June Talking Points

• Good luck, Class of 2012: Employment Outlook dims
• May’s dip in practicality appears to have been just a “blip” on consumers’ spending radar
• Pain at the Pump: No gas price “fireworks” expected to set off for the holiday
• 90 Day Outlook is looking UPward
• What’s Hot? Saving is in style in June (coupons lead the way)…

Click to read the entire June Big Research executive briefing (if you have read this blog very long you know I am addicted to this monthly trend update).

Boiling It Down To Three Charts

As part of its ongoing research and membership services initiatives, the Country Music Association just announced results from its recent Music Listening Study (click to read the complete press release).

Country Music fans are avid radio listeners and doing as much radio listening as ever.  Compared to a year ago, 87 percent of respondents are listening to local Country Radio stations as much or more, with 18-24 year olds being twice as likely to listen to more Country Music than the prior year, driven largely by the appeal of new music genres.

Loyalty is a top influencer for choosing Country Radio as evidenced by 75 percent of listeners reporting they have been listening to the same station for years. 

While AM/FM car radio is the top source Country Music fans tap for music listening, fans are also fueling their passion for music online as well.

Every country radio station has a complimentary membership for 2012, thanks to CMA, so be sure to go online and grab this free information and if it raises any questions, any of the A&O team would love to talk with you about it.

Rotations: What I Think They Mean

I hope you have been as interested as I have been in Country Aircheck's series on what PPM is teaching country programmers about rotations.  Now that they used a quote from what I told R. J. Curtis in this week's edition when he requested that I spill my guts on the topic, I hope you'll be interested in everything I said to him about it:

PPM shows us that almost universally the average time spent exposed per listening occasion is very close to 10-11 minutes.  Heavy users give their favorite stations maybe three or four times that much.  And, that that we've seen those realities, there are some folks, like Cox's K92/Orlando, who have upped their spins on a very small number of extremely popular songs to levels previously unheard of and - guess what? - those songs do not "burn" and in fact often test better faster.  Is 50 spins?  70 spins?  100 spins? right for you?  I'd say to try it only if you have extremely reliable weekly music testing to precisely monitor reaction on a consistent basis.  It's even better if you also have MScore data as well, so that you can pull anything that could be hurting you very quickly.  Since A&O is proud to works with OM and PM Len Shackelford, I can testify that it is working.

Stations which do that appear to be finding that cume can go up more than we might have previously thought possible without hurting "time spent listening" as calculated by old diary metrics.  This is because only a very small number of country panelists are ultra-core.  In a top ten market I looked at recently there were four panelists who were listening to radio nine hours per day or more.  Obviously, if one of these people is in your panel sample, you need to be extremely cautious about spinning anything they don't love regardless of how much.  Another 75 panelists used radio between 100 and 200 quarter hours a week.  Again, if you have several of those panelists, you'll want to be cautious about hyper-spinning anything that would lose them.

However, after those folks, the vast majority of radio users spend time in fairly fixed amounts of time and instead give their daily cume and daily occasions to stations with exceed their expectations musically and that's not normally unfamiliar new music.

The more stations sharing very similar playlists the more crucial song quality becomes.  If you're the only station playing your type of music, you of course have more leeway as long as you don't have any interest in stealing listeners from your shared-cume competition.

To me, this means "tight" is "right."

I know that there are some very successful country stations in non-competitive situations who seem to get away with playing everything being promoted to radio, but I strongly believe that if you're dropping more than one or two songs a month because either they never got enough airplay for your listeners to become familiar with them or because they never tested or charted very well you're not using radio correctly.  That's like an advertiser buying 10-15 spots a week and expecting good results.  We'd never allow sales to take that person's money, but for some reason no one questions the music director on a 10-15 spin a week category that's never going to see the light of day.

My advice is to play songs you feel have a good shot of going top ten as soon as you feel that way and keep playing them heavily as long as you retain that confidence in them.  Use local music testing to validate your instincts and then learn from it and make fewer and fewer wrong judgements.

Any station that's exposing very many songs that fail that test had better hope they're in a situation where no one else can possibly go country against them, because they are extremely vulnerable!

Thank You, Carrie

The wonderful people of country music and radio businesses have, in general, been far more supportive of me than I expected in the 19 years since I started a personal gender transition which culminated in a 1995 transsexual surgery that had no negative impact on what has been a great career in a very satisfying job.

Garth Brooks released "We Shall Be Free" and performed at an AIDS benefit at about the same time and I drew tremendous support from that act from a courageous star.

Chely Wright, I hear, feels that the business could have been more supportive of her decision to come out in a public way as Lesbian.  That's sad to hear, given her fabulous radio track record that 99 out of 100 hopefuls who come to Nashville have to be quite envious about, in spite of some ups and downs along the way.  It exciting to see her finally coming to grips with it all creatively in a new film, out this month.

I've learned that we have to take our sustenance from where it comes and be grateful for the good things along the way, and I'll bet they have as well.

That's why, Country Radio and Nashville Music Business, I want you to be extra nice to Carrie Underwood right now.

I don't mean that you need to say a word about her pro/con on the air.

Part of making a self-affirming decision such as I made is understanding that as I resolved my own personal confusion it no doubt created confusion for others who were unprepared to deal with or accept it.  Those folks have every right to their feelings too, of course, and country music radio is about reflecting real life and making people feel better.

All I ask is this.  Play a little extra Carrie this week.

No one else will notice, perhaps, but I am betting she will know and get the message of support the same way I have over the years from Garth, Chely and now her.

That's what friends are for.

A Face For Radio

Not surprisingly nearly every morning show I run into has a strong belief that their numbers would be even better if only the radio station put them in TV commercials.

