People brighten their houses with a new coat of paint, shampoo the rugs, and Simonize their cars to make them shine. While your station may need painting and rug cleaning, and the station van needs waxing, what do you do with your programming to brighten the sound? Here are some ideas to spike listening and increase your ratings:
+ Conduct a brainstorming session with your staff to look for new ideas, promotions, and topical prizes for fall. What could we do to create talk and tune in – something that we’ve never done before?
+ Create a new contest or promotion – one you haven’t done in a year or two and sell it to a new client.
+ Change the music rotations so songs come up in a different order. Consider dropping all Secondaries and just play the Powers.
+ Refresh your imaging. Add a second voice, like a female added to your male voice (depending on the format). Add creative imaging so you’re not just saying the station name and slogan between songs. Make some of your imaging fun and funny so it stands out.
+ Don’t allow your imaging voice to be heard more often than your air talents. Cut your dependence on produced imaging and have the on-air talent talk between songs more often. Talk briefly about a local event, the artist, the weather, and topics that help the talent sound live and local.
+ Create a new morning show benchmark or contest; develop a new character for the show, which could be a serial caller.
+ If you do a special event every year, create a new twist and reinvent the event for which the station is famous.
+ Research your station’s audience beyond music testing. Survey to find out what your listeners want from your station – and what makes it special. Why do listeners invest time with you? What can you do to make your station better?
+ For gold-based formats, reshuffle the deck. Re-sort your music so Secondaries may become Powers, Powers may become Secondaries or some Secondaries may be rested and replaced by new Secondaries.
+ For current-based formats, create imaging to make an on-air event for the airing of new songs by hot artists. Play imaging before the song to build excitement on its release and play the song frequently in the first week of release.
Great stations sound great every day and work to meet the high expectations of the audience and the client community.
Pic designed by SenivPetro for Freepik.com.
John Lund is President of the Lund Media Group, a radio programming consulting firm with specialists in all mainstream radio formats. Did you find this article useful? You can leave a comment below or email John at John@Lundradio.com.