It Was Just One Number

I know that it takes three measurements in a row to create a trend and one stat can easily be a wobble, but when you're looking at an average of every single country station rated nationally by Nielsen slipping even just .2 after several years of growth can be worrisome, as I blogged last year when the country format "Radio Today" was released.

• Was country over-reacting to the exciting growth of the last few years in teens and 18-34, perhaps turning off Gen X?
• If so, would the format that has resisted fragentation for decades by targeting broadly across all narrow demos within 18-49 and especially 25-54 begin to split?

Selling country is tough enough without having to explain why your station wins in the 12-34 age groups while the other guys dominate 35-54.

Perhaps it was my writing last year.  Or, maybe it was just savvy programmers who saw the same thing I did in their local numbers and adjusted.  Or, maybe the new music coming out from artists, writers and producers in the past year was more mass appeal.

Whatever it was, Nielsen had some good news for us last week in what is now called "Audio Today 2014" (each report uses data from the year prior, so Fall 2008 became Radio Today 2009, Fall 2009 became 2010, etc):

Country's 25-34 Share Trend 
Fall 2008:  11.4 *note that this was Country only, we did not start combining Country + New Country until the next edition of Radio Today
Fall 2009:  12.3
Fall 2010:  12.2
Fall 2011:  12.8
Spring 2012:  12.6
Spring 2013: 13.1

After four years of upticks in the center of 25-54, that slip last year had me concerned and now the new stat's move forward is a big relief to see.

It's called "Gen X" because it's a smaller proportion of the population, of course, so the fact that it's contribution to country's cume is lowest of all adult generations is to be expected.

Time spent listening losses drove last year's dip and it's exciting to see it returned to consistent this year with the demo cells on both sides of it, helping support the rebound.

Of course, the latest uptick is just one number too and can't be called a trend yet either, so you'll want to keep a close eye on all narrow cells in our target in local research.

Thanks to this good news from Nielsen (country ranks #2 in teens, #1 18-24, 25-34, 35-44, 45-54 and #2 55-64 - exactly the demo balance our sellers expect from us) we all have earned the right to gloat a bit right now.

Improving Your Country Station's TSL: Are You Targeting A Bit Too Young?

Exactly one year ago, Scarborough research highlighted the fact that what the company calls "heavy" users of radio are significantly more likely to use the Internet as a source for entertainment than Americans who listen to less radio.

90% of Heavy Radio Listeners in Scarborough's research are between 18 and 64 but there are noteworthy generational differences.

Some formats, of course, have no choice in which generational cohort to target, but since country music preferences don't seem to fragment until our listeners get over 55 (see my post on this) and it's possible to target all three demos between 25 and 54, here's another reason to really understand 35-44 and not get drawn too quickly toward under 30!

Will The Country Format Ever Fragment?

It was exactly 25 years ago at the Country Radio Seminar when researcher/guru John Parikhal predicted that the country format was about to fragment into two equal branches, mainstream and classic.  Instead, about a year later, a guy named Garth and seven or eight other exciting new artists emerged as "the class of '89," painting over the cracks that had started to show.

If you read my last four posts which show that by playing the right songs and artists it's still possible for a country station to cobble together the optimum coalition that spans from teens to leading edge boomers you might think that country radio still hasn't fragmented.

You'd be wrong.

We just hadn't looked old enough as yet.

55+ country partisans are clearly not happy with the direction that even the biggest hits of today have taken.

That's more than a third of today's country radio audience.

So, yes, country will fragment.  It will happen the day someone finds media buyers and advertisers willing to pay for 55 and older.

Meanwhile, for the average country radio station today, they remain the huge segment of our audience that no one is willing to pay for, but savvy buyers who ask our sellers to pitch on 18-34, 18-49 and 25-54 know that they get for free!

Common Threads

The key to broadening the appeal of a format with a target as broad as country radio is finding the songs that drive loyalty for as many age and gender subgroups as possible.

The lower the "difference" number, the less the polarity among these highest rated hits:

I get concerned when I see a difference greater than 10% when comparing cross tabs. 

