Are You Still Programming Like It Was 2008?

For eight years nearly a hundred A&O&B clients have participated in the annual online "Roadmap" study, tracking trends in music, tech, non-music elements and other aspects of usage and images.

The attitudes change every year.  For example, just seven years ago the average listener ranked country leadership and giving away big contest prizes as the #1 and #2 reasons to pick a favorite.  Music quantity out-rated music quality.

Eight months ago, when we tabbed the 2014 results, the most important parameters in choosing a favorite changed radically:

Is your emphasis on key images outdated?

If you're still trying to bribe listeners with prizes and music quantity promises, you may be out of synch with today's audience, which now wants the best songs, more fun, friendly authenticity and good vibes compared to what they did just a few years ago.

There Is No "Average Country Radio Station"

It's never a good idea to program your radio station using "national average" research trends.

A few years ago, A&O&B asked the listeners to almost all of our client stations:

Just for fun, I went back to that study and pulled out the local data for the ten top-ranked morning shows in their local ratings.  No two of them mirrored the averages.

The one with the highest "DJ's" score's audience (24.41%) gave music 13.95% and "both" 61.65%.

The one with the highest "music" score (23.89%) had 16.38% DJ's and 59.73% "both."

The one with the highest "both" score (71.56%) had 16.64 primarily "DJ's" and 11.8% "music only."

All ten of these top-rated stations' listeners rated "DJ's" as more important than the average of the total sample, however.  Only one of them had "music" rate higher than the national average.

I'd say that would make the odds about nine to one that you won't win in the morning in the country radio format without great personalities who your listeners rate far better than "national average  personalities," but like any good coach you need to adjust the percentages you emphasize based on the caliber and mix of talent on your lineup.

You Go First

Sean Ross (Why The Audience Now Wants Shorter Breaks) initiated not just a great conversation last week but the savvy and experienced folks adding comments since that time simply can't be ignored!

However, I'm not yet convinced.

Back when John Hayes ran Corus and Canada was just starting with PPM, with the help of the brilliant Bob Michaels (I STILL miss him so much - a smart researcher and a wonderful communicator!), all Corus stations were mandated to do six two minute breaks and promote that they go back to the music faster than anyone else.

Finally, after more than a year of disappointing ratings all of the Corus music stations went to two six minute breaks per hour and the ratings improved almost immediately across the board.

In Canada, BBM doesn't use "five minutes equals a quarter hour" as Nielsen Audio does, so it's absolutely a "most minutes" wins game and all of the Canadian country stations we work with are doing exceedingly well right now sticking with the "hour glass" or "bow tie" approach, so I'm welcoming anyone else who wants to take the Edison Researcher's advice and "go first."

My sense is that this is a case of perception vs actual habits.

TV commercials are all run at the same times so that viewers then are forced to choose their favorite shows based on the content not the commercial load and I believe that the same is true with radio when the measurement is PPM.

The major consolidated US group owners have shown me by their actions in PPM that it's possible for one station to play at least one minute more commercial time than a direct competitor and still win by carefully placing their clusters to maximize the time measured by the PPM, which like your cell phone "knows what time it is," so a few seconds can be the same as a minute depending where a tune-in or tune-out happens.  Thanks to Nielsen Audio's editing rules, that minute in the right place can be credited as a full quarter hour (or also cost you one if it's improperly placed).

Perception still drives expectations, which does make listeners go to one station "first" over another, but when at that station "time matters" much more than perceptions, I maintain.  Great content drives usage in the moment much more than the image that if I am patient I'll hear more of what I want in the long term.

Each "stop" causes a huge loss in the "switcher" audience and the more times per hour that happens the stronger that image of "it's worth waiting for something terrific" must be, my current experience still indicates.

How about you?  Ready to go first?

Becoming More Memorable

Increasing top-of-mindness:

1.  Find out which of your personalities your listeners know on an unaided basis.
2.  Test your programming features and stress the "benchmarks" among them.  Which ones can listeners name as a reason they listen to you?
3.  Find out of the core artists you play most bring your brand to mind for target listeners more than any other radio station.
4.  Proudly stand for values and attitudes your audience relates to.

Be certain that these 'benefits' can be described (as Lovemarks) on an unaided basis by as many members of your potential coalition as possible when compared to other radio stations they also use.

If You Can't Measure It, You Can't Change It

If your goal is to lower your levels of phantom cume and you're not a PPM market, how do you find out how much lost listening you have now?

