John Lund
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Your music library may be filled with powerhouse songs your audience loves—but if your tempo settings are flawed, your station can still sound boring. One of the biggest hidden problems in many music logs is “tempo stacking,” slow songs that never schedule, or clumps of ballads or boomers killing your energy in the wrong quarter-hour.
Every winning station, in a large or small market, has the same mission: get more people to listen, and get them to listen longer. There are only two ways to grow ratings, and both require intention. Great stations stretch listening horizontally and vertically.
Before choosing the prize, define the mission: What listening habit are we trying to create? Avoid the backwards approach of “we’ve got this prize… now what?”
As listening patterns shift and festive moods kick in, now is the time to position your station as the “soundtrack of the season.” Whether you flip to All-Christmas or sprinkle in holiday favorites each hour, these proven guidelines will help you sleigh… er… slay the season.
Great radio doesn’t happen by accident. Winning stations follow a clear strategy, executed with discipline and passion every hour of every day. That begins with one essential tool: a Programming Format Playbook that defines exactly how your station sounds. When every member of the airstaff is aligned around a written Playbook, consistency becomes repeatable — and excellence becomes standard.
In today’s media world, your listeners are flooded with information before they even get out of bed. Many now say their primary news source is social media, especially Facebook, Instagram, and TikTok. So how does radio break through the noise and earn attention? By choosing the right stories and presenting them in the right sequence.
Music scheduling software gives programmers several tools to control rotations, and one of the most effective—but often misused—is packeting. Packeting two or more songs inside the same category so they share a single rotation position.
When planning your contests and benchmarks, you’ll improve ratings by following two simple adages. “Fish where the fish are” and “use the right bait.”
Listen to your talents execute a talk set and time when they start talking. How long does it take before they express interesting content? If it’s over 8-seconds, you are losing listeners.
PDs make time for the DJs, display a genuine interest, and help them perform better. Conduct a critique session at least once a week. Consider these guidelines for analyzing airchecks and offering guidance.
