MindGoneHaywire
01-25-2007, 03:36 PM
Good story about radio programming with focus groups. My wife did a couple of these for a "Lite FM" type station a couple of years ago. Brutal stuff.
>radio's reliance on research prevents stations from providing the variety they tell pollsters they crave. Because advertisers want to reach a defined demographic group -- say, women ages 25 to 34 -- stations have no qualms about alienating people who fall outside their target audience. In the heyday of Top-40 AM radio, a station's success was measured by the raw size of its audience; by just playing the hits, no matter the genre, a station could win 20, 30, even 50 percent of the local audience. Today, by using research to identify the songs that appeal especially to those 25-to-34-year-old women, a station on a much more crowded radio dial can trumpet its success with a 4 percent slice of the audience. That puts all the more pressure on stations to identify the right songs necessary to deliver the right slice of listeners.
>The challenge at the Holiday Inn was to find the songs that might bring in younger folks without chasing away older, core listeners.
>Allan's task was to push the average age of WBIG listeners down from 48 without losing overall audience. "We had to move to more '70s music, because, sadly, in America, if your average age is over 50, your money's no good here anymore," he said. "Once you hit 45, American business doesn't believe you're going to spend any money." WBIG was playing 45 percent '70s music, and this test wasn't showing much tolerance for more than that.
So they play all these songs that people have heard a million times, and...well, you know. Advertisers are only interested in people who want to hear the same thing over & over...and then COMPLAIN about it.
>And then the same people complained that the stations they listen to play "the same songs over and over,"
I guess I shouldn't be surprised that advertisers think so lowly of their target demographics.
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2007/01/16/AR2007011601081.html
>radio's reliance on research prevents stations from providing the variety they tell pollsters they crave. Because advertisers want to reach a defined demographic group -- say, women ages 25 to 34 -- stations have no qualms about alienating people who fall outside their target audience. In the heyday of Top-40 AM radio, a station's success was measured by the raw size of its audience; by just playing the hits, no matter the genre, a station could win 20, 30, even 50 percent of the local audience. Today, by using research to identify the songs that appeal especially to those 25-to-34-year-old women, a station on a much more crowded radio dial can trumpet its success with a 4 percent slice of the audience. That puts all the more pressure on stations to identify the right songs necessary to deliver the right slice of listeners.
>The challenge at the Holiday Inn was to find the songs that might bring in younger folks without chasing away older, core listeners.
>Allan's task was to push the average age of WBIG listeners down from 48 without losing overall audience. "We had to move to more '70s music, because, sadly, in America, if your average age is over 50, your money's no good here anymore," he said. "Once you hit 45, American business doesn't believe you're going to spend any money." WBIG was playing 45 percent '70s music, and this test wasn't showing much tolerance for more than that.
So they play all these songs that people have heard a million times, and...well, you know. Advertisers are only interested in people who want to hear the same thing over & over...and then COMPLAIN about it.
>And then the same people complained that the stations they listen to play "the same songs over and over,"
I guess I shouldn't be surprised that advertisers think so lowly of their target demographics.
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2007/01/16/AR2007011601081.html