Yesterday I dug back into the archives of
Edison Research (click to see the study) for data on country's annual December swoon (
Country Radio Got Run Over By A Reindeer).
While I was paging through the 2009 national perceptual data, I found some info that Cumulus will be putting to the test in the coming year
as they reportedly plan to roll "Nash-FM" out nationally:
It certainly doesn't say that what Cumulus is planning won't work. but it tells me that they better execute it very well!
People seemed to feel they can recognize when something's not local:
As the ongoing, consistent ratings success of numerous syndicated daypart and networked talent proves, it's very possible for "
great" to beat "local."
The best play should Cumulus start up their NASH against
you: be local, but also extraordinarily relevant and entertaining as
well!
4 comments:
Our line-up has really come together nicely with the perfect combination of high profile personalities who are engaging, credible, compelling, well respected and well connected in the world of sports. But most importantly it is staffed with radio professionals who understand the unique talent and dedication needed to host a multi-hour daily radio show at a high level.
Cumulus Radio honcho Lew Dickey said it will spread the "country lifestyle" via radio, an online presence and a forthcoming magazine. It will be, he said, a "multiplatform entertainment brand." What remains to be seen -- and heard -- is the station's music programming. Will it be just more of the standard, same mainstream radio hits over and over? I don't think New York and its listening area audience would support that.
Back years ago when I lived in Manhattan, WHN-AM was one of the best radio stations ever, period. Not just the best country station. With such jocks as Jessie Scott and program director Ed Salamon playing artists from Willie and Waylon and Kinky Friedman and Freddy Fender and Delbert McClinton, the station had a wide audience, not only in Manhattan but also in all the boroughs and Long Island and New Jersey. It also became Billboard's station of the year. By the way, Salamon has a new book coming out which will recall those great country days in New York City, when the Lone Star Café was jumping every night. By the way, whatever happened to WHN? Its owners flipped it to WFAN, as America's first talk sports station in 1987.
I'm going to appear pretty cynical here, but I'm not convinced that a "NASH-FM" national format is as much about providing a first quality product as it is about cost savings.
Sorry ya'll but country radio is about country music and country people. Country is about connections. Back porch music, kitchen parties, whatever you want to call it. They want to feel the connection, even if it's a mistaken sentiment that they are connected to the disembodied voice that is the local radio adhesion between songs. Radio commercials, hell commercials in general are an annoyance and as I told Dene Hallam years ago when he informed me that my radio song was a 3 minute commercial for the act, "That's true, I said but I never tuned into your radio station to hear your commercials and if you play too many ....I surf!!" He laughed and we were friends. I wish I could talk to him today. When it comes to radio I'm there for the music . It's another friend in the room, in the car , in my head. It's music that makes country radio work. Local music, regional music and the big irrigation pipe that floods programmers from Nashville. and on that subject... and this will win me "0" friends in the consultant world.....the same music that moves someone in one part of the country does not light a fire in another. Trust me!! Blanket song play list for a country radio station doesn't establish and maintain a strong local listener following. That's because of something I call "regional personality". The local connection is needed. I saw it as a performer. Minnesota was not Texas was not upstate New York. The set that brought the house down in one part of the country garnered "golf claps" in another. Band energy... the same... regional personality vastly different.Regional personality! You can make tailored homogenized play lists more palatable with some local glue ie the local radio personalities. Nash- Radio has hope for a nationally homogenized market and national radio is a push in that direction that completely ignores the front porch. Will some country folks listen.....you bet.... for the same reason that substandard, poorly written, poorly executed songs make it to top 10. Put them on enough "For Play This Week " lists for radio stations in Heavy, Medium whatever and the listener is subjected to it enough they will not surf because of ear "numbness" Like someone once said "Lead a person across a desert to an oasis and when there's no water they will drink the sand because they don't know the difference.
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