Tom Asacker]

What’s Your O.S.T.?

If you want to consistently win your share of ratings and revenue you must thoughtfully...

• Define your Objectives
• Strategy and
• Tactics and share them with everyone on your team.

With the Arbitron Spring ratings results rolling now and Summer blazing away, your should begin turning your focus towards the Fall book. What objectives, strategy and tactics are you working on to make sure you have the best Fall ever?

The Web Doesn’t Care

From Seth Godin:

The web doesn’t care - and here’s why:

[The Net] is the first mass marketing medium ever that isn't supported by ads.

If a newspaper, a radio station or a TV station doesn't please advertisers, it disappears. It exists to make you (the marketer) happy.

That's the reason the medium (and its rules) exist. To please the advertisers.

But the Net is different.

It wasn't invented by business people, and it doesn't exist to help your company make money.

It's entirely possible it could be used that way, but it doesn't owe you anything. The question to ask isn't, "but how does this help me?" as if you have some sort of say in the matter. You don't get a vote on whether Google succeeds or whether your customers erect spam filters.

The question (for marketers and content creators) to ask is, "How are people (the people I need to reach, interact with and tell stories to) going to use this new power and how can I help them achieve their goals?"

Geometric Insight: More than ever, broadcasters must be consumer-centric. Every decision made about content and services your brand provides--on-air, online, on-site and on-device—should be viewed thorough the lens of the consumer. Does the consumer want or need this? Or will the consumer even care? And if not, why are we doing it?

Now Playing Billboard

“The Sound experience is about the musical discovery that happens when each song is played on the station… [utilizing technology] we are able to extend that experience into our marketing efforts to offer instant gratification for our consumers.”

-Sammy Simpson, KSWD Director of Marketing/Advertising

Utilizing an advanced “Radio Data System” technology, Los Angeles station KSWD The Sound yesterday launched an innovative “Now Playing” feature on the Clear Channel Digital Outdoor Network, as part of KSWD’s advertising campaign. [Read more]

Is your outdoor this innovative? If not, it's time to GET CREATIVE!!!

Conclave 2008 Pics

Monday Morning Leadership

What do real leaders do? Many of them seek out leadership advice and insights from David Cottrell, founder of the CornerStone Leadership Institute and author of “Monday Morning Leadership.” Here are a few jewels from David’s crown of business wisdom.

“A real leader spends his time fixing the problem instead of finding who to blame.”

“The most important thing you do as a leader is to hire the right people.”

“Take the time and energy to manage your boss the same way you manager your career.”

“Don’t stifle your career by limiting your knowledge.”

“Enthusiasm is something you can’t take, and it has a tremendous effect on everyone around you.”

“When it comes to leading people, there is no problem that is unique to you.”

Stay inspired!

For more from David Cottrell, visit CornerStone Leadership Institute.

The Seven Deadly Sins Of Radio Station Imaging

Clear Channel New York/Director of Creative Services and Z100 legendary production guru Dave Foxx warns against committing the Seven Deadly Sins of Radio Station Imaging.

1. LUST – Dumping every effect at your disposal into the piece, even though it has nothing to do with the subject at hand.


2. GLUTTONY – Overusing a favorite effect.


3. GREED – Allowing your effects to take over the promo. Your effects never should dominate the mix.


4. SLOTH – Sloppy music edits. A good producer never says, “It's good enough.” If you can’t dance to it, it needs to be fixed.


5. WRATH – Getting mad about what the competition is doing and letting that affect your promos. (Example: You believe the competition is copying you, so you start adding words such as “original” and “first.”) Those words only invite the listener to check out the competition.


6. ENVY – Making your work sound like someone else’s. Aspiring to sound as good as Eric Chase, John Frost, Eric Edwards, Dr. Dave, Pat Garrett or Rick Party is healthy...until you start ripping off their work.


7. PRIDE – Don’t believe your own hype.

Now is a good time to listen and evaluate all of your imaging against the 7 Deadly Sins while planning your creative strategies for Fall. What sins are you and your creative staff indulging in right now? Stop sinning and start winning.

Want to learn more of Dave’s radio imaging secrets? See what he reveals at AskDaveFoxx.com.

>> Bonus: Classic imaging insights! Dave Foxx explains his radio imaging philosophy at NAB/Europe 2004. Check out the YouTube video below or click here to see!

Leadership is...

Earlier this week, legendary author and organizational development consultant Peter Block spoke at the ASTD conference in San Diego. Here are a couple of his insights on leadership from the session:

"Leadership is the capacity to initiate a future distinct from the past."

"The core task of leadership is to create community."

“What we normally call problems (low performance, high costs, poor morale, unsafe streets, poor health care) are really symptoms of the breakdown of community."

You can check out Peter’s new book, “Community: The Structure of Belonging” here.

The Radio PD Of The Future

Note: Today's guest blog is by Inside Music Media blogger and USC Music Industry Professor Jerry Del Colliano. In this post, Jerry highlights his future vision for successful radio PDs. Given the challenges facing radio today, now more than ever, it's important for market managers, general managers and operations managers to empower their programmers by giving them the resources, tools and support to create a more compelling product. With that in mind, here's Jerry...