Not necessarily so.

I know of one major market country morning show whose very successful ratings uptrend was reversed when perceptual research seemed indicate that the only thing holding them back was cume and endorsed TV advertising as a means to solve the problem.

The folks who listened to them loved them when given their names, but the majority of local radio users had no idea who they were.

In a few weeks, we were all at Filmhouse in Nashville where they produced some very funny TV spots. 

Not long after, local television was saturated during the next survey period with these excellent, professionally-produced spots.

The survey comes out.  Ratings are down.

A year later and another perceptual study indicates that once folks as seen them, even the ones who had liked them before didn't anymore.  Now, everyone knows their names, but based on their looks folks don't like them!

Some folks are simply more successful when heard or met in person.

Video is an art onto itself.  If you can do it well, of course do it.

But, if you have any doubts about your appearance on camera under lights, get savvy help, great maakeup and objective direction. 

Video, indeed, is capable of killing the radio star ... unless it's used very effectively.

CMT Teaches Us How

Compared to the resources CMA and ACM have CMT does their awards show right, and probably for a lot lower budget than the association ones.  It was the third most-watched awards show in CMT history, with the initial telecast amassing three million viewers, according to the network.

"It was a charmed night for CMT," President Brian Philips told Country Aircheck. "Our superstar-heavy show drove huge wins for the network across the board, and entertained both millions of viewers at home and tens of thousands of fans on the streets of Nashville."

CA reports the awards grew every half-hour and among key demos that included women 18-49, which saw a 6% increase.

Additionally, #CMTawards claimed the No. 1 trending position on Twitter soon after the show began. The show peaked with 5,140 Tweets per minute and more than 500,000 total Twitter mentions.

Phillips says he poured most of his marketing money into the show's product.

Take a quick look at HIS website and compare it to yours the week after you do something amazing and special and learn a few things.

And, of course, as if that's not enough:  there are those rumored Mitt Romney and President Barack Obama out-takes from their show-opener which rumors say are very funny and will probably show up online once the buzz quiets a bit to keep the multiple compelling narratives spreading.

What are you planning this week to make your audience say "WOW?"  Next week?  The week after that?

A Clever Trick

Good catch by Inside Radio last week:  Not streaming on iHeartRadio?  Search engine finds a suitable Clear Channel alternative. As Clear Channel builds what Cumulus CEO Lew Dickey calls “a giant cable system,” a destination where consumers go to find radio stations, it’s using a new search engine to direct iHeartRadio users to its own stations.

Search for a mainstream or rhythmic CHR that Clear Chanel doesn’t own or stream — Emmis Communications “Power 106” KPWR in Los Angeles, for example — and the search engine returns powerhouse Clear Channel CHRs “Z100” WHTZ, New York; KIIS-FM, L.A.;  and WKSC, Chicago.

Type in a non-participating urban station’s call letters and you’ll get CC’s “Power 105.1” WWPR, New York and its urban stations in Chicago: WGCI and “V103” WVAZ.   Looking for Entercom’s KOIT, San Francisco? How about  New York’s WLTW, L.A.’s KOST or Houston’s “Sunny 99.1” KODA instead?

If Clear Channel can’t stream every radio station in the nation, it hopes to fulfill user requests with a suitable alternative and keep them from straying elsewhere.  And it’s made possible by a new unified search engine that makes finding stations, artists and songs simple and speedy.  It even works for stations in markets as small as Albany, GA and Lafayette, LA.

Before you say "I am shocked, shocked" that they're doing this, you might want to go to a few of the most popular car washes in your town and see what radio station pre-set they put on car radios.

One of the oldest tricks in the book, bought with concert tickets and CD's.

That was the original "search engine optimization."

Very Aggressive!

Anyone who has seen a popular game in PPM ratings understands that usage is sky-high and the majority of us, if we could run a playoff game on air would be out trying to get Super Bowl size rates for the inventory.

Clear Channel research reports that Arbitron/Tapscan data shows 63% of modern rock listeners are men, so to keep the guys listening during the Stanley Cup finals Clear Channel alt-rocker “98.7 FM” KYSR, Los Angeles is dumping commercials during the NHL finals and picking up the play-by-play from sister station KTLK (1150) during spotbreaks. 

The station will also update listeners about changes on the scoreboard between songs.  Program director Julie Pilat says “music is king” at the station, but adds, “Our listeners are so excited about the LA Kings’ success so far, and we are in the business of giving our listeners what they want.”

Can Julie and station management be thinking that they can grab double the reveue during games and improve cume duplication between the stations at the same time.

Ya think?  VERY savvy move.

Canada Radio Revenues Up 4%; Jobs Up 4.7%

Yesterday, the Canadian Radio-television and Telecommunications Commission (CRTC) released statistical and financial information on the 669 commercial radio stations operating in Canada.  

Revenues, according for the report from Ottawa, for the broadcast year ended August 31, 2011, increased by approximately 4% over the previous year, demonstrating steady growth and continued confidence in an industry whose revenues are now back to pre-recession levels.

While total revenues for AM and FM stations increased from $1.55 billion in 2010 to $1.6 billion in 2011, expenses also rose from $1.21 billion to $1.26 billion during the same period. As a result, profits before interest and taxes (PBIT) climbed from $298.3 million to $311 million, and the PBIT margin went from 19.2% to 19.3%. 

In 2011, commercial radio stations employed 10,576 people and paid a total of $676.3 million in salaries, an increase of 4.7% from last year when they employed 10,104 people and paid $640.7 million in salaries.

I have worked both sides of the 49th parallel for the better part of three decades and can report to A&O's American clients that no one studies what happens in the USA more carefully than Canadians do, whole most of us are oblivious to Canadian economy and politics.