Aldean and Eli Young, for example, highlight a potential incompatibility if the target includes both 25-34 and 35-44.

Meanwhile, it appears that 25-34 and 45-54 may be more alike in their tastes with these songs this week than 35-44 is.

If you don't look at all the target cells individually and compare them, you'd be missing something important.

In certain very competitive situations, even standard demos are too wide as generational cohorts age year by year from one cell to another.

(More) 35-44

How many demos can a country station super-serve?

Top of the 18-24 ranker:

The highest "favorite" scores of all four demo cells for the ones they love.

25-34:

Slightly lower positive passion levels, but still impressively strong.

35-44:

Four of the five top songs are the same as the younger cells, as Blake Shelton sprints to the line in the center 35+ cells.

45-54:

The upper end of the target's ranker looks a lot like the other three.

So, perhaps 18-54 is a target demo when it comes to the most popular songs?

How many demos can we super-serve? 
 
When it comes to our biggest hits:  at least four of them, thankfully!

It's Not Just How Many, But Also Which Ones

In 2000, almost one in five of the average country station's listeners was between 35 and 44.

Now, Nielsen's "Radio Today" reports that the format's 25-34 (15 to 15.4%) and 45-54 (19.9 up to 20.1) cells have grown in our audience comp as 35-44 slipped to 14.7% - due to the small size of Gen X compared to both the Boomers and Millenials in the general population.

Is that part of the reason the format's share of 35-44 listeners also dipped from the previous year? 

I think it would be if a station hasn't updated its callout screener to account for the generation creep that's been happening over the last decade!

Thanks to Cornerstone Research's Analyst, I compared scores of the best-liked new tunes 25-39 vs 40-54 to show what I mean.  It exaggerates the upper and lower edges of our audience and minimizes the opinions expressed by those right in the middle where we should still be aiming our arrow:

There was a time when most major country stations used callout that was targeted 50/50 25-39 and 40-54, 60% female and "60% core with 40% other core as found in nature."

If your station is still doing it that way, it's time to rethink your research plan.  That's especially true if you have moved from callout to online testing to your own station database.

Certainly, looking at the data that way continues to highlight the generational differences between the oldest and the youngest of your listeners 25-54, but splitting 35-44 in half understates their opinions.

That effect is amplified by the fact that if your station mirrors the national averages it's likely that the 20% of your database that was 35-44 in 2000 is now ten years older.  That makes it more important to look at today's smaller 35-44 folks' input on your music discretely compared to the larger numbers on both ends of our demographic scale.

Meanwhile, further complicating today's country targeting is the emergence of 18-24 and even teens into our cume (and music research).

Who wouldn't want as many younger listeners as possible? 

It's certainly possible to justify calling today's country format age target 18-54 (or even older!), yet dealing with five or six generational cohorts' attitudes, values, lifestyles - let alone music preferences isn't targeting, it's hosting a family reunion.

I want to consider some challenges that presents - and solutions - tomorrow in this space.

Country Will Be Huge In 20 Years. BUT....

... are we going to be moving slowly downward 25-54 and 18-49 year after year between now and then, as leading edge boomers age out of 25-54 and Gen X moves into the middle of it?

It's worth studying both Census Bureau population projections as well as Nielsen's annual Radio Today historical trends to stay ahead of the curve.

More than half of the country radio audience today is over 45.  The country radio format's 35-44 composition percentage has been slipping for the last decade as Gen X has aged into that demo cell right in the center of our target.  (click the link to see Westwood One/Denver VP/Programming John Paul's prescient post and stats on this)  "It could get real ugly" between now and then, he says.

Fortunately, country still ranks #1 18-24. 25-34, 35-44 and 45-54 in 2013:

Last week, Inside Radio talked to a number of smart programmers managing to beat the national averages:

• Keeping 35-44 year-olds tuned in isn’t an issue for “93Q” KKBQ-FM, Houston.  The Cox country station was tops in the demo in September.  More often than not it’s the station’s best-performing demo.  PD Johnny Chiang attributes that to a carefully balanced music mix that’s big on common denominator records. “You have to go by what the song sounds like and the lyrics still matter a lot,” he says. “The biggest advantage country has over every other format is how the music and lyrics connect with the audience.”  Keeping country radio a family affair starts with the research, he and other programmers say.
   
