Making the Most of ALL
Your Transmitters
Holland Cooke
McVay/Cook & Associates
News/Talk Specialist
Baltimore – Plan now for December, 2012: Arbitron’s annual Client Conference, formerly The Consultant Fly-In, now conjoined with The Jacobs Media Summit. Can you get toBaltimorefor one, two, or three days, and budget $99 (not a misprint) + travel? You will, as I do each year, come home savvier about what moves the ratings needle…and more…
“Social Media is NOT ‘broadcasting,’ it’s ‘engagement.’”
Co-presenting “Let’s Get Engaged,” Arbitron’s Digital Media Manager Jacquelyn Bullerman and DMR’s Trip Eldredge summarized a study of how 45 stations employ Social Media, and demonstrated some important do’s and don’ts.
The most-common, most-fundamental mistake stations make? Using a tool like Facebook as another one-to-many transmitter. “Social media is NOT about the station. It’s about ‘them’ [listeners who Friend you].”
And “listeners are using Facebook as Customer Service.” It’s “a very public, very transparent consumer dialogue;” and those who take the time to post are likely P1s (so-called “First Preference” listeners, those who listen to your station most), mathematically the most-valuable listeners a station can have.
Common Facebook faux pas:
• Pushing the station’s agenda. “Contests, talking about the station, etc., are not ‘engagement.’”
• Another no-no: Inviting questions and not responding, “like not showing up for a date.”
• Others: Ignoring direct questions. “Everyone sees that you do!” Or not-expressing-interest-in what’s being posted.
• Worse: Ducking tough questions. One laughably-bad response example: a station deleted all the negative posts about a fired DJ and posted an advertiser’s coupon. Ouch. A more useful response: transparency, have the conversation.
All-of-the-above are typical of how stations misuse Facebook: “No clear strategy;” the station is there “because everyone else has a Facebook page.” Better than not being there at all? Yes, but not much, compared to what you can accomplish, by understanding FB better.
Smarter stations use Facebook to interact with listeners; and one example was such a simple, obvious, yet under-exploited opportunity that there were audible gasps in the meeting room. A Country station’s Facebook Friend posted how much she liked such-and-such a new song…to-which the station promptly replied “We’ll play it for you tonight at 630.” They were going to play it then anyway! Yet a listener felt fussed-over, and everyone else saw it. This simple gesture “transforms the station from being an indifferent company to being a friend who can help.”
Other effective techniques observed on station pages:
• “Tell stories, don’t ‘place ads.’”
• “Post like you’re a person, not a business.”
• “Bring people together for a conversation and let them have it. THEIR posts and sharing are ‘the entertainment.’” Working, as I do, in Talk radio, I know how threatening this will sound to hosts whose on-air act apes the prevailing monologue mode, at the expense of more-engaging on-air caller dialogue. Ratings demonstrate how, on-air, that same-old-same-old tops-out at a 4 or 5 share. In Social Media, I-talk-you-listen is an utter non-starter.
You’ll know you’re really using Social Media right when users use it to explain your station to each other. Examples we were shown:
• A home run: One listener to a station’s High/Low cash contest created a Google Doc charting guesses. “They’re helping each other because life gets in the way. They’re rooting for each other.”
• A grand slam: Meet-ups emerge, “independently of the station.”
• “Exploding interaction:” pages and pages of responses to the station-posted question, “What would you do with ten thousand dollars?” Apparently teeing-up an on-air contest, this gave Friends ownership, and produced buzz aplenty.
Understanding who is using Social Media heavily, and how, we are reminded that Talk Radio aims too low if we’re merely a boys’ club narrowly focused on political talk…especially since a News/Talk station can be such a handy information app to the listeners that retail advertisers are seeking to attract most…
“Mom is THE demographic group to market.”
Everyone in the room in Baltimore started typing faster during the “Moms and Media” session. Edison Research President Larry Rosin and VP Melissa DeDesare presented data culled from the Arbitron-Edison “Infinite Dial” research series, and focus groups and one-on-one interviews with 330 moms (who have children 18 or younger living at home).
As your station’s Sales department should be well-aware: Mom is the family’s Secretary of The Treasury, so “marketing to moms has exploded.” And this research affirms that “the Internet is the key to marketing to Mom. She embraces modern technology for convenience, but still embraces traditional media like radio.”
“Moms are social.”
• More than half have a Facebook page (a bigger FB presence than dads); and they update via phone. 24% surveyed would give up TV and keep Facebook if they had to choose.
