Monday, May 12, 2014

Your New Fall Season

The news Friday that ABC-TV has renewed "Nashville" for a third season with a full run of 22 episodes hopefully comes as a reminder that summer is the perfect time of year to plan for "what's new" in the coming year on your show and radio station.

Rayna Jaymes (as the show's website points out) "suddenly discovers her passion for the business is not enough to compete with the new generation of talent lighting up the charts. She's forced to accept the harsh reality that she’ll have to start over and reinvent herself if she plans on being relevant."


Political Scientist Charles A. Murray chose this graduation season to release his new book citing the film 'Groundhog Day' as another reminder of the need to constantly evolve even as life seems to be an exercise in repetitive experiences.
"Without the slightest bit of preaching, the movie shows the bumpy, unplanned evolution of his protagonist from a jerk to a fully realized human being—a person who has learned to experience deep, lasting and justified satisfaction with life even though he has only one day to work with."  He writes "You could learn the same truths by studying Aristotle's 'Ethics' carefully, but watching "Groundhog Day" repeatedly is a lot more fun."
There's a lot of what we all do on radio every day that seems to mirror Bill Murray's life in the movie.  Same things, same times, day after day.

If you are bored with what you do, the audience most likely is too.

The coming summer vacation time of year for both you and your listener is the perfect time to learn a lesson from what works for television.  Think through all of the things you want to keep next year as well as potential new aspects in your character, personalities, benchmarks.

Be sure that as your listener matures and grows, you're doing so as well.

What are your strengths? 
What would you like to change? 

It's  time to review what you've been doing and ask what you need to reinvent, replace and yet remain as strong as in the past.

Attack yourself!  Find and correct your own weaknesses. If you were a new morning show coming into the market what would your strategy be to beat our current/past show?

What weaknesses would you exploit? What are the weaknesses in your show’s strengths?  Each player needs to have their role definitions re-evaluated. 

Study all show benchmarks and regular features. Put all of them - as talent coach Randy Lane and his team routinely suggests - in one of three categories:

  • Perfect as is
  • Needs improving
  • Discontinue
It’s not enough to be the best today; you have to be famous too. Look for ways to generate media press and talk in the market by making this an agenda point in the planning sessions as you "launch your new fall season!"

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