• Entercom country “106.5 The Wolf” WDAF-FM, Kansas City PD Wes Poe says the station keeps Millennials and Gen X-ers satisfied by testing its music across the wide 25-45 demo.  Consultant Jaye Albright says it’s important for country stations to include men and upper demos in their research — not just younger women. “I would target 22-44 so you don’t get dragged too young and blow off upper demos,” she says. “The 35-44 demo has the potential of being country listeners for the next 20 years.” 

• Clear Channel EVP of programming Clay Hunnicutt says country radio continues to have broad demographic appeal and that it has attracted 18-34 year-olds organically. “We have to convert them, not target them,” he says. “I don’t want to make someone like me.  But if they’re coming to the party, I really want to show them a good time.”

So, what's the big deal?

To overcome the smaller proportion of 35-44 in both the general population and country's audience comp, the format must increase it's share of both Generation X and Generation Y listening above current levels.

The national country format average share 35-44 was up from 2011 to 2012 from a 12.2 to a 12.8, but then slipped to a 12.6 this year. 

The majority of country stations tracked by Nielsen this year cut a smaller slice of a shrinking pie. 
 
Turning that slight dip around by the time the next annual format report emerges in 2014 will lay the necessary groundwork for both a solid medium- and long-term future.  

Failing to do so will mean we'll need to wait for the average age of 18-49 and 25-54 to come down, which census data forecasts won't happen for a decade.  

Getting it "right" between now and then requires targeting more discretely than the standard ten year demo cells, growing new coalitions based on more than the mix of age or gender that worked for the format in the past.

My Inscrutable Blog Post

Sometimes attempting to "explain" something that simply didn't make much sense in the first place only serves to further cloud an issue.

I hope to avoid doing that here.  My New In 2007; Obsolete In 2013 post made sense, I hope, to the people I work directly with since it was designed to serve as a somewhere coded, confidential and personal reminder.

However, a comment came in over the weekend from an innocent reader who can be forgiven for feeling that it was...

Completely biased and useless rhetoric. I have no idea what this post was intended to accomplish. Could you clarify? I mean, how does an iPhone age and model relate to an elder and youth relationship? And what is the goal of a new phone as compared to the goals of each an elder and younger in a mutually satisfying relationship? What are you saying?

I appreciate the feedback and emailed my commenter:  "As I travel and listen to radio, I hear too many personalities talking to an audience that maybe existed at one time - "next hour, we'll..." "more details on our website" etc etc and I keep trying to get their attention and tell them to talk like real people do by reminding them that the only way to avoid cultural obsolescence is to be sharing emotions and telling stories each time you open your mouth. I use Dick Clark and Ed McMahon, rest their souls, as examples as I coach this point by noting that Dick was remaining relevant right to the end as he counted them down every New Year with Ryan while Ed was selling adult diapers and insurance to old people.  Staying fresh, current and contemporary is a personal choice, requiring the breaking of deeply-ingrained old habits which die hard.  Am I a voice in the wilderness?"

My correspondent replied, perhaps teaching the lesson far better than I did...

I believe the essence of radio has always been company, entertainment, and information for the masses. But it has always been one sided. Interactive media like web blogs, chat, and social sites like Twitter have influenced this, clearly, as they cater to individual interaction. The question may have become how can radio become more interactive? Less pretense and more camaraderie is appreciated and demanded by the radio audience today, in my view. And to at least sound (believably) interactive is crucial.

Why didn't I think of that?

Any time you read this blog and feel like improving on it, please add a comment or clarification.  Help me to "at least sound interactive."

New In 2007; Obsolete In 2013

An internal Apple memo now calls the original iPhone, launched less than seven years ago (to put it more kindly) "vintage."

