Country's TSL: Still Strong Compared To Other Formats, BUT...

As markets become more fragmented and listeners have more diverse choices, loyalty is at a premium. The 2010 edition of Arbitron's Radio Today spotlights the country format's daily TSL as averaging an hour a day, 12+, less with younger listeners.

On a national basis, country remains a bastion of contented listeners with the country format national average daily time spent listening ranking #2, tied with Urban AC, and just 15 minutes per day behind #1 TSL format News/Talk among the 16 formats whose daily TSL was tracked this year. The format with the lowest TSL in 2010 (3:15 per day) is Alternative.

To put those stats in context, I went back to some old volumes of Duncan's American Radio, which tracked format trends from 1974 to 2004.

Country format TSL averages for a few random years two decades ago:

1989 - 96 minutes per day
1988 - 94 minutes per day
1987 - 94 minutes per day
1986 - 95 minutes per day
1985 - 93 minutes per day

These statistics, both old and new, are both comforting and frightening, since the country format's growth is clearly dependent on retaining long listening spans from a small base of very loyal listeners.

Research is important to stay abreast of changes in attitudes that might affect your audience share. Loyalty marketing (social, data base, telemarketing and target campaigns) should also be a cornerstone of any country broadcaster's long-term plan, but as TSL slips growing cume audience becomes more and more necessary too.

Are You Better Than Safeway?

If you look at the TOP of the price tags of all Safeway deli bakery items in plastic packaging (i.e. muffins), you will see a statement that reads

"French Bread Hot at 5 p.m. or FREE".

Sounds great, yes?

I live on an island where some six thousand tired and hungry folks get off ferries from downtown Seattle between 4:30 and 6:30 pm. Obviously this offer is a great way to get lots of people to come into the store every single evening, right?

Well, that would be true, until you do it once or twice and find out that most Safeway bakery departments have chosen not to have staff on hand at 5:00 p.m. to ensure that the French bread is hot.

Result: free (cold) french bread for ALL at many Safeway stores!

Which, of course, doesn't actually make folks go to Safeway for hot bread, but instead has made them the subject of ridicule in the coupon blogosphere.

Moral of this story: when you come up with a listener-lifestyle driven "hot French bread" magnet of daily usage to your show/radio station at a specific time, that's an exciting thing.

Unless you stand up your fans one time when they show up for your "date."

Getting Listsners To Remember (And Write Down) How Long They Listen

KUSS, San Diego's Tony & Kris call their insider's loyalty club "TK+1" and invite members to say on the air "I listen to Tony & Kris 35 hours a week."

WPOC, Baltimore, can top that... with their "full time listener rewards," for listeners to say they listen for 40 hours a week. (note also what they have branded their HD side channel as a defensive tactic, to prevent anyone else in town to launch a "Wolf!")

What are YOU doing that seems to be working for you?