• HOW important is this to marketers? Look who moms are following on Facebook: In one year, their following brands’ Facebook pages is up 100%
• Moms know about Twitter, but don’t use it much (9%). Twitter is “not something they’re willing to make time for,” and they seem to “get what they need from social media from Facebook.”
“Today’s moms are not their mothers.”
• Moms spend more time online than other 12+ listeners. TV still gets more media time, but Internet is closing the gap. The Internet is Mom’s “most essential” medium, driven by multiple household computers and Wi-Fi; and “the cell phone is her connection,” with smartphone use more than doubling in the past year. Survey data: 60% of moms (and 55% of dads) would choose smartphone over TV if they had to give-up one.
• Opportunityfor stations that still fund News: To moms, the Internet is second-only to TV for local news. “Moms are getting their news while doing other things,” like driving.
Conclusion? Sure, lots of listeners are pumping smartphone audio through the dashboard radio. But AM/FM stations can save them that step…if stations appear to deliver on their needs. And everywhere else, it’s imperative that stations show-up on the various devices that enable listeners’ blurry-busy lives.
“Google Maps has become a primary source of traffic information for a lot of people.”
Updating the Arbitron/Edison/Scarborough Research study “The Road Ahead: Media and Entertainment in the Car,” Edison’s Larry Rosin hushed the crowd by first showing us that 48% of listeners surveyed perceive that traffic is worse than a year ago. And – lest radio think we “own” traffic — these responses to “When you want traffic, where do you go first?”
• 42% radio
• 31% TV
• 13% Internet
• 9% phone
• 4% GPS
• 1% satellite radio
There’s plenty of good news about in-car radio use in this study, which its authors want station sellers to use; so it’s among downloads I’ve posted at www.HollandCooke.com.
Don’t miss page 7, for what I consider a telling factoid about how HD radio remains, so far, a flop: You’ll see a graph that charts which devices those-surveyed considered their “primary” in-car device in 2011. Good news for AM/FM: We’re still tops, @ 84%. Meanwhile, down the list: GM OnStar (4%) was cited by twice as many as HD Radio (2%).
“Radio is expanding, not declining. People are thirsty for audio content.”
In the “Next Steps for Radio and Digital” presentation, Arbitron’s Paul Krasinski and Jennifer Houston used that recently-released Arbitron/Edison Research “Infinite Dial” study to demonstrate that the digital platform is “a net positive” for stations that use it right.
Your station is a branded content factory with habitual users, and has already gained advertiser acceptance. What a head start over pure-play Internet audio! Krasinski and Houston urged that stations create content versions tailored to different devices and user environments, to respond to the opportunities suggested by the Arbitron/Edison study (among my downloads).
Presenting a conspicuous success template for this strategy: ESPN’s witty VP Integrated Research Glenn Enoch, who walked-us-through his company’s XP Cross-Platform Initiative, and some impressive audience stats:
• From 2002 to 2010, ESPN’s multi-platform use doubled. While its TV audience is up 16%, its non-TV audience grew 88%. “20 years ago, if you wanted to advertise on ESPN, you could reach people at home.” Now, fans can consume ESPN content “on the best available screen” (even if that “screen” is a radio speaker).
• Thus the fundamental corporate gesture of re-naming the radio division “ESPN Audio,” one of 5 platforms; the others being TV, online, mobile, and magazine.
At last! Validation for a notion I had trouble getting wary station managers to cozy-up-to when I began consulting in 1995. Back then, I was nagging…er, “recommending,” that stations build content-rich web sites. Managers’ concern was that the station’s Internet self would cannibalize consumption of transmitter-delivered content.
Fast-forward to present day, when AM/FM receivers compete with a plethora of other devices, and ESPN audience data shows us that a heavy brand user on one platform tends to be a heavy user on others. ESPN’s top Internet users are also its top TV viewers, and vice-versa. “Cross-media usage is NOT zero-sum,” ESPN’s Enoch showed us. Not only doesn’t adding-another-platform reduce base platform use, additional delivery options add incremental use to the brand’s base-platform choice.
Admittedly, that last sentence sounds lab coat. But, clearly, it’s time to question the notion of “base-platform.” Think brand, and consumption context, and be as convenient and user-friendly as possible.
Meanwhile, back on the radio…
If you want to see how well someone can yawn with her mouth closed, mention that you’re attending a three-day conference on audience measurement. But as you can appreciate from all-of-the-above – and a bunch of presentations you can download – these three days weren’t just a lot of droning nerds asking us to squint at teeny-font PowerPoints. The Arbitron/Jacobs agenda sure did offer puh-LENTY apropos your transmitter. From my notes…
“The ability of spoken word stations to maintain audience during commercial breaks is really, really impressive.”
