Tag: "TSL"
Monday Memo: “Oh the Weather Outside Is Frightful…”
By Holland Cooke
Consultant
BLOCK ISLAND, RI — I wrote this during the first big blizzard of the season – not the last — and much of the East got whacked. Weather has been increasingly extreme most everywhere in recent years, and brutal hurricanes and raging wildfires and heat waves and floods and droughts will continue. What the heck, we’re probably mathematically overdue for an earthquake too.
Even wackier than the weather: The news. And don’t expect things to “settle down.” Though less-erratic, the incoming administration will be no less-newsworthy. Notwithstanding longer-term optimism over vaccines, the pandemic’s worst days lie just ahead; and the injured economy is as-directly impactful on listeners’ day-to-day survival. Repairs on President Joe Biden’s To-Do list are matters that transcend political arm-wrestling. Watch infrastructure (translation: “jobs”).
Monday Memo: Telephone. It’s for You
By Holland Cooke
Consultant
BLOCK ISLAND, RI — Why I LOVE the Christmas tunes radio reverts to this time of year: I can hear The Beach Boys on FM.
The dang BEACH BOYS, who contributed so much volume-up TSL when Baby Boomers were young. Now, radio seems to think they were one-hit wonders…maybe two, if “The Man With All The Toys” is also airing. Otherwise, FM affords “Little Saint Nick” the same status as those barking dogs and mischievous Chipmunks, one-and-done until next year.
Monday Memo: Say What?
By Holland Cooke
Consultant
BLOCK ISLAND, RI — “Sucks” sucks. Ditto “pissed-off,” and “friggin’” and “effen.”
Why: Protective soccer mom is her family’s Secretary of The Treasury, driving the car your advertisers want to see pull into the parking lot as a result of being on your air. She might actually use these words when young ears aren’t around. But when they’re in the minivan, you’re committing TSL suicide using language Mom doesn’t want kiddos to parrot.
Radio’s Biggest Star: Baseball
By Holland Cooke
Media Consultant
BLOCK ISLAND, RI — Do the math. For 6 months when habitual listening dips as listeners vacation and otherwise alter their lives, baseball brings:
- long-TSL tune-in (“vertical maintenance” in ratings speak), to…
- 162 three+ hour shows (“horizontal maintenance”), by…
- people who otherwise might not cume the station, in…
- what would otherwise be fringe evening/late-night/weekend hours,
- many of which are suspenseful, and which are loaded with…
- inventory that sells-without-numbers.
And now that games are available elsewhere, affiliated AM/FM stations need to play defense to exploit the franchise. (Pictured at right is HC at his beloved Fenway Park.)
The Podcast Consumer 2016
By Holland Cooke
Media Consultant
BLOCK ISLAND, RI — On yesterday’s webinar, Edison Research VP Tom Webster surmised, “It’s safe at this point to call podcasting ‘mainstream media.’”
It’s always puzzled me how talk radio demonizes that term, while sales reps have been telling prospects that their stations ARE mainstream. What advertiser wants to utilize FRINGE media?
Admittedly, when I started attending podcasting conventions a dozen years ago, the medium did seem, shall we say, unconventional. Not any more, according to data culled from the ongoing Edison/Triton “Infinite Dial” research series, and Edison’s “Share of Ear”™ studies, which Webster presented.
The Infinite Dial 2014
Holland Cooke
TALKERS Contributor
Media Consultant
BLOCK ISLAND, R.I. — It was like telling the punch line at the beginning of the joke, when Edison Research VP/Strategy & Marketing Tom Webster began a well-attended webinar: “It’s hard to overstate the impact of the smartphone on the American consumer.”
“The Infinite Dial 2014” is #22 in an ongoing series researching consumer adoption of digital media. As Webster and Mike Agovino — COO of Triton Digital, which sponsored the study – narrated their presentation, they had plenty of good news for radio broadcasters. But the undeniable headline was that those who merely feed audio to transmitters aren’t fishing where the fish are swimming to.
Among data presented, based on a just-released survey of 2023 Americans P12+:
61% of Americans – an estimated 160 million — now own a smartphone. That’s 500% growth in 5 years. Eight-in-ten P18-34.
Your Station Promos: “Blah, blah, blah?”
By Holland Cooke
Radio Consultant
BLOCK ISLAND, RI — Nothing we say about the station on-air adds listeners, because the only people who hear promos are already listening.
The goal of on-air promotion is to add Time Spent Listening (TSL) by existing cume — specifically adding additional occasions of listening — with messages which suggest why-and-when to come-back-for what-promos-promise.
Baseball Stations: PLAN NOW
for Spring Training
By Holland Cooke
News/Talk/Sports Radio Consultant
BLOCK ISLAND, RI — With 2013 expense budgets now in umpteenth revision, this reminder: Be there or be square.
After all the sub-freezing days and nights that chill much of the USA this time of the year – and various off-season trades and free agent signings – The Boys of Summer will be a welcome sound come March.
Yet too few baseball stations establish a presence at their teams’ spring training camps. Smart baseball stations are cheerleaders, and really smart baseball stations start cheering a month before opening day, when every team is in 1st place.
Five reasons this has value:
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Arbitron Client Conference: Format Facts and Forecasts
By Holland Cooke
Radio Consultant
ANNAPOLIS — Now THIS is worth a meeting. If your station is an Arbitron subscriber, you should download, devour, and discuss the just-released “Radio Today 2012,” an uncanny mash-up of Scarborough consumer profiles and Arbitron audience data. What you will read about people-who-listen-to your format really fleshes-out the folks you want as heavy listeners, and will send you in specific directions to seem relevant and relatable and habit-forming to ’em.
And that’s all I’m allowed to say! Because this information is THAT valuable! Read the legal hear-ye-hear-ye at arbitron.com, and you’ll understand that I’m not being coy. But I can share some useful headlines from the Executive Summary Arbitron has released, which follow.
Crystal Ball for Brand Managers
By Chris Miller
Chris Miller Digital
SHAKER HEIGHTS — Saga Communications made the news this past Wednesday when they anointed their program directors as “brand managers.” Saga’s executive vice president, Steve Goldstein, issued a memo that you read in RadioInfo. It read, in part, “We’ve been thinking about how successful programmers are morphing their skills to become proficient at not just managing the on-air product, but the overall brand. And conversely, it has exposed the vulnerability of program directors who are not learning and growing as we become more digital.”
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