Listener Control? Yes, But Not Like This

I just read another blog about giving listeners more control. It is far from the first I have come across. But I finally felt a need to comment. It read something like this:

"..part of the Web reality is letting the listener have a greater say in what is programmed. After all, they're doing this now with iPods and TiVos..."

This is wrong in so many ways.

1 Giving the listener a greater say has been at the very center of commercial radio since the beginning. What have we been doing, purposely trying to give listeners the impression we don't care what they want? The methodologies we use have changed over time. We started out looking at record sales. But we discovered that wasn't very representative of most audiences, and certainly no way to measure our library of well known music, also known as oldies. So we started doing actual listener surveys. And to this day, we debate the best way to choose who to talk to, and how to ask the questions, and what to do with the answers. That will continue, and it should.

2. On the other hand, we live in an era where many radio companies have decided that giving the listener a greater say isn't too important. They standardize playlists across many markets. They do little tactical research like weekly callout or AMT/music library testing. And they also do little strategic research like market studies or focus groups. But that is not a function of iPods and TiVos. That is pure arrogance. They think: If we build it (and own all the competitors, hehehe... they will come).

3. Am I living in an alternate universe, or is it painfully obvious that iPods and TiVos are programmed for ONE PERSON? Somebody wake me up if I'm missing something, but I think we are in the business of negotiating the conflicting desires of THOUSANDS UPON THOSANDS OF PEOPLE. Much harder job, don't you think? And one I've always been proud to be a part of. Not everybody has that skill. Hell, almost nobody is great at it. But some radio programmers, owners and particularly consultants keep talking and writing about letting rank amateurs program radio stations like they were individual MP3 players. What am I missing?

4. You want people to feel like you hear them? How about:

• Play well produced commercials instead of annoying junk.
• Limit interruptions to the music to about 2 minutes.
• Do regular strategic market research.
• Do weekly call-out, do it well, and believe it.
• Research your music library every 3-4 months.
• Stop burning out your library. Use cluster analysis and music fit invormat to make your most played music category more cohesive, not simply shorter.
• Stop letting recording labels plan your programming.
• Understand the core music of your station. You'll need better research, like I provide through Steve Casey Research. You need music fit analysis and Variety Control to get your music controlled properly on a quarter-hour basis.
• Understand your core target audience. You'll need better research. Tools like my Pure Core format fan analysis will allow you to build a strong identity and fine-tune it for the tastes of your most promising listener prospects.

That is listening - and giving more control - to the listeners.