This week's "The Letter" All Access newsletter talks about some stuff mostly of interest to talk show hosts in particular, but the heart of the thing is this: some people won't ever be happy with what you do unless you do only exactly what they want to hear. Those are the core listeners, also known in the industry by the terrible jargon code "P1s." A lot of program directors think that the way to success is to give those folks what they want, but in some cases- liberal talk comes to mind- giving them what they want by its very nature will send other, less committed folks packing. I hear this all the time- the core wants nothing but "Bush is evil/Bushitler/Karl Rove is evil/Bushitler/Cheney is evil" talk, and that doesn't wear well with the larger group of available listeners who might not like the President much but don't obsess over him or Rove or Cheney or Iraq. Give the "P1s" what they want and you lose a lot more people than you keep. And where are the P1s gonna go if you aren't Bush-bashing?
But what do I know? I'm just an ex-Program Director:
How do you decide what to talk about on the air?
I don't mean specifically what you talk about on a particular day. I mean, how do you decide the general topic range for your show? What's in your wheelhouse, so to speak? How do you decide that you're a strictly hard-politics show, or a lifestyle show, or a sex-n-beer-n-sports show? For a lot of you, that decision has been made for you- your station has a demo target, you were hired to reach those folks, end of story.
But that's NOT the end of the story, because even if you know that you're trying to reach a particular demographic- say, 43 year old left-handed Republicans between 5'8" and 6'2"- the task then becomes determining what those 43 year old left-handed Republicans between 5'8" and 6'2" want to hear. And this, folks, is where you can get in trouble. Let's go over some of the ways you might determine what your audience wants to hear:
1. Research: There's some good research out there, yes, but there's a lot of bad research out there, too. I have a particular problem with focus groups, which are panels of people in your ostensible target demo assembled by an expert to tell you precisely what the moderator thinks you want to hear, or, more importantly, what your General Manager wants to hear, because that's who probably ordered the thing in the first place. (This is how you can tell a format change is coming: the focus group suddenly starts talking about how great the station would be if it "had more of the best variety of the 80s, 90s, and today" and, shortly thereafter, the GM asks if you were planning to take some vacation days anytime soon) But if you can get your station to spring for statistically valid research of topics and community concerns, go for it. GMs may not want to spend the money on research for talk radio, but if they spend the money on auditorium tests and callout for music, why shouldn't they support their talk stations, too?
2. Volume Of Calls: No, no, no, no, no. Want lots of calls? Just open the mike, say "abortion!" or "gun control!" or "Terrell Owens!" and you'll get calls aplenty, especially from special interest groups who listen for any mention of their pet topic and spread the word for their compatriots to flood the lines. (Okay, I'm not aware of organized callers for or against T.O., but definitely for and against abortion and gun control) Actual, regular listeners, the kind likely to get ratings diaries, will tune away. The goal is to get GOOD calls.
3. Keeping Your "Ear To The Ground": Time was that you'd find out what your listeners wanted by going out to where they are- bars, malls, grocery stores- and talking to people. Now, you can use the Internet to see what's hot, hip, an' happenin'. Some sites make it easier by ranking "most e-mailed" stories, and you can go to one of the sites that rank popular stories and stuff blogs are blogging about. Although perhaps you should ask yourself whether the folks who spend enough time on the Net to post messages on boards and pass around stories are really representative of the kind of folks who listen. (And this reminds me: a LOT of people I talk to in this business get caught up in what gets posted about radio on various radio message boards, including the ones on All Access and some others. If you get aggravated by what you see there, or if you find yourself getting paranoid when someone posts rumors about you or suggests you should/might be fired, stop reading them. It's probably some board op or someone you fired years ago, anyway. Remember: they're fine for entertainment purposes. If you take them more seriously, you get the blood pressure you deserve) And speaking as a blogger (gratuitous plug: pmsimon.com), there's no practical way to tell whether a topic that has bloggers buzzing also has others- your listeners- buzzing, too. I suggest you go to the bars, malls, and grocery stores and observe- you'll get a better read on who your listeners are and what they really care about. Use the Net, use personal observation, use them together.
4. Listening To The "P1s": Keeping in mind how much I hate jargon like "P1s," let's look at the core audience for a second. I know some good PDs who preach the gospel of superserving the P1s, and that's fine, except that it can get you into deep trouble. For some stations' P1s, there's nothing you can do to make them happy except to talk incessantly about their pet topics, which could in turn blow off the larger potential casual audience. While you're making the P1s happy, you're sending everyone else running. In that case, you'd better have millions of P1s.
And then there's the method I like the best, which is this: get a life. Go out and do what your listeners do. The best way to gauge what your listeners are thinking- what they're interested in talking about- is to do the kind of stuff they do. Take the kids to after-school activities. Go to the post office. Try to get help at the Home Depot. Shop for groceries, call the cable company for service, apply for a mortgage refinance. Do all of that, and think about where your mind was when you were just getting through each day. When you think about topics, use that filter. Ask yourself this: if I'm doing what my listeners are doing every day, would I care about this topic? Would I be entertained? Do that, and someday you'll be so successful and rich that you'll be able to live on an exclusive oceanfront estate with a limo and private jet and people whose job it is to do all those annoying daily chores for you. And you can ask your people what your listeners are thinking. You'll be far too wealthy and important to do it yourself.
But while you're still you, and you don't have "people" to think for you, you'll want some help coming up with topics, and where better to find them than Talk Topics at All Access News-Talk-Sports? This week, it's the End of Summer edition and Everything Must Go with stories about the ten things to do before the Summer's over, why some sunscreen may actually be worse than none at all, a thrilling tale of workplace revenge gone horribly wrong, a hotel with few amenities but maybe the best view ever, why the British government is bugging garbage cans, an amazing development in food science: frozen pizza with pop-up timers, why to take the latest "Americans are getting fat" story with a grain of salt, why your basic blue corner mailbox may be a thing of the past, the confluence of stem cells and soccer, why you probably don't want to be text messaging while operating a moving car (especially when a cop happens to be in front of you), and the saga of "Lil Dirty" and the prison sink, plus "real news" items and the usual stupid jokes and comments designed to help you get your show on, as well as the rest of All Access with the industry's undisputed first/best/fastest news source, Net News, and the Industry Directory and Mediabase charts and all sorts of other resources that would be well worth paying for if you had to, but they're all free. Really.
Hey, there's a long weekend coming up! For me, a long weekend is a day and a half, and I intend to take full advantage of it, assuming that the plumbers are finished replacing the bathroom sinks and fixing another sink and replacing the leaky water heater. No, I don't have that exclusive oceanfront estate with a limo and private jet and people whose job it is to do all those annoying daily chores for me. I'm on my own. I like to think of it as "show research."
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