Let Me Count The Ways

Greetings from Barcelona! The NAB European Radio Conference is over. I'm staying a little longer to recover. Honest, I'm working on some posts that will communicate some of the things I learned here. But today, I'm fixated on my discussions about music with various people during the conference.

One of the most important messages I try to communicate to programmers is the need to understand their station's music position. What are they, more than anything else? There are a number of reasons this is important.

1. If you know what you are, you have a benchmark against which to judge the value of new music, artist involvements, promotions, additions to the library, on-air energy level and attitude, the "look" of marketing materials, and more.

2. If you don't have a vision for your programming, how will you, as the program director, lead your people?

3. If you don't have a clue as to which songs make your station's core listeners comfortable, and which act to give you more variety, how will you craft better quarter-hours? How will you better sequence your music?

Of course, as a programmer/researcher who has developed sophisticated tools to work with music positioning, fit analysis and music test implementation I really want programmers to understand this aspect of their radio station. My work is seen as being of much less value to somebody who doesn't think managing the identity, consistency and dynamic range of the on-air presentation matters!

On the other hand, every programming consultant and nearly every researcher in our business does understand this concept. During the discussions I participated in and the conversations I overheard (oh yes!), I heard an amazing array of terms to describe this core identity of the station:

Glue (special note: I like this one a lot, and I hadn't heard it until I spoke with Garry Wall, the creator of the Jack format).

Center of the Page (the term I usually use. Should I change?)

Center of Gravity

Music Lane (I'm hearing this one around Clear Channel lately).

Center Lane

Quintessence (I think we can look back to the old Research Group for this)

Quintessential Sound

Essence

Hub (for the Hub and Spoke crowd, and there are many such programmers)

Core

Core Sound

Identity

Prime (or Primary) Cluster or Sound

Pedestal (as in yours, not the other guy's)

If you hear any of these terms, now you know how to decode them!