There are few decisions in A&O's business history as good as having decided to work in Canada.

Like Earl Pitts has always said:  "Wake Up America." 

It's time for U.S. radio companies to look carefully at what Canadian radio has been doing.

Can We Save "The News"?

I have been a huge fan of David Horsey for many years.  Normally, he's a man of potent cartoons and very few words.  

After the Seattle newspaper which employed him ceased publication he moved to The Los Angeles Times and this week the man of pictures not words penned a column for his new employer that isn't about radio, but resonates for all media, "Newspapers have a future, if they can avoid being 'click whores'" (click to read it!)

When Horsey decides he has something to say that takes more than just a cartoon, he has my support and attention.

Media has great responsibility to the people who read, watch and listen to us, far more important to our society than merely making money.

And, as the history and economics of newspapers has proven, when we do it responsibly big money comes too.

Who's going to fill their shoes?

Negative Advertising

If you haven't checked out the Houston country battle lately, it's time to do some listening and thinking about what you'll hear.

For several years on KKBQ/Cox PD Johnny Chiang has been saying things like:  “We play the most music guaranteed in Houston, KILT plays the most commercials, up to 15 just last hour! We are the new 93Q.”

Now, something new on KILT/CBS PD Mark Adams' imaging:  “Did you know the other station talked about KILT 28 times yesterday? [Various mock announcer voices] Yesterday, in the 12 noon hour, Kilt played… In the 4 o’clock hour, Kilt played… Friday morning, Kilt played… Kilt played… Kilt played… [V/o] Wow. WE don’t even talk about us that much!

It's a political year.  Barack is already talking about Mitt and Romney is responding in kind about Obama nearly every day.

We all say we hate negative ads and yet, admit it, just as I do, you love watching Frank Luntz conduct focus groups for Fox News which will take what real people say, whether factual or not, and turn them into effective messages which get votes.

The difference, of course, is that an election is one day when a candidate needs specific people to be passionate enough about an issue to take a specific action.

Let's watch the Houston numbers in the coming months and see what these new tactics do to real listening, in addition to perceptions, which drive elections and diary ratings but do they impact actual usage, 24/7 too?

Obviously, Johnny and Mark appear to think they do!

Asking Listeners The Ultimate Question

A&O's annual "Roadmap" online perceptual has tracked the key question brands have been asking their users for many years - how satisfied are you? - for years and country fans normally rate their favorite station extremely high in "very" satisfied. 

Now, perhaps there's an even more relevant benchmark to track in this social media age.

This year, Jacobs Media in their annual Tech Survey took a chapter from Owen and Brooks' book, "how likely are you to recommend the station to a colleague or a friend?"

Fortunately, the news is quite good.  Country format listeners rank #2 (55% said yes) behind contemporary Christian (71%!) to do so nationally.

Now the question remains - will your audience recommend you to their friends?

Will you be above or below average?

1 + 1 = 2

1.  For the last two summers, Alan Burns shared topline results of his detailed study of CHR and AC female listeners.  There's a TON of actionable info in the studies (click on Alan's name to download them), but one factoid screamed at me from his results on morning usage and priorities.

There's a direct co-relation between folks to start their day very early in the morning with radio and heavy usage of radio throughout the day.

2.  Now, Fred Jacobs and his team are sharing data from their 8th Annual "Tech Survey," (click to read MediaPost's recap of some highlights) and 57% of core radio listeners start their day with another medium or gadget rather than turn on a radio at home or in the car!

Television is a close second to turning on a radio at home. The 18-34s are more likely to engage with email or Facebook for this “First Occasion” of the day and country radio's core is actually more likely to start their media day with television than with their favorite radio station.

Fred says, in the MediaPost article “... the data from the study suggest that focusing on connecting emotionally and meaningfully with listeners is radio’s best avenue toward remaining relevant and vibrant in the face of new digital competition...”

The emotion I am feeling as I add those two reports together in the Spring 0f 2012:  fear.  I hope you are too!

Your morning team spends their morning talking on the radio so most likely they will be the last to notice this trend.

Managers and programmers:  watch your own family and friends as they start their day.  Add 1 + 1 for your morning show before it's too late.

EARLY morning radio isn't being interactive, topical, informative or social as other media options are for our heaviest-users.

Local TV stations showcase their morning shows in their marketing, looking a lot like the marketing for radio "used" to be.  When have you marketed the benefits of your morning package as the best way to start early morning?  I'm betting that it has been a long while.

Albright's axiom:  "We used to do that" is the epitaph on the tombstone of dead radio stations.

A big thank you to Jacobs and Burns for pointing to the handwriting on our wall.

Creativity

Doing things no one has ever done before increases impact.  But, of course, it can also be a little scary when you go into the GM's office and get asked "where has this worked before?", so kudos to...

• CHAT 94-5 Medicine Hat for not doing the traditional "what would you do for Garth" or "be the 9th caller" or "win when you hear Garth" contest and instead crowd-sourcing the contest and letting listeners decide how to give the prizes away.
• Froggy 92.9 Santa Rosa emailed today with a subject line which got my attention right away.

And, then when I opened it based on that atypical subject line, I was not disappointed.

I will be listening at 7 am, I promise you.

Oh, and about that crowd-sourced contest:  Mike Doll, APD/MD says that since Big & Rich, Dierks Bentley and Craig Morgan will be playing the Medicine Hat stampede this summer and the station will be overwhelmed with concert ticket giveaways (lucky listeners!) they wanted to do something totally creative with already-completely-sold-out Garth in Calgary which is why they got listeners involved. 

"Response has been huge and it's only day 1.."

