The Onion does it again. You’ve no doubt seen their satires and parodies of everything from politics to sports. Now it’s radio. Check out their recent send-up of a typical DJ break, and then contrast it with our Keith Cunningham’s recent piece in R&R about how jocks will need to modify their approaches in a PPM world.
Clearly, there are aspects of PPM that will unfortunately lead programmers down the path of eliminating interruptions and content in the hope of creating a seamless listening environment. But at what point does consistency begat predictability which begats boredom which begats turnout?
Here’s Keith Cunningham’s article from R&R:
Jacobs Media morning show and talent development specialist Keith Cunningham, who works in the trenches with jocks every day, isn’t sure that air talent jobs have changed all that much with the Portable People Meter. While “jocks need to be more ‘sticky’ than they ever have been,” he says, the “PPM, as we all know, is showing us a lot of things, but at the root of it—as it pertains to jocks—it’s an extremely strong reminder that the role of a jock is critical. And as boring as it sounds, the triedand-true fundamentals need to be better than ever in a PPM world. I know that’s not breaking new ground or exciting to anyone, but that’s the truth.” That said, Cunningham offers three fundamentals that he says should be top-of-mind with on-air personalities, whether or not they continue to be in a diary market for the next several years or have joined the PPM world.
Forwarding Audience To The Next Quarter Hour
“Saying things like ‘Green Day is next’ or ‘We’ll be right back’ is the kind of crap that is just not going to cut it. It’s been a lazy crutch for many years, but there are still an awful lot of jocks that are not effectively forwarding or recycling the audience to the next quarter-hour or next hour. PPM will show that it’s all about what is coming up next. It’s not about what has already happened or what some people may have missed. “If you’re a jock on a music station and you say, ‘I’ve got Nirvana and Pearl Jam coming up next; don’t go anywhere,’ that is old-school, clichéd, uninteresting radio. There’s nothing compelling or unique about that. There are a lot of sources out there that have Nirvana and Pearl Jam, not the least of which are personal MP3 players. So a jock would be better off saying something like this: ‘Hey, you want the new Radiohead music for free? I’ll give you the URL and all of the details in a few minutes.’ At least in that regard, the jock is trying to set an appointment for a few minutes from now, and they’ll be giving the audience some information that they can use.”Better Show Prep
“PPM will clearly punish those that aren’t prepared. And while that may sound harsh, every second of airtime should count in these days of endless choices. Jocks can’t think they can just wing it all day long or lose grasp of the big picture. They need to realize that radio is truly entertainment and they’re disrespecting the listener’s time. “Even if it’s just a speed break, jocks should be scrutinizing themselves by asking ahead of time if they can say something in a more compelling manner.”More Effective Marketing
“PPM loves listening events. In order to create them, where there is a critical mass of audience, stations and jocks need to more effectively market their events. If there is a big guest coming up on tomorrow’s morning show, it has to be promoted with enormous frequency to really turn it into a listening event. A lot of stations think they can just promote their morning show every other hour. But think about when you’re watching your favorite prime-time TV show. How many promos do you see for the news coming up at 11 o’clock? “Another tip: If there is a special weekend coming up, don’t start promoting the old way: late on a Thursday or early Friday. Do it farther out and make it an event and start promoting it on Monday or even the weekend prior. If listening is as truly passive as PPM makes it out to be, our frequency of mentions needs to increase to get someone to act.”
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