06 Feb Wednesday, February 6, 2019
his Week in The Lund Letter:
> Play by play to start the day
> How to be #1 by Coach Lombardi
> Improving ratings and the Big Event
> Programming to Generation Z and the latest media trends
Lund Morning Show Master Class: How Play By Play Sports Applies
Sunday night’s Super Bowl was a media event. There was the hoopla surrounding deciding the NFL Championship between the Rams and the Patriots, the Maroon 5 half time performance, and the commercials specially produced to air during the telecast. Sure, it was boring to many and fewer people watched the Super Bowl than in recent years, but it still had ratings and coverage any TV show would love.
How do you make your morning show a media event? Adapt a few of the play by play sports techniques you saw Sunday night. Improving Time Spent Listening is about increasing the listening occasions, and your morning show is key.
Replays
Replays use multiple cameras getting different views of the same play. Your morning team should look at their content from different angles. The first angle that comes to mind may not be the best angle to use. Often they can create several pieces of content around the same subject matter using different angles. And how many replays of bits occur in your show with audience turning over every 45 minutes?
Highlights
Morning shows use highlights for their morning show promos, but they can also use it for imaging within their own show. You often see in televised sports highlights of the game played before commercial breaks. This technique helps promote the excitement of watching the game. Your morning show should add to the imaging arsenal clips from previous shows that are entertaining. Play them out of spots or before content. The imaging will help position the show and entertain the listeners. Use this in selling benchmarks: play a highlight of the benchmark before executing it.
Theme Music
For years, sports shows and play by play coverage have used theme music. NBC Sunday Night Football borrowed from ABC Monday Night Football, and the Olympic televised coverage is another example. Your morning team can pick distinctive music beds for their benchmarks. When used consistently, benchmark music beds brand your morning show’s benchmarks.
By using these techniques, your morning show can make their show a “can’t miss” event and thus increase the listening occasions which will drive TSL to improve your ratings.
Want To Score A Touchdown?
The spring Nielsen diary and Eastlan ratings sweep begins March 28. Don’t you want to know that your station’s programming including talents, music, and marketing is the best it can be? Is the competition taking revenue from you because they have more listeners? The Lund Strategic Programming Evaluation details your assets and vulnerabilities and provides an action plan for growth. Contact John Lund for info on how this study will benefit your stations.
Words of Wisdom: “The Object is to Win”
Congratulations to Tom Brady and the Patriots on their Super Bowl win. The following words of Vince Lombardi written decades ago apply to managing a winning radio station today.
What It Takes To Be Number One
Winning is not a sometime thing; it’s an all the time thing. You don’t win once in a while; you don’t do things right once in a while; you do them right all the time. Winning is a habit. Unfortunately, so is losing.
There is no room for second place. There is only one place in my game, and that’s first place. I have finished second twice in my time at Green Bay, and I don’t ever want to finish second again. There is a second place bowl game, but it is a game for losers played by losers. It is and always has been an American zeal to be first in anything we do, and to win, and to win, and to win.
Every time a football player goes to ply his trade he’s got to play from the ground up – from the soles of his feet right up to his head. Every inch of him has to play. Some guys play with their heads. That’s O.K. You’ve got to be smart to be number one in any business. But more importantly, you’ve got to play with your heart, with every fiber of your body. If you’re lucky enough to find a guy with a lot of head and a lot of heart, he’s never going to come off the field second.
Running a football team is no different from running any other kind of organization – an army, a political party or a business. The principles are the same. The object is to win – to beat the other guy. Maybe that sounds hard or cruel. I don’t think it is.
It is a reality of life that men are competitive and the most competitive games draw the most competitive men. That’s why they are there – to compete. To know the rules and objectives when they get in the game. The object is to win fairly, squarely, by the rules – but to win.
And in truth, I’ve never known a man worth his salt who in the long run, deep down in his heart, didn’t appreciate the grind, the discipline. There is something in good men that really yearns for discipline and the harsh reality of head to head combat.
I firmly believe that any man’s finest hour – his greatest fulfillment to all he holds dear – is that moment when he has worked his heart out in a good cause and lies exhausted on the field of battle – victorious.
© 2019 Family of Vince Lombardi c/o Luminary Group LLC
Planning Your State Broadcast Convention?
“The Science of Growing your Audience” is the topic of John Lund’s positive, fast-moving presentation. It details everything radio programmers need to do to get more listeners and higher ratings in today’s digital world. Topics include the “basics” of radio programming, America’s top formats: who listens and why, tactics to get more listeners, talent coaching, and how to make voice tracking sound live and local. This presentation will be customized and expanded to meet your members’ needs. Email John Lund for availability and info.
Lund Programming Clinic: The Basics of Radio
The basics of the station’s format form a “Playbook.” Precise execution of the formatics is not unlike how football players are coached to execute plays on the field. Talents are dedicated to perfecting the dynamics of their playbook on-air. Formatic rules build discipline and consistency. Every team member of the winning radio station must maintain a daily intensity on the little things that will get them to the Super Bowl of radio – command of the basics.
Perfect the Mechanics of Your Format
Each talent understands the station’s format and mission. They adhere to the nuances and unique methods of executing the particular format, including placement of programming elements like weather, promos, stop set contents, how to handle music, commercials, etc.
Lund Deeper Dive: Program the “Big Event”
What was everyone talking about Monday morning? It was likely the Super Bowl – the game, the TV commercials, etc. And what was your morning show talking about?
