Does This Look Like A Format That's About To Fragment?

Since roughly a third of all radio users give all radio stations some 70% of their total hours of listening, it's safe to say that as goes the core, so goes the radio station they use.

That's why A&O&B has been tracking annual "Roadmap" online perceptual studies for many years.

In 2014, 8,874 very local fans in more than 70 markets in the U.S. & Canada gave us their opinions.  Nine of ten were "P-1," since just 9.3% choose country as 2nd or 3rd choice.

As Mike O'Malley blogged that passion for today's country runs very high:  "even among 55-64 year olds, six in ten like new country frommillennial stars 'a lot.'"  

That's driving improving total hours tuned:

It's especially the case with younger demos:

The biggest increase came 18-24, but is across all demos:

Loyalty (likely to switch if something new became available) is also on the upswing:

That's not say that there aren't individual radio stations failing to perform at these benchmarks whose listeners might jump at the chance to try something different and new.  As Radio-Info's Mike Kinosian reported on Friday, one third of the Nielsen rated country stations in his last tracking study failed to join the national up trend for the country format.

I hope you aren't one of them, but it appears that the average country station among A&O&B clients is well-positioned to fend off a niche competitor!

If you aren't among the majority, A&O&B can help,

Best Wishes, Brian

Is it true that "you only get one chance to make a good first impression?"

We're about to find out.

With the news that Cumulus is giving very smart programmer Brian Thomas the keys to New York's NASH-FM after attempting to win The Big Apple's country fans' loyalty with a Nashville-centric approach, it looks like someone finally figured out that localism still wins.

Now, let's hope that debt-laden Cumulus will give him the resources that it will take to get New Yorkers to come back and try the station again once it is repositioned with America's largest city's style, content, personality and attitude.

A personal story that illuminates my perspective on the challenge the new team Thomas will pull together faces: 

In the early 1960's I had the honor of meeting Gene Autry-owned KMPC-AM 710's Dick Whittinghill and was brash and enthusiastic enough in spite of my idol's major market success I had the courage to ask him why he talked so much about the little things in his daily life - like playing golf with Mayor Sam Yorty (which, always the "coach," I told Whittinghill, seemed elitist).

Whittinghill was kind enough to give me some great advice that I never forgot over the five decades since that time:  "LA is a huge city, but the people who live here think of themselves as residents of their unique neighborhoods not a metropolis.  I relate to them as if we all lived in a village and as if they might have played golf with the Mayor yesterday."

You have to think that the very smart Cumulus executive team understands that they now need to give Thomas all of the time and tools he'll require to identify the more than one-to-two million country fans in greater New York a strong signal to cover their home/work zip codes and move in next door to them.

Putting Old Research Stats To The Real Life Test In 2013

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!