Ask if I am surprised.

Radio's Role In The Push Up The Chart

Q:  I was just reading your blog about charting in the 30's and I'm a little confused as to if you're for or against it?  Do we stick with a song in hopes it picks up?  I feel like I end up hanging onto a song too long just because it's floating in 30's.  There are songs where I jumped on it early and waited and waited and it never took off.  Now, it's in the 20's but I'm not getting any requests or feedback that would suggest I put it back in.  What to do?

A:  I would be slow to add anything but things you until you absolutely believe will make it to the power rotation and then try to stay with them as long as you can - until the promotion team walks away from them OR your local research on them looks weak.  Drop them as soon as you see one of those indications.

It's a waste to add things and familiarize your audience with them only to drop them, so of course be as selective as possible.

Did you see M O'M's great blog on this yesterday (Country Artist Discovery Matrix: Who’s “New” Varies by Demo)?  The younger and more female your target, the faster and newer you can be.

If you want 40+ and especially men, then wasting time on tunes that you don't know if they will make it or not which stay stuck in the high 20s and 30s is going to hurt you. 

Missing the boat on one or two every great once in awhile means you're probably doing it exactly right, but if you find yourself dropping four or five songs every month and then adding more new ones that you also end up dropping in another month, you're probably moving too fast for the tastes of the majority of your audience, hurting both cume and TSL.

Rusty

As someone who had actually been consulting for at least a decade longer than Rusty, thanks to an opening at Drake-Chenault in Los Angeles where I learned what Bill Drake, Jim Kefford and Denny Atkins considered the right way to work with radio stations, I had a front row seat to Rusty's start, first as a winning and creative Program Director and then as a consultant.  He reinvented the business and took the art of working with country radio to a level no one had ever done before.  The proof is in the success and sound of his radio stations, of course, but it's also in the depth of the relationships he forged.  His knowledge and spirit were infused in everything he did.  I loved him and his family, respected his abilities and as someone who probably competed with him directly in more markets than anyone over a 25 year period, I have to say that there is a big hole in my heart today and in country music radio.  He lived his life in so many positive, caring ways that have made him a role model for hundreds and hundreds of people.

That legacy, of course, lives on in all of us.  He coped with the loss of two of his children in such a loving, courageous way.  He not only taught us how to program, to win in the ratings, to build what became the largest country consulting business in the history of our format, but in the end, he taught us all how to live.

In Heaven today, I am sure that Rusty Walker is regaling the Angels with his endless supply of wonderful tales of radio wars.

Rest in peace, old friend.

Charting In The 30s

They call radio's music decision-makers week after week, pushing the "projects" they are working like boulders up a steep incline.

This is the part of the chart where songs and artists get stuck and almost all of them ultimately run out of time and budgets for the promotion it takes to go much farther.

Why would anyone expend the money and energy on the extremely long shot these folks are taking?

Here's why:

15 months ago Kip Moore showcased for A&O clients at our annual pre-CRS seminar.  It's taken more than a year, but it looks like this could be the week he notches his first #1 single.

Congrats, Kip!  You give every aspiring future star hope.

It's been exciting to see so many newcomers topping the charts in the last year.

Indeed, there's "something about a #1," making the travails along the way, the long odds against you, worth it all.

Where You Can Shine

Another Jay Trachman treasure (click to learn why I occasionally reprint these wonderful articles which Jay wrote weekly for more than three decades):

I had a fascinating discussion with a person who works for one of the satellite programming companies. He suggested that well-done satellite syndication can "sound" as local as necessary, through the use of devices like pre-cut liners, and insertions of local information.

When I replied that "liners" don't make a station sound local, his response was, "Just how local do you want it to sound?" The weather is local, the PSA's are local, the news is local -- how much more do you need? He went on to point out how, if local-ness is any standard, they must be doing it adequately, because they're beating dozens of stations in market after market.

I can't argue the point. It appears that well-executed non-local radio will beat out poorly executed local radio almost every time. But I also believe, on a level playing field, comparing top-notch satellite radio with top-notch local radio, the local will win -- provided they sound local.

Local does not mean simply repeating, six times an hour, "Jayville's home-town radio!"

It does mean that most of what the jocks talk about should be derived from what's going on in their lives in the community today. It means that most personality raps should be written by the personality him/herself.

It means the personality should live in the community, should involve himself in local activities as much as he can, should read the local section of the paper every day, should participate in the life of the area.

It means the station should try to have air-staff show up at events (paying for their time when appropriate), and that the programming department must have a way of systematically informing the jocks of what events are coming up and what artists are performing locally.

One of the simplest things you can do is to stick your head out the window at least once an hour. Does it look like rain? Is it clearing up? Are there still a few leaves left on the trees? Californians: does it look like "earthquake weather?" Midwesterners: tornado weather? Does today remind you of some Christmas past? These go beyond the forecasts, and make you shine as a person involved in the town.

When reading the paper, don't just skim the front pages; read the births, marriage announcements, "community calendar" features and even the ads. Is someone holding an event, but didn't bother to inform your Public Service Department? Don't ignore them -- talk about it in an informal way. "I see the Rotary Club is getting ready to pick out next year's crop of exchange students... I have a friend whose daughter is in France this year, through the Airport Rotary Club, and from her letters, it's like she's been 'adopted' in a foreign country. I wish I'd gotten mine involved in something like that..."

Remember, the purpose of local content is not to "inform," but to Share. To get the listener to respond by saying, "Hey, me too." Your observations while driving, while shopping, while raising kids in the local schools -- these are all things nobody based outside the town can have. Share your responses, and over a period of time, you'll give your listener a sense that you're keyed in to what's going on in his or her life.

