Music Experts Versus Radio Fans (aka Active Versus Passive)

Based on some of the blogs and articles I read, there is a huge misconception among radio pundits if not programmers: We should program for the people seeking new music.

Radio is not just music. Even a music station is more. It is sometimes not a whole lot more, but it is at least a little more, with the potential to be much more than just a preprogrammed iPod.

We are a multidimensional medium. We deliver all kinds of benefits, and we are able to deliver them to far more people than those that eagerly await the release of he the new [fill in the artist] CD, or those who can name every member of [fill in the band].

This fact is why we do research. Simply finding out which CDs sell, which concerts sell out and which songs get the most requests  is not going to give us feedback from more than a thin slice of our potential audience.

Over the years, radio's effort to get past sales and requests, and into the heads of all our valuable listeners, has been termed "passive" research. That has turned out to be an unfortunate label. Untold numbers of writers, evidently unfamiliar with what "passive" really means, scream in frustration "I don't want passive people to listen, I want active people!". Ignoring for the moment that I would happily take any listener I can come up with, they are misunderstanding the term passive.

"Passive" simply means that we reach out to the customer, as opposed to waiting for customers to do something "active" to reach out to us (requests) or who do something we can otherwise measure without spending any money (buy CDs and concert tickets).

"Active" research is simply awful. As I mentioned above, if you're going to be a successful station, you can't specialize in deeply involved music experts. You need fans - that is, people who have real lives, but just enjoy - ideally can't live without - having their favorite music on in the background.

Beyond that problem, these days all radio stations in competitive situations have a target demographic. But all of the "active' indicators lean young. Most requests come from younger listeners. CD sales drop off rapidly with age. And it is the rare concert populated by 30+ attendees.

There are two interesting corollaries to this:

1. How you research newer music (or unfamiliar music) is very important to your station's success.

2. Just as your audience extends far beyond the core "active" fans of the music you present, your ability to enhance the total music package is greatly enhanced. What might at first glance seem to obvious (because you too are an active fan of this music!) is valuable, compelling content to almost your entire audience.

I'll look more closely at both of those corollaries in future posts, because both present a way for you to increase your ratings.