1.  Conduct a phone survey that includes an open-ended question asking "what's your favorite radio station?"

2.  Then, later in the same survey, ask all of the target listeners to choose their favorite radio station from an aided-recall list of all the stations you compete with.

3.  The difference between the percentage of the sample to name your radio station on an unaided basis and the ones who choose you from the aided list is a good indication of your phantom cume.

Once you have that number you can test various ways to improve your "top of mind memorability" and redo the same survey several times annually to see what works.

Improve your unaided recall and you will increase your ratings.

Low Hanging Fruit

Phantom cume is real.  PPM proves it.

As noted here last week, the average radio station's cume almost doubles under PPM measurement.

If your radio station is measured by diaries, it seems that roughly half your audience simply forgets (or doesn't care enough about what they hear) to write down listening they actually did to you.

Ponder this:

If you could help them remember all of the usage they actually do, you could double your cume audience without spending a dime in marketing!

It's The Panel

After more than a half century of radio ratings diary measurement, we have all become accustomed to certain metrics.  The arrival of PPM over the last decade has changed the math completely.

For the average country station still being rated by diaries this ratio remains quite constant:  a little more than one third of diarykeepers account for almost three quarters of average quarter hour audience. 

For that reason, radio's research companies have learned that a random probability sample composed of about 60% of a station's "core" (P1/heaviest users) and some 40% of that station's cume as found at random in a metro population provides a reliable indication of how that broadcaster is going to do in the next diary survey.

When PPM started to roll out in the top 50 U.S. and Canada's major markets over the last decade that formula no longer "worked."  Many radio stations back when their first PPM ratings were released were unpleasantly surprised to find out that performing extremely well in a traditional perceptual research project fielded with the time-honored sample parameters was no predictor of PPM scores!

Six years ago at the annual December programming "fly-in," Nielsen Audio's clever research crunchers revealed new insights into emerging major market panel samples that still help explain why that may have been happening:

 

• Unlike in diary measurement where lighter users often fail to report their usage, PPM captures it all, so instead of the vast majority of AQH audience coming from heavy users, it's more of a 50/50 proposition.  
• Roughly half of all radio average quarter hour ratings now reflect extremely light, "drive by," perhaps even unintentional use.  Those people listen an average of under three minutes per occasion, bringing average "time spent exposed" when down when compared to diary driven data.
• Heavy users (P-1's) are still in the sample, accounting for about half the usage of the average radio station's shares.  Their average occasion is ten+ times as long as the other half of the sample, typically something like 35 minutes.
• PPM also shows that those heavy users listen to about twice as many radio stations in an average week that they would have written down, on average, when they filled out a listening diary.
• Savvy programmers and researchers have now had more than six years to fully understand these new dynamics and our ability to project results has been improving, but there is still much to learn, but it's important to keep in mind that actual listening has not changed.  
• You can get the about the same number of quarter hours by targeting either group or many more than you did in diaries if you can find a way to bridge the gaps and constantly satisfy both of them.
• Listeners still perceive and make use of radio in the same ways they always have.  It's the measurement techniques and the sample that changed, requiring new usage tactics and perceptual-driven strategies.

Do Perceptions Drive Usage?

The company now known as Nielsen Audio has been using diaries to measure radio and television audiences for 55 years now and it's unquestionable that the memorability, partisanship and top-of-mindness which make a person remember a listening occasion long enough to write down when it started and when it stopped as well as the station's "call letters, dial setting or name" can be predicted accurately by measuring listener perceptions.  However, this is prone to mistakes and forgetfulness, as well as subjectivity.

So, along came PPM, with its promise of more granular actual usage data of a panel that remains fairly consistent for several years.

A compelling case for moving to PPM has been driven by many factors - beyond the mere fact that today's audiences are increasingly unwilling to take time to fill out and send back printed diaries - not the least of which is that almost every single radio station's weekly cume audience almost doubles when actual usage is the measure rather than just the ability to be remembered.

PPM proves a long-held belief that Phantom Cume exists.  Roughly half of radio usage is simply not measured by diaries because either the sample doesn't think that their usage was significant enough to take time to report or because they just didn't recall doing it.

Diary success is driven by something one major radio researcher terms "The Image Pyramid."  The stronger the most important images, the better you do.