Every morning show that connects well with listeners was talking about it. The Super Bowl should have been “the big event” that the host presented in many segments each hour. There are likely two other topics that merit discussion including the weather. Talents prep and develop smaller items such as secondary stories of interest and service features throughout the show.
The challenge for talents is to find, develop, and present “the big event” that impacts the most listeners every morning. Morning personalities and talk show hosts are adept at discussing topics that mirror what’s on the minds of their audience.
Amp Up Your Radio Show!
Improve the planning, presentation and sound of your radio show – whether you’re in the morning or at any time. The Morning Show Guide has all the tools that radio personalities need to grow and sound better.
This book contains localism and relatability checklists, 50 top talent benchmarks and audience interactives, dozens of radio show essentials, and much more. The 50-page Morning Show Guide is the #1 book written for radio personalities to plan and execute their shows in all market sizes. It’s been newly updated and expanded.
Lund’s Top 3: Improve Your Spring Ratings
There’s no such thing as being too prepared for the spring ratings sweep. It begins 7 weeks from tomorrow (3/28). Consider these basics:
1. Showcase your station name. Talents deliver it with pride and enthusiasm 30-40 times an hour. They articulate the name with emphasis as if they are saying it for the first time to someone who has never heard the station.
2. Mirror the listeners’ passion for the music. Music is the primary reason that listeners choose an FM station. Talents talk about the music, just like listeners. They treat it with passion and enthusiasm.
3. Relate to the listeners’ world and what affects them – like local events, concerts, observations, and what’s going on within their lifestyle.
Next week – Improve Your Spring Ratings continues. Visit www.lundradio.com for more Top 3’s!
Promotion of the Week: Ultimate Backyard Barbecue
Qualify people from now until Memorial Day tying in a grocery store, beer company, and band. Grand prizewinner entertains twenty of their friends at a BBQ in their own backyard with steaks, corn on the cob, baked potatoes, salads, etc. The band plays in the winner’s backyard. If entrants don’t have a backyard (live in an apartment, etc.), reserve an appropriate picnic area ahead of time. Award the Friday of Memorial Day with the prize happening Monday; do a remote from the BBQ.
Need A Sales Promotion?
For your sales promotions to be successful and “work” for your client, your listeners and your station, your sales staff needs to ask the right questions. Our 40-point questionnaire covers everything from creation to execution to qualify each sales promotion and ensure the best possible results. This checklist is included with details of the 200 best sales promotion ideas for radio stations. The Lund Sales Promotion Guide is 50% off right now; get your copy here.
Are you marketing to General Managers or Program Directors and want to reach the 10,500 readers of the Lund Letter? Email John Lund.
Lund Trend Watch:
Oh Snap
When Snapchat debuted in 2011, it quickly became popular among teenagers and millennials. Young users love the fact that pictures and videos posted to the social media platform “expired” and disappeared after a certain amount of time. Quite a difference from other social media where posts last “forever.” It also became a way to hide activities and conversations from parents.
Now, Snapchat is considering making its “Our Story” posts – ones everyone can see and not just those on a user’s friend list – last longer or even become permanent. They may also show the user’s identity when posting public photos and videos (they are anonymous right now). Privacy issues could cause a major backlash over the proposed changes, but Snapchat is invested in them due to the fact that more permanent content would mean more and easier revenue streams, something it really needs.
The Diminishing Newspaper
According to a national telephone and online survey conducted by Rasmussen Reports, 36% of American adults buy their local newspaper. 15% buy the local paper every day or almost every day. 63% rarely or never buy a print version of the local paper. That’s an increase from May 2018 (57%) and ten years ago (30%).
Hulu Goes Forward with Pause Commercials
Previously it was announced that Hulu and AT&T/DirecTV were considering pause screen commercials. Hulu is now going forward with testing the ads for subscribers who have the cheaper, ad-supported version of the service. Static banner ads will appear on screen when video streaming is paused. The ads will appear after 5 seconds to allow for rewinding and fast forwarding without interruption. They will also be semi-transparent so viewers can still see where they are at in their chosen program. Charmin and Coca-Cola will be the first two brands to appear in the pause ads.
Who Is Generation Z?
Generation Z consists of people born in 1995 or later. In contrast, when Gen Z’s were toddlers, Millennials were becoming young adults. By 2020, Generation Z will make up one-third of the US population and control $44 billion of the US economy. What should you know about them?
> Shorter attention spans. They’ve grown up in a continuously updating world and won’t settle for less than immediacy.
> Expert multi-taskers. Gen Z is used to using multiple devices and traditional materials all at the same time.
> Less likely to bargain shop. 67% of Millennials would go to a website to download a coupon; only 46% of Gen Z would.
> Don’t value traditional education. More Gen Z members are expected to go straight into the workforce after high school. They may take college courses online, but are not expected to be willing to take on the massive debt that comes with a traditional college education… or be willing to spend that much time on it.
> More business-minded. 72% of high school teenagers say they want to start a business.
> Raised on technology. If it doesn’t work fast, there must be a better version.
> Individuality is important. Social media is huge with this generation (92% have a digital footprint), but it’s less about the masses and more about the ability to celebrate uniqueness.
> More global. Their devices have let them reach out to more of the world than has ever been possible before, and that interconnection only continues to grow.
Programmer’s Planner:
Feb 10: Grammy Awards
Feb 14: Valentine’s Day
Feb 18: President’s Day
Feb 24: Academy Awards
Mar 5: Mardi Gras
Mar 10: Daylight Saving Time starts
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.