17 May Wednesday, May 16, 2018
This Week in The Lund Letter:
> Make mornings exciting again
> Play the hits
> The boom in digital marketing
> And the latest media trends
Lund Management Memo: Grow Morning Ratings
While AM Drive is radio’s most listened-to daypart in diary markets, middays and afternoons beat mornings in PPM markets. Why has morning radio lost this key daypart?
> It may be due to PPM methodology; most people don’t turn on their meter until they leave the house.
> In-home radio listening has declined (perhaps smart speakers will bring it back).
> Early morning TV viewing has taken audience from radio. Why?
TV stations are stepping up their morning programming to attract demos once reserved for radio stations. While TV news at night skews 50+ male, early morning TV viewing is a younger, female audience. TV network shows like GMA and Today and the early morning news before 7 AM on local stations target 25-54 year old females.
TV stations want their local news to sound contemporary and be more relatable to this important target audience. The male-female anchors often sound like morning DJs. Since the majority of the TV audience at this hour is busy with getting dressed, consuming breakfast, dressing kids, and getting out the door, many people are not watching the TV, but actually listening to the TV audio. Thus, news is written for a shorter length than at night, and there’s a mixture of light news and entertainment info.
Morning TV mirrors morning radio
Local TV utilizes a “morning radio” delivery format which is enhanced by playing snippets of contemporary songs. These music bumpers are played going into stopsets. Lund television client Sinclair Broadcast Group utilizes these custom pop and country music bumpers in many markets throughout the U.S. Likewise, spoken word radio stations enhance their shows with bumpers. News-Talk, All-News and All-Sports radio stations are more relatable to younger listeners when they play contemporary music bumpers.
The Lund Media team provides specially edited hit music bumpers for TV news and spoken word radio stations. For a sample, visit: https://lundradio.com/tv-news-bumpers-target-younger-demos/. Contemporary music bumpers are heard on many stations, like Tribune’s KTLA in Los Angeles, Sinclair’s WBFF Baltimore and WZTV Nashville, CBS This Morning.
These 30-second bumpers typically begin with several seconds of the instrumental start of a song, then cut to the most recognizable portion of the vocal (in radio terms, “the hook”) that usually includes the title. Since the title isn’t typically sung in the first half minute, each bumper is carefully edited and produced by the Lund team. The cut and editing are seamless and “perfect.” The song fades after about 30-seconds.
Hits modernize the presentation
All songs are current hits, recent gold hits, and the best testing hits of the last decade – targeted for this female audience. All hit bumpers are of songs that are in regular airplay on leading contemporary hit music or country music radio stations throughout the United States, and they are all very recognizable. Songs are chosen to be upbeat with positive non-offensive lyrics. The music is targeted for the widest available audience in the core demographic.
Wouldn’t your news-talk, talk, or sports station sound more contemporary with custom music bumpers? If your demo target is men, Lund Media can produce custom hit rock or classic rock music bumpers depending upon the station’s format. For this very affordable and contemporary addition to your radio or television news or sports programming, contact John Lund.
Lund Programming Clinic: Play the Hits!
How many times have you heard this phrase from programmers? When it was first coined, there was no music scheduling software like Selector, Music Master or Power Gold. Rotating music was simply a “hot clock” and stacks of 45’s.
Bill Stewart invented the Top 50 format in the 50’s. Bill Drake honed it to Top 40 in the 60’s. In the 70’s, programming icon Mike Joseph, who passed last week, developed the “Hot Hits” format of rotating the Top Five songs every 45 minutes. “Play The Hits” became reality.
Listeners Want Favorite Songs
In countless perceptual research projects, the #1 reason core listeners listen to a station is to hear their favorite songs. This is more important than hearing a variety of songs (biggest library). Yet many radio stations set up rules preventing the listeners’ favorite songs from being played. Research has shown listeners are not turned off by the repetition of their favorite songs; in fact, they want it. It’s the repetition of songs that are not their favorites that drives them away.
Watch Software “Rules”
Today’s programmers utilize “Rules” provided by the music scheduling software to guide rotations. But these Rules actually make it difficult for the listeners to hear their favorite songs. When Rules prevent a favorite song from being scheduled, it shows up as an unscheduled position requiring manual scheduling. The tendency of programmers is to reduce the number of unscheduled positions by adding more songs which further dilutes the exposure of the listeners’ favorite songs. For example, the artist separation rule prevents the playing of the listeners’ favorite songs by a core artist in recurrent and gold categories when the core artist has a song in power rotation.
Program What Listeners Want
It’s easy to prove the premise that Rules are preventing the scheduling of the listeners’ favorite songs. Perform a Most Played analysis of your past music scheduling history. If it shows “one hit” wonders and secondary songs receiving more airplay than power rotation hits by core artists, you have rules preventing the proper exposure of the listeners’ favorite songs. Next perform an analysis of the unscheduled positions. Find out what rules are preventing the scheduling of the songs and then either “relax” the rules or make them “breakable.” The goal is programming to the audience and insuring they always hear their favorite songs (hits).
Hits Tune-Up
Playing the hits on your station is essential. Lund Media offers a total library assessment and software tune-up…titles, categories, clocks and rotations. We will make your music presentation perfect – and can do all the changes within your music software. The library analysis and adjustment is extensive and comprehensive. For more info, contact John Lund today.
Promotion of the Week: Summer of 10,000 Tickets
A fun name for an umbrella promotion happening over the whole summer. Tickets can be any type: concerts, airline, theme parks, movies, festivals, county fairs, art exhibits, museums, etc. At least one set of tickets each week should be for something “big” to heighten excitement.
For 100 more great contests and sales promotions, see the Lund Contest and Promotion Guide.