PPM panel success requires an even higher stakes game.  Not only must you strongly hold all of the key brand images compared to the other radio stations and media choices available to your potential audience, you also have to execute in a granular level down to the minute. 

You may be a person's favorite radio station, personality or program, but if at this very minute you tune them out and another station starts doing something they love, you lose.

Everything that was important yesterday is still crucial, but now minute-by-minute usage has increased the stakes.

They Know Our Streaming Product Isn't As Good

We have work to do.

  -- A&O&B Roadmap 2014

Can Online Usage Reinvent Radio At Home?

Trend:  as television has reinvented their morning newscasts in the form of traditional morning radio shows, many folks have been turning to radio later in the morning, as they get into their vehicles.

Will personal mobile devices give your radio station a new "at home usage" opportunity?

BUT, meanwhile, the vehicle is under attack at the same time:

.. especially with our long term future listeners.

The national averages, of course, are fascinating but meaningless, really, except as a comparison to your local performance.  Are you ahead of/behind the curve on every data point?  There's only one way to know and that is to do local research.

 - A&O&B Roadmap 2014

Online Listening To Audio Doesn't Hurt AM/FM Usage

In fact, among core country fans, it appears to increase it!

Your listeners are looking for you where ever they use audio media and that change is coming fast:

The national averages, of course, are fascinating but meaningless, really, except as a comparison to your local performance.  Are you ahead of/behind the curve on every data point?

There's only one way to know and that is to do local research.

- A&O&B Roadmap 2014

What (Where) Is Radio?

Radio is where today's listener expects it to be.

-- A&O&B "Roadmap 2014"

Roadmap 2014: Country Listeners Are Increasingly Social

Sure, Facebook is big.  BUT there isn't one emerging social medium that isn't picking up more of our listeners on a daily basis.

(My Space?  What's THAT?)

The national averages, of course, are fascinating but meaningless, really, except as a comparison to your local performance.  Are you ahead of/behind the curve on every data point?

There's only one way to know and that is to do local research.

- A&O&B Roadmap 2014 

"AM, FM, XM too.."

Even the most satisfied core listener sometimes gets pushed away by their favorite radio station doing something they don't like.

Where do they go when that happens?

A little less than half punch another preset.  One in four goes to their own digital player, but after that the other 2014 "second choices" are not what they used to be!

If you're not planning ways right now to prevent Luke Bryan from looking for things to rhyme with "Pandora, Slacker and iPod too" in his next single, it's time to start.

 - A&O&B Roadmap 2014

A Roadmap 2014 Sneak Preview

More than 9,000 country radio listeners from nearly 100 radio stations participated in A&O&B's Roadmap 2014.  This is nearly double the number of stations whose listeners completed the online survey and an increase of 43% in sample size from 2013.
75% reside the USA and 25% live in Canada  Demos were fairly well-balanced, with huge growth in the under-35 cells:

13%  18-24
21% 25-34
19% 35-44
25% 45-54
16% 55-64

90% called a country station "their first choice."

Just 13% agreed with the stations that country music is worse than it used to be.

58% said they spend more than two hours per day with their favorite country station and 33% listened 1-2 hours daily.

72% called themselves very satisfied with their favorite country station.  Fewer than 1% said that they are "very dissatisfied" with the country station they listen to the most.

In short:  these are passionate fans of country music who use radio heavily.

The national averages are certainly fascinating to ponder, but the real utility of these numbers for A&O&B clients is to compare every data point in the study with their local listener perceptions to spot both problems and opportunities by knowing more about their audience.

Milking That "Outdated Research" One More Time

Seldom do I post data that A&O&B clients saw a year ago and get as much response as I have to my previous article.

Folks have called, posted and emailed positing numerous theories as to why country radio's "satisfaction" scores have trended downward for the last two years and "willing to try a new radio station" has trended up (though both remain at levels many other formats would envy!):

• The music isn't as good as it was two years ago?
• Too many irritating commercials?
• Too much repetition?
• Over-reliance on voice-tracking and not enough 24/7 engagement?
• Weak digital outreach?
• Lack of marketing?

Here's my take, for what it's worth.

Of course, all of that are challenges we need to work harder on, but so do all other radio formats too and they are hardly unique to country radio.  I think a large factor is simply generational shift, aging out folks from our target who might have accepted a "we talk/you listen" broadcast approach.

It may be that we're not worse that we were one, two, three years ago.  It's just that today's listener simply demands more from us.

