Wednesday, June 20, 2018

Lund Letter

Wednesday, June 20, 2018

This Week in The Lund Letter:  
>   News that interests your listeners
>   Checklist for show prep
>   Smart speakers for cars
>   And the latest media trends

Lund Programming Clinic: Morning News Relevancy

relevancy18.jpgTimes are changing.  People get their news from a multitude of areas.  Years ago the news sources were limited to the daily newspaper, radio newscasts, and TV news at night.  Now, thanks to the Internet and smart phones, the number of stories and the number of sources has grown exponentially.   By observing the analytics of one’s social network and using search engines, one can focus on news stories of specific interests.  Social media is the #1 source for news.

In today’s landscape, media utilize marketing phrases to showcase the word “news.”  TV stations and cable channels promote “Breaking News” and “News Alerts.”  Radio uses benchmark names like “Five Things You Need To Know” and “What’s Trending.”  Press releases are passé due to the fact that news is now not yesterday.

There’s a paradigm shift in news.  Radio’s advantage is its segmented focus – narrow demographics in a specific geographic area.  Today’s radio news staff sees what’s trending on the station’s social media, uses a panel of local news sources, and develops a list of websites for story content.  There are five criteria in deciding what stories to use:

1.   Topicality:  Is the news item something your audience is thinking about today?  Is it current?

2.   Relevancy:  Does it affect the lives of the majority of your audience?  A small kitchen fire at a local restaurant may not be relevant, but a massive fire destroying many homes is.

3.   Geographic proximity:  Does the story affect the people living within your coverage area?  If not, make the local connection of a story occurring in another area.

4.   Prominence:  Does the story involve someone known to your audience – a celebrity, world leader, professional sports star, etc.?

5.   Lifestyle:  Does the story affect your listener’s life?  Personal finance, health, safety, careers, housing, recreation, education, a new business in town, environment, contemporary music, movies, TV, and positive stories.

Be selective with the stories in your newscasts and choose ones that relate to your core.  Focus on local and interesting stories.  With a major news event, present wall-to-wall coverage.  Last year, when devastating fires destroyed thousands of homes and businesses in two counties north of San Francisco, a Santa Rosa radio cluster went all live to cover the tragedy earning kudos from their community.   The fact that these counties are among the most important wine regions in the United States, made this tragedy news worldwide.

How should your station cover the next hurricane, school shooting, or plane crash?  Create a plan for covering a natural disaster or tragic event that impacts your local audience.  Get the Lund Disaster Stylebook – a how-to guide that details every step of advance planning, execution and follow-up.

Lund Show Prep 101: Picking a Topic

checkedlist.pngWhat are the criteria for talents to choose the topics to talk about?

Ask these five questions; is it…

>   Interesting for the audience?
>   Involving the listener?
>   Relatable for the audience?
>   Repeatable to friends?
>   Memorable through storytelling?

Music Evaluation

musicscheduling18.jpgHow’s the music sounding on your station?  Playing the right songs and managing your software controls are vital to a music station’s success.  Get a comprehensive music review and software tune-up from Lund Media.  We’ll thoroughly examine your library and music software — this is an insurance policy for time spent listening!  Contact John Lund for this cost efficient analysis and tune-up to help your station capitalize on the very thing listeners want most – the best researched music for your target demo!

Greetings, Iowa Broadcasters attending the IBA summer convention!

iowa18.pngWhat are the most important radio trends in 2018, and how will your stations benefit?  What part of the digital universe do you occupy?  What formats do Millennials prefer … they spend as much time with radio as their parents.  How will TV’s ATSC 3.0 revolutionize radio listening? John Lund’s seminar on Radio Trends will be featured TOMORROW at the Iowa Broadcasters Association summer convention.  In the afternoon, John takes the Iowa radio programmers to grad school – radio basics, branding, talent coaching, and tactics for improved audience engagement.   John looks forward to meeting with you (again!) in Des Moines and providing you two new and timely radio seminars.

All Broadcasters:  If you would like to have John provide a timely and topical broadcast presentation or workshop for your state broadcast convention or corporate meeting, please contact John Lund.


Promotion of the Week: Million Dollar Fish

milliondollarfish.pngA good summer promotion.  Insure, and then sponsor, a weekend long contest in which listeners can register and try to catch a fish worth one million dollars.  Smaller cash prizes can also be offered.  Food vendors, boat dealers, and some national sponsors will likely tie-in with a contest like this, and you can offer the biggest cash prize ever in your market!

For 100 more great contests and sales promotions, see the Lund Contest and Promotion Guide.


Lund’s Top 3:  Traits of Winning Air Personalities 

Top3B.jpgHere are some more traits that all the best personalities share.

1.   Sunny Side Up.  No one wants to listen to Mr. Negativity.  The best personalities have a positive outlook. They are happy and approachable, essential for creating a lasting relationship with listeners.