The station benefits when the entire staff is actively supporting this. I remember doing a very successful bit after a salesman came in during my show one morning and said, "You should see the jam-up on Shaw Avenue! They're re-painting the traffic lines in the street, and it's backed up all the way from Fashion Fair to the college..." That's not just a traffic report, that's a universal and a commentary on life in my town. "They always pick the worst possible times to re-paint the lines, right?" And with that, the phones began lighting up, with half a dozen calls from listeners with similar experiences, or suggestions.

No satellite could have done it.

What they can do is talk slickly and interestingly about the music, the artists, the season, their own lives and responses.

But the main area where they're unable to compete is "today, right here."

You can.

Props

San Diego's #1 radio station is also the market's only country station these days and it would be wrong to conclude that the only reason Lincoln Financial's San Diego team has had four straight up PPM monthly trends is because they're now the only country station in town after a protracted battle for country leadership.

Certainly, TSE for any station normally goes down when it has a direct format competitor and quickly goes UP when a passionate cume has only one choice for their favorite music and KSON has certainly benefited from that too.

However, a big chunk of the credit has to go to John & Tammy, who left Madison, WI, just eleven months ago after convincing KSON management that they knew what to do to win in this very clever video.

Take notes, aspiring personalities.  They promised they could do it and now, the proof is in and they did it.

Very impressive!

Do-It-Yourself

That's what leads Big Research's monthly "What's Hot/What's Not" data for May.

Why do I look forward to this monthly missive?  Not only is it great grist for talk-abouts, but they even write your lines for you:  "Move over, Iron Man…the team of heroes from Marvel’s The Avengers prove to be no match for “IT” nonagenarian [and one of my favorite Girls], Betty White. DIY projects also sit atop our list this month (and – interestingly – much hotter with women … #mustaddtomyhoneydolist). Avengers’ Scarlett Johansson is a hit with the younger crowd, while those 35+ pick the Kentucky Derby as their winner. What’s Not? While the popularity of the colorblocking trend has doubled from when we first asked about it one year ago, it appears that the latest floral prints or a jean jacket are more on-trend with consumers."

Sales Per Spin?

I give Atlantic/Warner Music Nashville credit for coming up with some new math to attempt to convince country radio to do more with teen talent Hunter Hayes.

You can't blame them, since the majority of local listener testing involves between 30 and 35 songs and Hunter ranks #31 or #32 on this week's major country radio spin charts, which means Hunter isn't even being tested at most stations.

Don't like the chart number for your artist?  Create a new chart.

But, here's the problem.  Raw sales numbers give no indication of which station's listeners are buying a song, and thus perhaps they may work for CHR to a degree as a format that's set up to play the most popular songs regardless of genre.

Country radio, on the other hand, is set up to attract and hold onto a specific set of listeners who agree on a unique set of musical and non-musical values.  If programmers get it "right," our carefully-targeted "tribe" will spend an above average amount of time, compared to other formats, with their favorite station, which best reflects their tastes and preferences.

Big props, WMN and Hunter, for the impressive sales.  Maybe they are even a good sign for future growth, but it also might be that the fact that some country radio stations spun his song last week and that it simultaneously sold fairly well is pure coincidence, having no relationship to one another.

Those sales could also be due to social network buzz and Hunter's youthful fans telling their friends, having nothing at all to do with country radio airplay.

On the other hand, WMN's custom chart correlating country radio spins in the last seven days and music sales got me to blog about it, adding to the buzz, which is never a bad thing.

Meanwhile, I'll continue to wait to see how folks who use my radio station rate a song before spinning it very much regardless of how well it sells.

My job is to get as many of them as possible to use my radio station as much as possible, not to sell records, in spite of the fact that it's very rewarding when both things happen at the same time.

The Lowest Week Of 2011 For Radio Usage

Every year BBM/Canada publishes a Radio Data Book which provides an overview of national, provincial and local radio tuning based on the latest fall radio survey and the previous four fall surveys.

This reference book provides a picture of radio tuning habits, both during the most recent calendar year and over the past five years.

The new one came out last week and "week 18" of 2011 was the lowest week of the year.

What happened during that week, which I originally thought was April 22-30?  Good Friday, followed by Easter Sunday and Easter Monday, but an anonymous commenter below (says) IS the Christmas and New Year's Holidays (see my reply, below too).

A great reminder about PPM ratings:  what THEY were doing trumps everything WE were doing.

How To Win

Create a powerful brand, imbedded with powerful benchmarks which drive regularity.

Build cume constantly.

Execute as cleanly as possible, maxing your usage.  You can't do it without powerful personalities who create great content which they leverage on multiple platforms, but do it in very entertaining and tightly-edited, yet original and "sticky" occasions.

Innovate.  Entertain.  Be bigger than life.

Turn usage into passion, by creating memorable listening experiences.

The hits are the hits.  Get the music right.

Find and support great talent who understands and reflects the values of the target using interaction and engagement tools that are available to everyone in fun, involving, unique and personal ways and then ask yourself every single day "what ELSE can we do" to drive loyalty, regularity and usage.

If I Could Change One Thing

The Country Radio Format would be even more successful if we responded to our own music research and listener tastes.

I wish our owners would budget realistically (5-10% of gross revenue goals) for marketing and rely less on promotional partnerships with music promoters to do station marketing.

The pressure for increasing margins makes this a pipe dream, however, except for a very few, extremely unique owners. 

Their success proves that this formula still works very well (especially so as most other stations don't do it).

Pros/Cons Of Flipping To Country

Is the current leading country station sounding a bit dated?

Are they sitting on their laurels and not in touch with today's listener tastes?