Coleman Insights President Warren Kurtzman and Arbitron SVP Marketing Bill Rose and RCS & Media Monitors President/CEO Philippe Generali presented “What Happens When The Spots Come On? – 2011 Edition,” which stirred some controversy, possibly because it’s being misunderstood.
Imagine being the advertiser whose spot runs 5th in a 6-spot stopset? Ugh. At least that’s the inside-the-box perception, with advertisers/agencies surveyed reckoning that 68% of the audience hangs-in-there during spot breaks, and radio people slightly more optimistic at 78%.
Surprisingly, this study — of 17,896,325 spot breaks on 866 stations in 48 PPM markets — says we’re both low!
• In minute #1 of the break, [the equivalent of] 100% of the lead-in audience stays
• minute 2: 99%
• minute 3: 96%
• minute 4: 92%
• minute 5: 87%
• minute 6: 85%
Sounds like wishful thinking, right? Especially in music radio, where listeners tolerate spots less than spoken word formats. And with so many schlocky spots airing, you’d think listeners are off-like-a-prom-dress in minute #1. Thus the controversy that greeted this study…unless you hear the presenters’ reminder that people constantly tune-in too, often landing on a station mid-stopset. You be the judge. This study is among my downloads.
Not-surprisingly, older listeners (65+) are most commercial-tolerant; there is “almost no difference between men and women” in terms of spot tune-out; and “virtually no fluctuation month-to-month,” which presenters characterize as “radio’s ability to consistently deliver.”
And common sense dictates doing what radio’s most successful stations do: consider commercials part of the programming, and work with local retailers to polish their selling message to avoid tune-out.
“I went the extra mile. Is your talent going the extra mile?”
A dozen years ago in TALKERS magazine, I profiled then-KFGO/Fargo host Ed Schultz, whose station was my client, and whose hustle was conspicuous. Now a national radio talker and prime time MSNBC host, Schultz regaled attendees with how-he-got-from-there-to-here.
Ed Schultz figures “selling on the air is what it’s all about.” And not just commercials. Sounding every bit the ex-football player he is, Big Ed urges station managers to hire, as talent, “a fierce competitor, a killer, [with] determination.”
And “LISTEN to ‘em,” he begs management. “You’ll motivate [employees by hearing-them-out]. You have authority…and they may have ideas” that can move-the-ball.
Fellow syndicated talker and frequent MSNBC-er Michael Smerconish also appeared. Admitting that, unlike Rush Limbaugh and Sean Hannity, his name tends not to show up in Arbitron diary Comments, Smerconish says he likes PPM “because it will reward a thoughtful host.” And he shrugs that the abundance of media now available results in shorter attention spans and thus rewards “uncivil” dialogue. Asked for an example, Smerconish recalled getting great phones when he eschewed the political shoot-‘em-up topic du jour and instead asked callers “Do we really need to power down wireless phones on airplanes?”
“In my travels I hear so many stations that are ‘disposable,’ ‘generic.’”
Dial-Global Executive VP/Programming Beau Phillips appeared in “The Future of Radio” session; and fellow panelist WTOP/Washington VP News/Programming Jim Farley agreed, disappointed that “AM radio is shooting itself in the foot because of bad content. TRY to find news, real news, at any time on the weekend on the AM band. You’ll find colon cleanser ad after colon cleanser ad.”
Too bad, since, as Research Director, Inc.’s Charlie Sislen showed us in his session, “More people are tuning-into the weekend than either morning or afternoon drive. Radio is a total week medium…2/3 of the population tunes-in on Saturdays.”
Charlie also reminded us of what I regard as the #1 headline we’ve seen to-date from a mountainof PPM data: “getting people to come back again and again” is the ballgame. Concurring in the separate session “Arbitron Top Performers,” Arbitron’s Jenny Tsao updated last year’s presentation, which affirms that the difference between top stations and also-rans is not Time Spent Listening per occasion, but rather how many Occasions of Listening a station can rack-up during the course of a week. Program and market accordingly.
Holland Cooke consults News/Talk/Sports stations and on-air and Internet talent, and covers conventions for Talkers. Watch talkers.com and listen to The Jim Bohannon Show and America in the Morning for HC’s coverage of the 2012 Consumer Electronics Show. For more from the Arbitron/Jacobs conference, including free downloads of all the studies cited in this article, hit www.HollandCooke.com.
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Category: Analysis
