Wednesday, August 1, 2018

01 Aug Wednesday, August 1, 2018

This Week in The Lund Letter:  
>   Format clock architecture
>   Social media preferences of teens
>   And the latest media trends

Lund Programming Clinic: Building The Perfect Music Clock 

Like a baseball manager drawing their line-up card, or a restaurant owner planning their menu, creating format clocks for your radio station requires strategy.  When constructing your format clocks, follow this science:

Limit the Categories

You should have no more than 12 categories representing song value and song era. Generally, there are at least two levels for song value; power (strongest testing) and secondary; some formats have a tertiary category.  Eras can represent any span between brand new to a decade or more, but you don’t want an era to encompass more than fifteen years.

Limit the Clocks

Branding your radio station by having consistent clocks is vital.  The balance of eras and song values is critical in building and maintaining your brand.  Too many clocks dilute the brand. Every hour should have the same era balance.

Plan the Sequencing

Your music clock has two goals:

1.   Satisfy the cume by playing the listener’s favorite songs every quarter hour, and

2.   Build time spent listening by exposing listeners to a variety of songs based on era, genre, and tempo in every quarter hour.

You never want to schedule two songs from the same category in a row, and you want your power song categories (the listener’s favorites) at least once in every quarter hour.  The litmus test is that every quarter hour represents the radio station’s brand.

Stopset Planning

The one universal assumption among radio programmers is a commercial stopset represents an end to momentum.  So the first song out of the stopset should be a strong song to start momentum.  Most programmers agree to not play a new or unfamiliar song out of a stopset.  These unfamiliar songs can be the last song played before a stopset, and be played after a strong song.  For years TV networks would schedule a new show following an established hit show as a strategy to establish the new show.

This scientific approach to music scheduling has a tremendous advantage over the stations that merely play “alphabet soup” with their clocks.

Music Tune-Up

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 analysis and tune-up to help your station capitalize on the very thing listeners want most – the best researched music for your target demo!

Promotion of the Week: Musical Mashup

As the name suggests, this promotion revolves around a mashup of music clips being aired and identified by a listener.  The clip can be one song rearranged to be unrecognizable or severely short clips of multiple songs played together.  Another layer can be added to the contest by having a jackpot that decreases with each wrong answer… of which the winner also has to know the current amount.  The clips can be made a bit longer each time there is a wrong answer making it easier as the game progresses.  The game can be played with any music format!

The Best Contests

Here are the ten most popular radio contests:

1.   Secret Sound
2.   The Name Game
3.   Say It and Win
4.   The Dollar Bill Game
5.   Cash Call
6.   Song of the Day
7.   Musical Mashup/Song Scramble
8.   9-2-5
9.   Hi-Lo
10.  The Birthday Game

Each is detailed in the Lund Contest and Promotions Guide, along with 200 more contests and sales promotions.  To order this Guide, click here.  This is the most comprehensive radio contest collection ever published. 

Lund’s Top 3:  Fall Ratings Insurance 

The fall Nielsen diary sweep begins September 13 (seven weeks from tomorrow).  Here are a few programming strategies to help your station expand listening this fall.

1.   Provide DTI – Discretionary Time Information – to help listeners plan their leisure time.

2.   Back announce title and artist often; people really like this about radio.

3.   Always go into a stopset with a promote-ahead – like the next artist plus a factoid about the performer or song, the concept pioneered by Casey Kasem.

Continues 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:

Maroon 5 takes over the top spot on CHR with “Girls Like You.”  Jake Owen is the leader at Country with “I Was Jack (You Were Diane).” Taylor Swift still rules Hot AC with her song “Delicate.” “The Middle” by Zedd/Maren Morris/Grey reigns at Bright AC.  Weezer’s cover of “Africa” is #1 for Alternative.  Lund clients receive weekly music research information on current music plus regular updates on the best-testing recurrent and gold titles.

Amp Up Your Morning Show 

Improve the planning, presentation and sound of your morning show.  The Lund Morning Show Guide has all the tools your star talents need to sound better. The Morning Show Daytimer daily prep form and hourly planner outlines every planning element for the show.   We provide 50 top Morning Show Benchmarks and audience interactives. And the Morning Show Guide includes 25 Morning Show Essentials.  This best-selling guide will help the sound and execution of the morning show – and all talents on your station.

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.


Lund Trend Watch:

The Bright Side of the Dial

A study by Psychology Today shows that TV may be a depressing way to spend time.  Radio, on the other hand, makes people happy.  Hearing favorite songs, being entertained by personalities and being made to think by talk shows all stimulate listeners and make them feel good.  No wonder 93% of Americans listen to radio – everyone likes to be happy… just ask Pharrell Williams.

Where the Teens Are

According to an analysis of Pew Research study done by DEFcom’s Doug Ferber, Facebook is continuing to decline with Americans 13-17.  Although it is still the king with other demos, Facebook is now only used by 51% of teens 13-17.  YouTube is their most-used platform (85%), followed by Instagram (72%) and Snapchat (69%).  Still being dominated by Facebook are Twitter (32%), Tumblr (9%) and Reddit (7%).

A New Experience

Target’s online revenue is growing faster than in-store.  That said… 95% of sales are still made in Target’s physical locations.  Target COO John Mulligan says stores are actually a part of online shopping as well: some of the stores fill orders for shipping and all have items they can pull from shelves for online orders that are picked up in-store.  To keep their stores relevant, Target plans to remodel more than 1,000 of their stores (six have already been completed).  The stores will feature “trending” items near the front door, mannequins that show off products other than just clothes, and a central aisle that winds around displays in each section (referred to as the “river” by employees).  Target feels a better store experience will lead to shoppers lingering, browsing and buying more.  Do your listeners need a better station experience?

Pathway to Sounding Better

Maximize 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.  ContactJohn 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, 8/1
Create your promotion calendar to plan all sales and programming promotions through the fall.  Some schools in your market may start this or next week.
TV Premiere – Season two of The Sinner premieres on USA.

Thurs., 8/2
Summer diary ratings week #7 begins.  Week #3 of the August PPM.
Labor Day Weekend, the last big blast of summer, is four weeks away (8/31-9/3)… what do you have planned?

Fri., 8/3
Facebook Friday.  Have someone check into what else your listeners “Like” besides your station.  Does it sync up with what you talk about on air?
Movie Premiere – Christopher Robin and The Spy Who Dumped Me.

Sat.-Sun., 8/4-5
This weekend, plot for your upcoming rating sweep.  Consider ways to capitalize on station strengths, garner more cume, and attain longer time spent listening.
TV Special – Coverage of the iHeartCountry Festival airs on Fox.

Mon., 8/6
Write your Strategic Plan for fall.  Include mission statement, goals, listener profile, competition, positioning, and staffing.  For tactical planning, list major cume and TSL enhancing promotions planned, as well as promotional strengths and weaknesses.
TV Premieres – AMC begins new show Lodge 49 and the fourth season of Better Call Saul.

Tues., 8/7
Today’s programming meeting… how do you identify with the core listeners?  Take the staff on location to an office, factory, or store where the station is heard.
Invite a handful of listeners/workers to discuss what they like and dislike about the station.
Twitter Tuesday.  Do you occasionally tweet things that make your listeners laugh or think?
TV Premieres – It’s a night of reality premieres on ABC with the returning Bachelor in Paradise and new show Castaways.

Thanks for reading
The Lund Letter
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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 talk, 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. 

Call 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.