How are you doing in that department?

Fortunately, there aren't many areas of our culture moving faster than the tech world, but move they do.

If you're still talking to the same "personal listener" you created when you first got into radio, it's likely that you're as "today" as American Family Publishers.

Every parent knows:  young people aren't going to make the effort to understand and relate to their elders.

If anyone in an older person to younger person relationship is going to "speak the language" of the other person, only the older of the two is fully-equipped to understand and communicate to the other.

Take a bite out of today's "apple" before it takes a bite out of you.

Once You Learn The ABC's Of "Y," Here Comes "Z"

Kudos to Russ Penuell for a terrific recap of A&O&B's client seminar session on connecting with the Millennial generation.

As I said, we really don’t need to work hard to understand millennials because almost all of our new superstars are them.  If you simply follow the trend in music and understand what they’re singing about, what their lyrics are saying and what their shows are like, you’re probably going to figure it out.

Like Blake Shelton said yesterday about his new LP Based On A True Story:   “It’s the best way to put into a song my personality, and the kind of people that I hang out with.  (the album’s lead-off track “Boys ‘Round Here” which features Pistol Annies)  This [song] is about the guys back in Tishomingo, OK and every town around this country.” 

But if you’re determined to be the you that you’ve always been and aren’t going to change, you have about three to five years to figure out that’s not going to work before your ratings figure it out for you as the audience evolves and the demographics shift.

WDAF/Kansas City PD Wes Poe and WUBE/Cincinnati PD Grover Collins are two programmers whose ratings prove they "get it."

• “We’ve all encountered people who are fake or who turn it on when they’re around us, and those people are often avoided for lack the ability to have real relationships.  We need to let our guards down and be real. For example, we use a music-quantity position that is clear and honest about what we offer listeners and we deliver on it. And we’ve been lucky enough to come out on top in the Country battle several months in the last year. When we do, we sincerely thank our listeners for putting us there and explain what they’ve helped us accomplish and what it means to us. If you’re a radio station with empty promises and fluff, your days are numbered in my opinion.  But authenticity won’t stand alone in a world with Facebook, Twitter, Pinterest, LinkedIn, Instagram, Flickr, Socialcam and more."
• “We’re rolling out a new wake-up app exclusively for the morning show that will work like an alarm clock.  They’ll set it and wake up to Chris Carr & Company. It’s just another feature for people that are not listening to regular radio first thing in the morning, but streaming more with their smartphones.  With the exception of the digital and tech aspects, I consider [millennials] to be a lot like everyone else.  They want to be entertained, they’re looking for quality content and they’re looking for things that intrigue and engage them. Our job is to keep them coming back.”

MediaPost's Jack Loechner calls it "Generational Progress" as the segmentation of the marketplace has fallen into several categories, but none so ubiquitous as age or generational similarities. He notes that William Schroer, SocialMarketing.org, hasthoroughly described population cohorts in a convenient fashion for planning purposes, including the NEXT one we need to start to think about.

Generation Z
Born: 1995-2012
Coming of Age: 2013-2020
Age in 2004: 0-9
Current Population: 23 million and growing rapidly

While we don’t know much about Gen Z yet...we know a lot about the environment they are growing up in. This highly diverse environment will make the grade schools of the next generation the most diverse ever. Higher levels of technology will make significant inroads in academics allowing for customized instruction, data mining of student histories to enable pinpoint diagnostics and remediation or accelerated achievement opportunities.

Gen Z kids will grow up with a highly sophisticated media and computer environment and will be more Internet savvy and expert than their Gen Y forerunners. They are also loving country music, so for more to come on Gen Z...stay tuned!  (.... To THEM.)
 

Driving The Trend

The growing size of the 15-29 demo cell in the coming years, Generation Y, will have more demographic muscle than any other single 25-54 cell (their grandparents - Post War Baby Boomers - will be straddling three different cells).

Five years ago, when the Boomers were all 40-54, THAT was where all the action was.