2.   Sense of Humor.  The ability to find what is amusing or funny about almost everything, including one’s self, is also an important trait.

3.   Curiosity.  It may have killed the cat, but it’s a necessary trait for being a great air personality.  Ask questions, acquire info, and share with listeners.

Continued next week in the Lund Letter.  Visit www.lundradio.com for more Top 3’s!

Are you marketing to General Managers or Program Directors and want to reach the 9,400+ readers of the Lund Letter? Email John Lund.


This Week’s Music:

postmalone18.jpgPost Malone’s “Psycho” is number one again this week at CHR. David Lee Murphy and Kenny Chesney have taken over the top spot at Country with their song “Everything’s Going To Be Alright.”  “The Middle” by Zedd/Maren Morris/Grey, Ed Sheeran’s “Perfect” and Lovelytheband’s “Broken” continue to reign at Hot AC, Bright AC and Alternative respectively.  Lund clients receive weekly music research information on current music plus regular updates on the best-testing recurrent and gold titles.

Would you like a best-researched music library list for your format?  Email John Lund.


Lund Trend Watch:


Over the Air Still Huge for Radio

According to an Edison study, 92% of AM/FM listening still takes place on traditional broadcast receivers.  8% of all listening is to station streams.  There is some variation based on format type.  For news, sports and personality-focused (talk) radio content, streaming makes up 12% of listening.  Music stations are only listened to via streaming by 6% of listeners.  How much are these numbers influenced by many stations still not providing listeners with a stream?  They can’t listen to what they can’t find!

Smart Speakers in Cars to Benefit Radio

Smart speakers boost radio listening in the home.  Now a Xappmedia study shows that smart speakers’ next frontier – the car – will also lead to gains in radio listening.  The Alexa skill that allows listeners to easily tune in their station at home (after your station has set it up) will work the same way in the car, where being hands-free is even more important.  New cars will start having in-dash systems, and there will be add-on smart speakers for pre-existing vehicles.  64% of current smart speaker owners are interested in having the technology in the car as well.

Pathway to Sounding Better

pathway18.jpgMaximize your programming with a top-to-bottom review.  The Lund Strategic Programming Evaluation finds the strengths and weaknesses of your stations – promotions, talents, and programming strategy, and details specific ways to improve the programming.  If you play music, the evaluation also includes a detailed analysis of your music.  Contact John Lund for info on how this study will benefit your stations.  


Programmer’s Planner:
Here is a list of actions this week for the proactive program director:

Today, 6/20
Nielsen Spring diary sweep ends.  However, the following 7-10 days are important so recipients can complete diaries and send them back.  Today is also the last day of the June PPM.
TV Premieres – Kevin Costner takes his first TV series gig on the new Paramount (formerly Spike) series Yellowstone.  Young & Hungry returns on Freeform.

Thurs., 6/21
Summer Nielsen diary ratings begin (in applicable markets).  July PPM starts today.
TV Premieres – Shooter and Queen of the South are both back for their third seasons on USA.  ABC has new crime procedural Take Two along with returning (revived last season) game shows The Gong Show and Match Game.

Fri., 6/22
Plan outdoor station promotions for visibility and sales tie-ins for the coming month.  July provides opportunities with food vendors, station ¬sponsored barbecues, and baseball outings.
JurassicWorldFallenKingdom.pngStreaming Premieres – On Netflix, the second season of Marvel’s Luke Cage is available, along with new offerings – movie Brain on Fire and reality competition Cooking On High (a cannabis cooking show).
Movie Premiere – Jurassic World: Fallen Kingdom.

Sat.-Sun., 6/23-24
This weekend and every weekend this summer, be the most visible and fun station in the market!
BETAwards18.jpgTV Special – The 2018 BET Awards air on Sunday.
TV Premiere – AMC begins the third season of Preacher.

Mon., 6/25
Market your station aggressively this summer.  Utilize the Lund Sticker Stylebook for an effective auto sticker campaign.  Ask us for your copy.
TV Premiere – Salvation is back for a second season on CBS.

Tues., 6/26
Update station’s website and social media.  How informative are they regarding summer contests and activities?
Tomorrow is one week to Independence Day.  Which weekend are your listeners celebrating? Before or after? Both?


Thanks for reading
The Lund Letter
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Have suggestions for future articles?  Email John Lund
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About the Lund Media Group:

For over 20 years, the Lund Media Group has provided programming, music consulting, operational guidance, and research to commercial and public broadcaststations throughout North America and overseas. Whether you program all sports, all tjclforLL.pngalk, or all music, the Lund Goal is to help stations get more listeners and keep them listening longer. The Lund Consultants are a multi-format custom programming and management consultancy. 

C
all John Lund for more information about how the Lund Media Group can help your stations achieve more listeners, higher ratings, and more revenue.
Phone: 650-692-7777.
Email john@lundradio.com