I received a very inspirational email from a long time friend that has prompted me to put together the essential qualities of the next generation of program directors for terrestrial radio.

In doing so I am taking into account that radio today isn’t what it was 15 or 20 years ago and that, like it or not, radio is now consolidated. That many of the CEOs and COOs are clueless about content and even marketing, but still – I think I’ve got the PD of the future for you.

It’s also a lesson on how consolidators should handle a talented program director:

1. Give your PD enough rope to either do some great things or hang him or herself. That’s what a leader does. Budget cutting doesn’t make for great programming that you can monetize and throwing money at programmers is no more of a guarantee. Make the PD sell you the idea as if his or her neck is on the line and then say, “let’s do it”. Keep in mind that in the hey day of radio there really weren’t any budgets. You spent what you thought you had. Sales went and sold and hopefully somewhere expenses and income met without getting the owner too concerned. Somehow it worked better than what we’re seeing today.

2. Demand great ideas that you can use now. It ought to be obvious that programming stations that lose more talent every day and get cut to the bone in resources is not going to ever earn your station a return on investment. No investment is being made. Ask your programmers to present great, actionable ideas – this in contrast to edicts like – get by with no live jock from 10 am to 3 pm. A good PD can come up with great ways to make good radio for the available listening audience if you make them present ideas to you and then fund them.

3. Never disrespect the owner. A manager who has to cut expenses should warn his or her programmers not to get into it with the boss. There are plenty of forums in which to do that. Corporate should give true autonomy to the manager and any complaints go to him or her. George Johns of Fairbanks fame tells a story, “I remember once when Mr. Fairbanks (owner of Fairbanks Broadcasting), after learning that our station had a limited commercial load policy, which of course had been in place for several years, was outraged. He said, ‘you mean to say that we run fewer commercials than the law allows? And not only that but I have just found out we actually turn business away because of it? I want to know what idiot came up with that stupid policy?’”

That “stupid policy” was the work of brilliant programmer Jim Hilliard upon which these items are based.

There was always programming interference in radio – not just now in the wake of consolidation.

There were always budget constraints – as I said, often programmers didn’t actually know the budget.

True, most PDs only programmed one or two stations at the most and the pressure of being a public company was not felt on most radio programmers because there were a lot of Fairbanks-type owners out there.

And George Johns, the outstanding programmer from Canada, who partnered with Hilliard and shared some of this wisdom with me, had another excellent strategy that worked then and I believe would work now.

It was when Fairbanks took over KVIL and inherited the legendary Ron Chapman. But how to get free-wheeling Chapman to do Johns’ format?

Listen to him explain:

“What I had was a tape I had produced in Indianapolis. I had two of our best news guys from WIBC do me some "personality" type news. I had our afternoon jock, and production voice Chuck Riley, who later went on to become one of Americas biggest voice over guys, do some promos and ID's. I had some unbelievable great jingles already cut from Hugh Heller in LA, I had all of WIBC's best commercials and I also had a concept of music that had never been heard in America before. Now the final thing I had was some raw stereo tape of Ron Chapman”.

Johns put it all together laying Ron’s own voice in over the records with the production the way Johns would have it. After a nerve wracking 25 minutes without interruption and played back in perfect stereo in a production studio, Chapman said, “I can't very well say I don't know how to do this kind of radio, because there I was doing it.....Do you want to start it tomorrow?”The magic began immediately between between George and Ron, the station and Dallas.

So, the next suggestion:

4. Illustrate and demonstrate your ideas. This one is on today’s PDs. Too frequently they ask for money from serial budget cutters without going through the pain (and George Johns will confirm how hard it was to pull off the Chapman project) necessary to win support. Budget cutters above all need to hear it, see it and feel it. Hey, they still may be on a mission to cut at all costs, but where that’s not the case, demonstrating your programming ideas in a way they can actually hear is a necessary investment in winning support.

There is no doubt that it was easier to do good radio before consolidation. Bottom lines and good programming don’t always go well together.

While radio has changed, one thing hasn’t – the tried and true obligations and responsibilities that come with managing and programming a terrestrial radio station to today’s available audience.

Thanks for sharing your insights, Jerry. For more, check out Inside Music Media.

What Is A Brand?

“What is a brand? I’ve heard it described as a promise to the consumer, but I think that’s putting it too strongly. A brand is more probability than promise – a consumer
calculus that is built-up, torn down, or left unchanged by each encounter.”

– Steve O’Keefe, The Beautiful Plan

Piercing Insight And Egoless Clarity

“The organizations that get ahead are those that absolutely know what they are and where they're going, and whose people have no doubts about the direction…Every organization would like to be the best at something, but few understand, with piercing insight and egoless clarity, what they actually have the potential to be the best at and, just as important, what they cannot be the best at.”

–Jim Collins, Good to Great