Watch 22-34 in the next few years!

Look for some new ways to speak their language in the next year.

The country demo was easily defined just five years ago. The largest and most desirable target was comprised of a single group of listeners who shared common core music preference. In the past two years, things have started changing again and driving the new artist evolution is demography.

Next year, that trend will continue.

What has emerged is a new group of non-ethnic teens and 25 to 34 year olds who just love country music.

Just as adult contemporary is now seeing a division between old and young around the age of 39 to 42, so too goes the country audience in 2011 and beyond. It's a trend that we haven't completely felt the full impact of and it even has a counter trend/bit of a backlash in the form of some new retro sounds appealing to 45+ as well, like the new Alan Jackson and Sunny Sweeney, among others.

Is country about to fragment, with two equally-sized potential audiences, one skewing younger and newer, with the other older and more familiarity and variety-based?

Historically, it has been very possible for a market leader to prevent significant fragmentation from any new competition in markets where the mainstream leader has made the adjustment to the new rules of "today's country" and aggressively practiced relationship marketing to their traditional core and social networking with the newcomers at the same time.

Will history repeat itself?

The More Things Change...

The audience is wide and the hunger is deep for emotional directness and song-oriented craftsmanship.

The raised-on-rock generations of the sixties, seventies and eighties, now paying mortgages and raising families, no longer see their concerns reflected in computerized dance beats or heavy metal cartoons.

They hear in Jennifer Nettles and The Band Perry what they love in Bonnie Raitt; identify with the bluesy, blue-collar populism of Brad Paisley, Toby Keith, Zac Brown and Jason Aldean as the honky tonk equivalent of Lynyrd Skynyrd; appreciate in the tunefulness of Lady Antebellum what they previously prized in Linda Ronstadt and find their Elvis (or at least their Elton) in the kid-next-door sincerity and concert razzle-dazzle of Taylor Swift and Kenny Chesney.

-- my updated rewrite of critic Don McLeese’s December 24, 1992, Rolling Stone quote

Are You A LeBron? Or A Taylor?

Generations ("turnings") and birth dates do a lot to define us. For example, both Gen-Xer LeBron James and Millennial Taylor Swift are December's children.

This year, he celebrates his 26th birthday and she will be 21.

"X" seemingly marks the spot for folks born prior to 1981. Don't ask "Y," but the defining culture changed after that year, even though a mere five years separates their ages.

• Gen X = Good of the me.
• Millennial = Good of the team?
• Or, not?

Questions are being asked about why James felt the need to make such a major media opera of his decision to leave Cleveland and move to Miami.

Maybe there's a bit of "Y" in him too, since Taylor spent an hour online with 60,000 fans and media to simply say that she has a new single coming soon.

Or, is there a little "X" in her?

One thing for sure. You won't be seeing a "LeBron Connect" social network with him anytime soon.

What about you? When were you born? What age do you target? Do you have some homework to do?

At Least We're Not Dr. Scholl's (Yet)

Country music radio, in spite of Taylor Swift's amazing success, (click that link to see her artistic sensibilities in the current issue of Marie Claire!), remains largely a Boomer brand, with a big bump in our demographics 45+ (click that link to read the article and blog comments on it which prompts this post).

"No brand can ever rest easy with one target audience, but brands that have relied heavily on Boomers for their success really need to think like Mercedes and consider how they will engage the wave of Gen Y consumers that could be the key to their futures."

Cole & Weber United President/Ad Guy Mike Doherty made me think of the great run country has had for the last 25 years, thanks to the good fortune (brilliant strategy?) of bonding with the boomers back then they were 25-34 and how, now, like Saturday Night Live, CNN and National Geographic, our long heritage requires rethinking our entire approach as we seek to draw the 80-million strong "Millenial" generation, who now dominate 18-24, 25-34, thus 18-49, and within just a few years, 25-54.

"For Gen Y, formats like CNN that were once revolutionary are irrelevant. Headlines along with a touch of analysis are available everywhere. Check out this article for a good read on CNN's woes.

