How to avoid listeners: Don't do contests.

News-talk consultant Holland Cooke always gives me more to think about and steal that I expect for the time I spend at his site:

Remember when radio was fun? Why must that be radio history? Five undeniable facts-of-life:

1. People – “real people,” the folks who, unlike us, get Arbitron diaries – don’t really care about radio that much. Radio is in-the-background, as they live their lives, often in a blur. We need to cut through listeners’ mental clutter.

2. Arbitron doesn’t measure what people listen to. It measures what people REMEMBER.

3. As we’ve seen comparing diary data with data from early tests of Arbitron’s Portable People Meter (PPM), diarykeepers over-report the station they remember best.

4. People like fun.

5. You don’t have the budget to promote as much as you need to.

For ALL of these reasons, well-structured, well-executed on-air contests make sense. And here’s another reason to do contests: THEY CAN MAKE MONEY.