If so, go for it.

However, many markets outside the top 50 now have three or more country stations and in those places one more station is only going to fragment and decrease the available shares.

Competition is always good for the listeners, as the shares in Minneapolis demonstrate.

CBS' BUZN @102.9 (the former WLTE) launched right after Christmas and debuted with a five share 6+, while incumbent Clear Channel's K102 has been defending aggressively and in that first month increased from a six to a 6.7, repeated that in it's second month and has further increased to a 7.2 during March, while "KMNB" settled 5.3-5.0-4.9 6+ in the wake of the battle thus far.

Unseating an incumbent is seldom cheap or easy to do.

No Matter What Metric You Choose, Country Radio Is BIG And HOT

Radio Ink's Ed Ryan asks:   Over the past year has Country music improved, declined or stayed the same and why?

The image of country's music and artists is better than ever.  We now have an entirely new generation of superstars compared to just three or four years ago, which is very exciting.

However, as always happens when the door opens for new music, clones and soundalikes are also proliferating so right now there are another 15-20 artists whose songs seem to be stuck on spin charts in the high 20s and 30s, as radio as usual can only make room for so many at a time.

As a result, the difference in listener research on the best of the best compared to the "average" is greater than ever right now.

Probing The Presidents

This Friday in Vancouver, I am moderating "The President's Panel" at the 65th meeting of the British Columbia Association Of Broadcasters.  Again this year, they have an amazing slate of impressive speakers and presentations.

Further proof of the pace of change affecting the media business:

A month ago I figured that most of our discussions would center around Bell Media's multi-billion dollar (just the RADIO assets are valued at more than a billion dollars) acquisition of Astral Communications which was announced as a continuation of the company's "four screen strategy."

I had been planning to talk to the executives about what their companies plan to do in the wake of that.

Then came the even more recent news that Vista Radio, with new backing from Westerkirk, is buying the Haliburton group, adding Haliburton’s 24 Ontario stations to fill in a geographic hole for Vista, which owns 38 stations in British Columbia, Alberta and the Northwest Territories.

Just last week,  Rogers Broadcasting announced its intent to acquire Métro14 Montréal (CJNT), enabling Citytv to expand its footprint in Quebec.

Almost immediately Citytv announced an affiliate agreement with the Jim Pattison Broadcast Group that will deliver Citytv programming to new audiences on a long-term basis on all three of Pattison’s television stations in Western Canada.

Is everyone else going to have to get bigger or go home?

I'll try to get your answer to that on Friday.

Finally, Something GREAT On "TV"

Up to now, Arbitron's YouTube video page has had such riveting topics as: 

• PPM Analysis Tool Shortcuts
• How to pull Scarborough for Programmers

 .. and any video which starts with a full-screen shot of 44-year radio vet Miami-based Bob McKay, you know, is not going to be the next Pixar blockbuster.

Finally, there's something there really worth watching and sharing with your sellers and clients, Country Radio Today (click to see the video highlights from the 2011 edition of Arbitron's Radio Today - view the entire Radio Today report (pdf) here.

Why Breakfast? Why AOPrep?

Have you wondered why this is called "The Breakfast Blog" and why the domain name is "aoprep"?

Custom Channels' John Bradley asked that question yesterday and when I told him, he recommended I blog the answer I gave him.

Many years ago, now Cox/San Antonio Y-100 morning guy Jeff Roper when he was PD/morning host at CBS' WSOC/Charlotte suggested that if I set up a blog for morning show sharing, he'd moderate it.  Of course, we had no aspirations of competing with the venerable big dogs of morning show sharing sites, Bitboard, Radio-Online and RadioStar.  This was before Don Anthony took Morning Mouth from paper to online resource.

Sadly, at the start, Jeff and I were very active (as you can read if you go back into the archives to the very beginning) but we ultimately found that morning people were delighted to read and use the things WE posted, but seldom contributed very much.

So, I started making use of this space as a place to write things that fit that original purpose but as people commented and I watched the web metrics, I noticed that the most popular posts were opinion pieces about ratings, research, tactics, strategy and country music.

I just happened to love thinking aloud about those things, so that's what I started to do.  That was eight years ago.

The moral of this tale:  you often start in life in one direction and then things change on you and slowly you find yourself going in a completely different one.

As long as your passion and honest perspective shine through as you react to real life, success will follow you as you go.

At least, that's my story. 

What's yours?

Requests?

I am not a fan of playing requests.

Sure, today's listener expects control over all of their media, but radio is not a jukebox and it seems to me that training the small number of listeners who will endure the difficulty of calling a radio station request line when it's so easy and convenient to txt, connect via multiple social media or email is destined to hurt both your cume and TSL.

Curate everything, and think of every song as well as every item that goes between the tunes as CONTENT.

If someone asks for a request, challenge them to give you a great story about why that song or artist means so much to them right now, what will happen if you do play it and air that without the boring "can you play a song for me, sure, what would you like to hear, where are you calling from, who is this, I'll try to get that one on for you, thanks for calling, what's your favorite radio station" crutches.

Now, having said that, I am going to "play a request."

When Steve Holstein asks for something, he gets my attention.  He does mornings for Saga in Champaign, he produces one of the best prep services money can buy. 

From: Steve Holstein
To: Jaye Albright
Subject: Do you recycle your blog posts?

I just found a link to this old blog post of yours and wondered if you recycle. Some, like this one, are good enough to repost every so often, in my opinion.

Yeah, I know.  I should have demanded to hear "the story" behind his request, because you know it has to be verrrrrry interesting, but something tells me that when you re-read the post he's asking me to recycle, you'll probably have your own stories about why it's important to bring back every once in awhile.