"For Gen Y, content can be informative and educational but must also be very entertaining in the process (à la "The Daily Show" or Huffington Post). There isn't time for both entertainment and information digestion separately. Content providers could learn from sites like www.funnyordie.com and www.break.com. For National Geographic, it seems that with a new face and new ways to distribute its content, it could be reborn as the the content source for conscientious Gen Yers passionate about environmental and cultural issues worldwide."

You can reach all three generations which straddle 25-54 today, but it requires a different mindset and actions now:

• Show that your brand cares about them by involving them in a wide variety of aspects of your business.
• Collaborate with cachet brands (thanks, Taylor!)
• Avoid hype with a simple and clean style that feels fresh, hipper
• Be an active participant in pop culture and embrace the lives of all listeners, including Gen Y. For example, SNL’s Facebook campaign to get Betty White to host is an obvious example of Gen Y's cultural force. They saw how hilarious she was in her Super Bowl spots and turned her hosting gig into a mission. This is particularly interesting as it proves that like Betty White's brand (no offense to her), you don't have to be a new brand to appeal to Gen Y.
• Tell stories. Be informative or educational, but you had better be extremely entertaining in the process.
• Other boomer brands like Tylenol, Bayer, Advil and even Band-Aid could learn how to relate to Gen Y from brands like Vitaminwater, which helped the generation care about staying hydrated.

Need an example closer to home?

Brad Paisley (among, lucky for us, many others) pulls it all off just by being himself. His authenticity, mix of sensitivity, self-deprecation and humor, yet fearlessness in singing about what he stands for may be an even more applicable role model for most of us.

Having something to say and lots of talent completes the package.

Is that you?

It better be if you hope to keep from being seen as the audio equivalent of orthopedic insoles.

Predictions That You Can Be Sure Are 100% Currect = Demographics

.. because the births which drive them have already happened.

The baby boom turns 64 this year.

On January 1, 1946, an 18 year period known as the post-war baby boom began. In 1946, 3.4 million children were born in the U.S. 78 million babies were born from 1946 to 1964: so, 10,000 people will turn 64 each day for the next ten years.

There are 68 million people who are 65+ today, 44 million are 33 to 44 and 72 million are under 32 (some would draw the cohort line a year or two younger than that today, calling them Millenials and positing that their defining years were the turn of the new century and 9/11).

Today's Gen Y and senior citizens are the biggest demo targets of 2010.

Common threads that reach both: fun, lifestyle and family. The smaller in number, but acquisitive age demos in between feel ignored and misunderstood.

Musical preference and attitude differences greatly outnumber similarities.

Fragmentation and niche marketing will continue to proliferate.

Finding common passions for Taylor Swift, Keith Urban and Rascal Flatts fans versus those who prefer Garth Brooks, Brooks & Dunn and George Strait is going to get to the point that it may become impossible soon.

Loose Ends

Mental folders I opened recently, which deserve at least a mini-post to tie them up:

1. The 2009 Radio Mercury Award winners are indeed very impressive uses of the creative potential of the audio medium, worth listening to and learning from. Let's bury them in great radio entries next year.

2. Watch and listen to Taylor Swift to understand how Gen Y is changing country music and radio. What kid doesn't want to date her?

3. Krash Bassett's clever blog on an iPhone app for country imaging poses an only slightly terrifying question: why do we all use the same voices and stationality techniques? Resolve to challenge yourself to be different. I'd love to come into a market, scan across the dial, recognize all the usual suspects .. until I get to your station. Can we please stop leaning on "professional voices" so much and put the job of branding our stations into the hands of real people, our listeners?

Before You Open The Mic, Give This Some Thought...

"People aren't all that interested in what the talking heads have to say. Instead, they want to participate, control the content and communicate with each other."
-- Alan Levy, CEO, BlogTalkRadio, on Edison Research's "Future Of Webcasting" webinar

Boomers were the 'me' generation.
Gen X'ers are the 'us' generation.
Gen Y is the engagement ("you") generation.

What's your pronoun?