(More) Ingredients Of A Great Country Radio Station (II)

Now that you have my first recipe items in your mixing bowl and have stirred well, add some others you'll hear on country's perennial award-winners:

* They use several funny, informative, entertaining prep services, but LOCALIZE everything. The very best stations, out-of-towners don't immediately 'get' everything, but local people do, immediately.

* Name the morning show something out of the ordinary, reflecting its character. Benchmark all service elements too: Timesaver, Highway Patrol Traffic, Doppler Radar weather, etc, etc, etc.

* Production. Morning show jingles in addition to 24/7 cinematic/brief stationality positioners. Lots of music hooks, listener voices, artists, jingle elements and sound effects, to keep momentum moving. They don't artificially limit length of anything, but keep it high energy and self-edit to one fully developed punch line per set/element. Produced intros (short and a BIG variety of them) on everything. Production inside news: intro, punctuators before spot, weather and traffic sounders.

* Involvement. Many listeners on the phone. At least one such phone bit per quarter hour, tightly edited to conveying a feeling about an artist, a song, using the station.

What's in your programming wallet? What else needs to be in the formula?

Sloganeering Or Branding?

If a new country station came on FM who would be sufficiently intrigued by the name or position statement to TRY such a new radio station?

To find out, we questioned 250 randomly-selected country radio listeners of several geographically-diverse mainstream heritage country leaders.

We asked:

"What if a new country format came on an FM station locally? How likely would you be to listen? One means that you would never listen to that station and five means you would listen all the time. What number would you choose?"

Almost half of the country fans (43%) in these widely separate communities are quite interested in trying such a station. The interest is equal in all age groups, and is slightly stronger among females.

BUT, should it use the slogan...
"Young Country?"
“New Country?”
“Today’s Country?”
“Continuous Country?”
“Country Favorites?”
“The Best Country?”

We asked:

"I am going to read a list of slogans. Please tell me how likely you would be to listen to a station that uses each slogan. Rate each on that same one to five scale."

The words "Young Country" scored at the very BOTTOM of all slogans we tested when their total persons average scores were ranked in order!

The winner was what some might call the weakest ‘slogan’ of them all, the clear, simple: “Today’s Country.”

WHY?

Perhaps the traditional things we have used for two decades to position ourselves as unique are no longer effective.

Grab a great brand, load it with plenty of real product superiority you don’t need to listen very long to hear and stop trying to advertise your aspirations in hackneyed position statements and slogans.

More than four of ten of very successful country leaders' listeners would switch for something fresh and new, they say, but not for just any old over-used position statement.

Get Ready To Play Musical Chairs

Citadel isn't keeping a secret of the fact that it's going to flip formats at Dallas' Twister very soon. Meanwhile, Tom Taylor writes a reminder in Radio-Info.com that Clear Channel still needs to find ways to unload stations in San Francisco, Houston and Cincinnati (and fast) to satisfy the Department of Justice, following the news of last night's deals (swaps) in Las Vegas - Spanish adult hits "La Preciosa" KWID (101.9) - and an FM in Bakersfield, in order to obtain classic rock KZEP (104.5) in San Antonio from Lotus.

Radio rule: when anyone in the market changes chairs, that opens opportunity for others to change seats too immediately when the music stops.

Tip: always have your alternate plans in your top desk drawer, ready for action. Opportunity doesn't knock just once of course, but it's always smart to be near the door when it does.

Sophie's "Choice" Launch Marketing Tactics

I assume you saw:

"Within the space of 24 hours, CBS Radio detonated two of its Free FM outlets: After stunting for two hours as oldies "K-Surf," KSCF/San Diego is now what looks like a hot AC/Triple A mix as "Sophie @ 103.7." And, as Street Talk Daily rumored, KZON/Phoenix ended 24 hours of stunting at 5 p.m. Friday to go rhythmic as "101.5 JamZ, Blazin' The Valley's Hitz & Hip Hop."" - R&R

Be sure to check out their new website, which has some very cool interactive ideas to borrow/steal, like this one:

"Sophie Everyday Rewards: Sophie rewards listeners with concert tickets every week for displaying our logo and link on your Facebook or MySpace page."

(Please note that I just did both a cool blog entry .. while also entering their contest too..)