So, here it is (click to read it again and again): 

Your Station's Promo Inventory Is Finite

A Pile Of "Change" On This PD's Desk

Last week, I was in Townsquare Media Albany's Cluster OM and WGNA-FM PD/MD Tom "Jake" Jacobsen's office and saw this pile of three year old "album download cards." 

Knowing that Blake's new LP is just a few months away and that there have been three albums out since that one, I had to ask what was up.

Jake says that he keeps that pile of unclaimed prizes from three years ago to remind himself every day of the pace of change.

He says that only about half of the folks who won those digital album downloads knew what they were, let alone how valuable they were at the time.  

The rest are still there waiting for the winners to realize what a cool prize they failed to pick up. When called by the station at the time, the winners said that if they couldn't have a CD, they didn't want them.

Today, he says, digital album downloads fly out the door and the idea of giving away a CD seems so "yesterday."

The pile sits on his desk to remind everyone at the station (and now YOU too!) of how quickly that evolution has occurred.

Fire The Promotion Staff; That'll Fix It

The machinations of the music business have always been a mystery to me.

The business model appears so simple.  Find and record an amazing song.  Give it to a unique and talented artist.  Send it to radio and expose it in every other platform possible.  If listeners of the format you want to succeed in love it, you'll see immediate positive response.  It will sell.  You make money.

The radio stations playing it get great ratings.  We make money too.

Happy listeners, who can't wait to see the artist live and in person.

Win/win.

Then, there are situations like Andy Gibson's last week.  Label restructures and disappears, seemingly as promotion people are fired.  This is the second time in the last year the same thing has happened with James Stroud's labels.

I don't mean to single out Stroud.  He knows a lot more about music than I ever will.

This kind of thing happens all the time in the "record" business, so I suppose it's not really even anything new.

However from my perch in radio, it always looks like the morning show's ratings are bad, so we solve the problem by firing the sales department?

Less Than A One Percent Chance

It's been exactly a week since I ran an AllAccess "help wanted" ad and the applications are still coming in.

The first morning after I placed it, I checked my email and discovered 23 very good packages.
That evening, it was up to 47.
Next day, I had 71!

By that time, I started to realize what an uphill battle for this one job these folks were facing.

To begin with, I sent along a quick acknowledgement stating that I got their submission, would send it to the client PD who had the opening and promised to keep it in A&O's file for future possibilities. But, by the time I had forwarded 90 pretty good resumes and air checks to my client, it was hitting me that just one person was going to get this gig, assuming someone fit with the needs I tried to outline in my ad.

So, now that we're up to 114 responses to one ad, I have taken to letting folks who are now sending materials that the PD originally intended to go through the more than 100 he had received by that first weekend, so it's possible that he already has a short list from those and may be contacting potential hires, so their odds are long at this point.

In reply to that email, I got this one:

"It still amazes me how much you can be driven to a career that can break your heart so much. I think its similar to a drug honestly. You get so much of the rush, the perks, the highs, and when the lows of the business creep in, you forget them as soon as you get another chance at the action."

Talk to any actor or comedian. It's the same for them. And, at the end of the day, the joys when you're on mic outweigh all the difficulties and disappointments. Anything worth doing is worth competing as hard as you can to be able to do it.

Nobody ever said this job would be easy, easy to get or easy on the ego, but it's especially difficult right now.

Just don't tell me that it's hard to find good people.

They are out there, trying to stand out and not lose hope as they attempt to figure out how to make the most of their one in a hundred odds.

An Unconventional Method Of Letting Everyone Know You're #1

Lots of radio stations call themselves #1.

It used to be that young programmers were advised by the savvy old pros "the more you say you're #1, the faster you'll be #1.

Now, to be believed, your claim must resonate as truth with listeners. Otherwise, their BS detector blows louder than your claim.

Getting sued by Arbitron is one way to make sure everyone in your town knows that it's true, it seems, since ARB says that it wasn't the fact that KMX 106.7 said on their air "Thanks for making us the most-listened to radio station in the Wiregrass...” why they hit the station's owner with a $350,000 copyright infringement lawsuit. It was because the claim was true in the latest Arbitron survey.

KMX is a very unconventional radio station as their latest TV spot on You Tube shows.



A&O was the very first in our business to call our annual perceptual reports for clients, "Roadmaps" more than eight years ago.

However, if we ever hear from an attorney for Rand McNally, they'd have our full attention.

Something tells me that WKMX feels the same way right now.

I guess it's OK to say you're #1. Just don't BE #1 at the same time?

Going Out On A Very High Note

29 years at one radio station is a lot to be proud of and perhaps when you saw the amazing ratings in the last two months for Milwaukee's #1 radio station, WMIL, you were unaware of the fact that last month was the final one on the station for the venerable Mitch Morgan.

As Clear Channel implements its cost-efficient WAN-based Premium Choice national programming in more and more places, the axe finally fell on Mitch in Milwaukee.

They call it "retirement," and being the class act he has always been, that is precisely how he took it.

Do an internet search for his name and you'll not find a disparaging word either from or about this yoeman personality.

Whatever comes next for WMIL in midday, it has a very high ratings number to match in Mitch's final two months and the entire radio station performed very well. Clear Channel has a wonderful team in their Howard Avenue studios in Greenfield, WI. I hope the company appreciates that.

Mitch, you know you have many wonderful, devoted friends and loyal fans which have been built thanks to your great work on air, refined Music Director "ears," deep involvement in the Wisconsin community on the streets, constant support for thousands of artists and mentoring of other radio people who look up to you as a role model.

Count me among them.

