Plan Your Show

What will you talk about?  What do your listeners care about?  Where do you get your content?

Local content is best. Regardless of the daypart, plan on having at least two local elements per hour.  We call them “localisms.”  Use our Local Content Grid to plan and deliver local elements.

Local Content Grid 

Your Town	Anything hometown, local references, weather, traffic conditions, school closings, gas prices, new stores, iconic stores closing, road construction and delays, local concerts, artists, and celebrities in town.
Listener Focus	Define your target audience and address their interests. Include references to the audience, the audience’s lifestyle and leisure activities, cities/towns, requests, encounters, and social media.
Passion	A positive, upbeat mention of the music, enthusiasm, and your connection to the music. Be a “cheerleader” of your daily show, station events, and promotions.
Music Variety	References to library size, number of artists, new music discovery, and different genres.
Telling stories	About the artist or song – historical or personal.  Find local stories from your social media review and your interactions at station promotions and regional events.  Look for “local angles” in national stories.
Experience	Your listeners can get something unique, backstage/meet the artist, pre-sales, first in line to get in, or inside info.  This is better than promoting mere “I got tickets.”
Special	A special program or feature reference. Promote its benefit to the listener.
What’s New	News about the station, artist news, local celebrities, format, and core audience.
What’s Now	Current references to the music/artists are found in pop culture, news, TV shows, movies, podcasts, TikTok, and YouTube.
What’s Next	Mention what’s coming up in the next set, hour, or tomorrow at this time.  Promoting ahead builds TSL.

Programming Science

+   Listeners want to feel connected to their community and favorite music.

+   Listeners are music fans.  Create ways to make breaks more meaningful with enticing promote-ahead teases.

+   Present creative features that get attention.  Do them daily at a specific time.  Promote immediately after the feature when it airs again.

+   The three most important words when promoting ahead on a music, sports, or news station are “New, Now, and Next.” 

Plan Forward Momentum

>    Listeners come and go.  Make listening appointments to extend the listening duration and increase listening occasions.

>    Deliver benefit-oriented promote-aheads into stopsets, not just the artist name or feature/benchmark name. Avoid a list; stick to promoting one element.

>    Tease what’s next.  Go further than saying “(Artist) is next” or a generic feature name.  Create enticing song teases; use Songfacts.com.

>    Only promote ahead the next song/artist; don’t deliver a shopping list of what’s coming up.  Keep within the next 10-minute window.

Gain More Listeners & Better Ratings

+   Have consistent station branding and positioning.  Say the station name 30-40 times an hour, especially in diary markets.

+   Brand all features with the station name.

+   Every hour, promote at-work listening, the website (especially it’s streaming), and your station app web stream.

+   Promote other shows, station events, and contests.

+   When promoting ahead, promote a reason to listen in the next segment, next hour, next show, and tomorrow.

+   Give frequent time checks and weather mentions in the morning.

+   Strive to capture listener interaction – via the phone, email, web, text, IM, App, Facebook, Instagram, Snapchat, and Twitter.

+   Display listener interaction on the air, ideally two phone calls or listener voices an hour in live and voice-track shows.

+   Reflect enthusiasm, energy, and local relatability in each show. 

Digital & Social

>    Establish a Facebook profile for your specific listening audience.  You can “mine” their social interactions for content ideas.  Facebook interaction should be promoted; watch for sporadic posting.

>    The fastest growing segment of Facebook is people over 40.

>    Have a strong social and digital experience.

>    Send texts or blasts to your app database promoting a special event, contest, or benchmark on the station.  For Sports Talk, promote the start of a game or coach interview.

John Lund is President of the Lund Media Group, a radio programming, broadcast consulting, and research firm with specialists in all mainstream radio formats. You can leave a comment below or email him at John@Lundradio.com.