Going back to doing what we did in the past won't solve the problem.

It's Time For Your Annual Checkup

For the ninth year A&O&B client stations across the USA and Canada will be inviting their listeners to take a test.

When the results of "Roadmap 2014" are available in about a month, it will be the individual radio stations getting their grades by core listeners.

The study goes into the field this week in over 90 markets in the US and Canada and the national trends will be revealed at A&O&B's annual Pre-CRS 2014 client seminar.

Satisfaction levels last year were highest with 35-44's and lowest, though still very good, with 25-34.

Reliance drives behavior.  Measures of listening like loyalty, time spent listening, core vs fringe and tune in occasions are all driven by a feeling of regular daily reliance on a personality or radio station.

Importance, an internal realization a personality or radio station has become valuable to the listener drives perceptions which can drive that behavior. 

These "average" levels in Roadmap seem to have peaked three years ago and appeared to be trending downward for the last two years.  Each individual station performs uniquely of course and knowing if you're better or worse than average is a crucial success factor.

• How much do listeners rely on your radio station this year?  
• How important in their lives is it?

Switchability of the average country radio listener seems to have gotten easier and easier little by little over the last five years.

There's only one way to reverse those troublesome trends and that is to know what they are.   A&O&B is committed to measuring them again right now. 

Invite your listeners to be a part of this annual exam.  If you want to learn how, let's talk soon. 

Your 2014 ratings depend on it.

Heard In The Halls

One of the benefits of consulting is that you hear things from some very smart people.

• “Perceptual images are like icebergs and changing them is like trying to melt ‘em with a Bic lighter.”
• "Women 18-34 are the country format’s fastest-growing audience segment.  However, due to the many stations that also target this desirable group their conversion ratio is often weaker than older core demo cells.  Cultivating at work listening loyalty on a consistent basis can cure this problem."

Thanks to two very well-informed researchers who must remain anonymous for being so quotable (and correct!).

A&O Roadmap 2012: The Rolling Stones Were Wrong

AO client perceptual Roadmap 2012 (client only logins required) national averages, total sample satisfaction levels with country radio's product have been trending upward for the past four years in a row. Canada turns the tables and does better than the U.S. in yet another important stat, "switchability."

That additional little gem of positive info posts here tomorrow.

The "Other" Questions

This is the week A&O's 7th Annual "Roadmap 2012" perceptual study goes into the field. Client stations can track strategic and tactical questions to define clusters (in addition to music preference), understand how satisfied each individual audience is with their favorite station compared to national averages, tracked over the years, in addition to tech usage.

Each A&O client station will receive a customized local breakout. The first presentation of the national findings and recommendations will be at A&O Pre-CRS Seminar '12 next month.

It's never possible to have an unlimited number of questions. That's why as Mike, Becky and I finalize the study, we ask ourselves "are these the most pressing success factors affecting clients right now?," which means that there are many other "interesting" things everyone who creates content for listeners also need to know about today's listener which we decided not to ask, since any smart programmer or personality is going to hang out with real people in their audience and tailor what they talk about to as many tribes within their cume as possible.

Do you know how long your cume and core listeners have been listening to country music? Less than a year, 1 to 3 years, 3 to 6 years, more than 6? The exact percentages matter less to your success than the fact that a bit of your content must be engaging to each of those groups as consistently as possible.

How many folks under 30 live in their residence? Is it close to the national census average of two and a half? More/fewer? Why would that be? Is it unique to your station or the local community for some reason?

Besides country music, what other types of music do they enjoy listening to? What type of program do they like to watch on TV?

In the past year, how many times have they left your home state on vacation? Did they drive or fly?

If they could choose one place to go on a dream vacation, where would it be? Would they take the whole family or go alone for an escape?

When they have spare time, what type of activity do they like to do most often?

How many vehicles do they and the other members of the household own?

Is their personal vehicle domestic or foreign? Why?

How would they identify their political views?
Republican/conservative
Democrat/liberal
Independent
Other

Social networks are one great place to start to think about these "lifestyle" questions in terms of the kind of people you want to like and listen regularly to you, and I don't just mean Facebook, Twitter and the online resources where you can interact with the lives of real people.

You don't need a perceptual study to do that.

You need a "life."

PS: if you'd like to make sure your audience is part of "A&O Country Roadmap 2012," reach out now to Mike, Becky or me.