Rock 101 And Corus Are Right, But I Still Don't Think I Am Wrong

Three cheers to Corus Entertainment's Classic Rock 101/Vancouver for banning the prize pig who was found selling his winnings on Craigslist.

I agree: that's a lot more than one step too far.

The 50-something “North Van Brad,” as some listeners have dubbed him, has prolifically competed in dial-in competitions across the Lower Mainland for the past three decades.

Reselling contest tickets are against most radio contest rules, but Williams — who insists he’s innocent — claims he’s being singled out for winning 500 times too much.

“You can only imagine how often I was in their (station) tower,” he jokes.

“I don’t really do it for financial gain,” said Williams, who works at home for his wife’s legal research firm. “I do it because I like to go to the concerts, the nice restaurants. I’ve won some trips. I’ve won some cash. I’ve won just about everything short of a house.”

I know the radio promotion people and our air personalities generally prefer to limit folks like Brad to "you can only win once per month" or similar limitations, but in spite of this excess, I still feel that's a mistake.

They are heavy radio users and, like Brad, if they can't win from you, they'll quickly go to another station. If that's the week they happen to have a diary .. or even worse if this is the year (or two!) that their household happens to have a meter (or many of them!) .. you lose.

Radio contests are about making it fun and rewarding to listen. Smart stations make it easier and simpler for the kind of folks who love to play radio games and contests + participate in radio research to win more often.

North Van Brad hasn't convinced me I am wrong about THAT.

Take the limitations off your contest rules, but you might want to lurk on Craigslist now and then as well as being sure that your prize rules prohibit reselling prizes.

Was I Wrong?

The instant I heard about it, I felt pretty certain that Kenny and Tim would be featured 2012 artists on the next "I Heart Radio" music festival in Las Vegas.

It seems that I wasn't alone, as Country Aircheck's RJ Curtis turned to Clear Channel SVP/Programming Clay Hunnicutt to ask what was behind the company's unprecedented heavy first days' airplay of “Feel Like A Rock Star” and what CC received in exchange for what sounded like another "Artist Integration Project".

It looks like I was wrong.

Hunnicutt called it "more of a world premiere event with elements of artist integration. One of the key components of an AIP is utilizing unsold commercial inventory to build the brand of an artist. The plan for Chesney/McGraw, anchored around 28 straight hourly airings of the song didn’t include commercial inventory. That contrasts with the AIP run for Madonna earlier this year. With her, we had billboards in the markets, promoting and counting down to the world premiere of her video.”

Hunnicutt says he was not involved in that promotion. “It’s more than just saying the album is on sale now; it’s about telling the bigger story of the project and the artist. We all have an interest in creating hit songs and more core artists. It helps everybody: listeners, radio, labels, publishers, artists and touring. It was one of those times where everybody was excited about it, and that’s when things can really take off. The song wasn’t exclusive to us; everybody had it at the same time. We didn’t beat anybody to the proverbial punch and we were clear about that, but it goes back to whoever has the best idea wins. We sprung into action after that.”

What benefits does Clear Channel reap after utilizing its airwaves and other platforms to further an artist’s career?

Hunnicutt told Curtis on Monday: “I’ll sum it up in a simple way. A better listening experience for our listeners on the air and creating a moment. There are never any conditions on these, no quid pro quo. This is who we should be – contributing to a greater good when we have the opportunity to do it. We all benefit when there’s more music that is known, familiar and helping to support Tim- and Kenny-level acts.”

I think I'll wait until Clear Channel announces the artist lineup later this year for "I Heart Radio Festival" this year before fully admitting my skepticism was completely unfounded. Meanwhile, if you compete with a Clear Channel station and feel like you "own" reporting status and thus access to big artists exclusively in your market, it's time to step up your game in the same way too, and that is a good thing for all of us.

As long as Clear Channel and Cumulus don't abuse the power given by their footprint in the format at the expense of the rest of country radio, several thousand individual comparatively mom- and pop-owned stations which don't have the power to act together to monopolize promotional airplay in the same way as the Goliaths potentially can.

Let's all watch their actions extra carefully in the coming year.

With unequalled size must come unprecedented additional responsibility.

I Was Wrong (Lady Antebellum Edition)

Congratulations are in order for Lady Antebellum‘s Dave Haywood and his new wife Kelli Cashiola, who married last Saturday night (April 14), just outside their hometown of Nashville.

 

As "Dancing Away With My Heart" heads toward #1 in the next few weeks, it's probably time, as a bit of a wedding gift, to admit that I am the one who said that a song with the lyric "you headed off to college at the end of that summer.." would never be a country hit.

I was wrong.

No, Johnny Cash, Hank Sr., or George Jones would never have sung about heading off to college, but today's country listener qualitative has been evolving for decades. The fact that heading off to college seems perfectly normal as an authentic, relatable story line for country fans in 2012 reinforces that long time country purists are just going to have to adapt (as we always have to this transitional format).

Country music always moves forward, changing to incorporate the core values of real people now, coping with life, today.

About that, I am not wrong.

I Was Wrong

When "Love Like Crazy" - the title track to Lee Brice's 2010 debut album - spent 56 weeks on the charts, peaking at #3, setting a record for the longest run in the charts' history, ultimately becoming Billboard's Top Country Song of 2010, I predicted that would be the highest charting single of his career.

Wrong.

I have to admit that I thought he would succumb to the typical talented songwriter-singer tendency to release only songs he wrote himself.

Wrong.

“A Woman Like You” Hit #1 last week, thanks to the fact that Brice knows a big hit when he hears one, no matter who wrote it.

Congrats, Lee (and Johnny)!

Talking About What They Talk About

- Big Research April Executive Briefing - well worth a click for lots of thought- and content-provoking data points.