Lund’s Top 3: On-Air Marketing
Provide these benefits:
1. Sound locally relatable and talk up what listeners are doing and thinking about; help them plan their leisure time – that which syndicated shows cannot do.
2. Give specific reasons to listen the next hour, the next daypart/show, and the next morning show.
3. Constantly set listening appointments – either “coming up” (after the break) or “time stamp” the benefit as to when it will be heard (say the exact time if over ten minutes away).
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:
“Never Be The Same” by Camila Cabello continues to reign in the top spot in CHR. Imagine Dragons’ “Whatever It Takes” moves into the Top Five. Both Drake’s “Nice For What” and Ariana Grande’s “No Tears Left To Cry” had great gains last week. Selena Gomez’s “Back to You” is enjoying a tremendous add week. In Country Kane Brown’s “Heaven” moves into the number one slot. Darius Rucker’s “For The First Time” and Dan + Shay’s “Tequila” are both making great gains.
In Hot AC, “The Middle” by Zedd/Marin Morris/Grey rules the top spot with Imagine Dragons getting closer. Camila Cabello had another big week in growth. Jason Mraz “Have It All” made a strong debut. “Perfect” by Ed Sheeran owns Bright AC. MAX’s “Lights Down Low” looks like it could unseat Ed Sheeran. Zedd/Marin Morris/Grey is moving up quickly. Lovelytheband’s “Broken” is the leader in Alternative. Sir Sly’s “&Run” is making a move into the Top Five. Florence and the Machine’s “Hunger” had another impressive week in airplay. Bastille’s “Quarter Past Midnight” looks strong out of the gate. 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:
Click-To-Brick
Do your clients know what customers’ online perception of them is? A new consumer survey from Netsertive found that 72% of consumers use online reviews to check out local businesses and 80% always research “big item” purchases online before buying in-store. 68% of the consumers surveyed said they use Google to evaluate local businesses. 40% use Facebook, whether the business has its own social media accounts or not.
Netsertive segment marketing manager Tim McLain says, “We live in a click-to-brick economy. Your small business now has two doors – a digital door and a physical door. Customers will swing through your digital door and visit your website first, but when they’re ready to buy, they’ll get in their car and swing through your physical doors.” Speed is a great asset. Despite improving delivery time for online, more than 70% of survey respondents said they still go to local stores to buy, or they are evenly split between buying online and in-store.
Booming Digital Ad Market
The global digital advertising market grew 21% to $88 billion in 2017, according to the IAB Internet Advertising Revenue Report conducted by PwC. Other advertising markets should not compare themselves to this increase, though, since 90% of the growth came from the duopoly of Google and Facebook. The top 10 companies on the IAB’s list (outside of Google and FB) contributed 68-75% of overall revenue. Only three of the companies that were on the same list in 2008 are still on it. Here’s a deeper look at the categories of digital marketing and how they fare:
+ Search advertising revenue grew 18% to $40.6 billion.
+ Video advertising grew 33% to $11.9 billion.
+ Audio advertising grew 29% to $1.6 billion (but it is only 2% of the market).
+ Mobile accounts for 56.7% of all digital advertising, growing 36.2% over last year.
+ Social media advertising grew 36% to 22.2 billion and now accounts for 25% of digital advertising.
The IAB report credited two factors to the digital market’s major growth: self-serve platforms that allow small businesses to advertise with ease on the internet, and the rise of online start-ups that use those same platforms to sell directly to consumers.
Attention State Broadcast Conventions
What is the status of Radio in 2018 from a digital, listener, social and commercial perspective – and what’s the future? This is the hot topic that radio managers and programmers want to know. John Lund’s new audio and visual presentation details the state of radio today with ways to make stations better equipped to handle our digital age, plus a format clinic for music and News-Talk stations, talent development, and proven ways to increase audience. Contact John Lund for availability and info.
Programmer’s Planner:
Here is a list of actions this week for the pro-active program director:
Today, 5/16
Explore ways to build awareness through advertising in multimedia, like outdoor, telemarketing, print, direct mail, and event marketing to increase cume and time spent listening.
Network TV shows will be having their season finales in this and coming weeks. Remind listeners of each night’s offerings.
Thurs., 5/17
Spring diary ratings week #8 begins. Start of the last week of the May PPM.
To assure that remote cutaways and personal appearances work flawlessly, work with sales to structure breaks and script remote breaks; The Lund Remote Stylebookoutlines structure and ingredients of an effective remote.
Fri., 5/18
Memorial Day Weekend starts one week from today. What Big Event are you doing?
Streaming Premieres – Netflix has several debuts including the second season of Thirteen Reasons Why, zombie movie Cargo, rom-com Catching Feelings and
animated reboot Inspector Gadget.
Movie Premieres – Deadpool 2 and Book Club.
Sat.-Sun., 5/19-20
This weekend, monitor weekend programming and talents.
TV Premiere – Saturday, HBO debuts the film adaptation of the book Fahrenheit 451.
TV Specials – On Saturday, many stations will be covering the wedding of Prince Harry and Meghan Markle, including CBS, HBO, and E! On Sunday on NBC, Kelly Clarkson hosts the 2018 Billboard Music Awards.
Mon., 5/21
Check Facebook… what kind of posts get the best/most response from listeners?
TV Special – The 2018 Miss USA pageant will be aired on Fox and hosted by Vanessa and Nick Lachey.
Tues., 5/22
Today’s programming meeting… Ask talents to identify the station’s “uniqueness” from a listener’s point-of-view. What makes us special?
Update station’s website. Does the site promote the Memorial Weekend fun listeners will get to have with the station?
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 t
alk, 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.