COUNTER-PROGRAMMING YOURSELF OUT OF A JOB

Counter programming. Incorporating tactics specifically designed to counter the strength of a competing radio station. We've all done it. 'Nothing wrong with it. Sometimes it's essential to survival. Sometimes, though, it's suicidal.

No matter how good the motivation to counter-program a competitor, it is inherently a defensive move, a follower's tactic. Instead of being motivated by your audience's expectations of your brand, you're making a move to blunt the impact of a competitor. Often these moves are inconsistent with your own brand identity. Then you're chipping away at yourself, with little to gain. There is almost always damage to your own brand, so you better think it out.

Right off the bat, if you're the market leader in your format, it's probably a good rule of thumb to never counter-program. Ever! That's right, never! Just like Coca-Cola does best when they concentrate on being Coke and just promote drinking soda, like McDonalds was at it's best just being Mickey D's and pushing the burger market to new heights, as Budweiser soared highest when they were content to be the King of Beers and promote drinking beer in general, a healthy, well-branded radio station that leads it's marketplace and commands true audience loyalty is best to worry about their own brand, and promote their own format. If you're the top CHR in town and the listening audience for hit radio is growing, your audience is going to be growing. Don't be distracted by an also ran, even one with the sex appeal of being "new". And, for heaven's sake, don't be distracted by a non-format competitor. That's a guaranteed disaster!

Look, it's better to be first than to be better, that's basic Ries & Trout stuff. The old adage "it's easier to get to number one than to stay number one" is exactly wrong. Historically, once you attain number one in your category it takes something catastrophic on your part, usually combined with something majestic on the part of a competitor, to topple you. Be true to your brand, be true to your audience, be the best you can be at being you and ride it out. You'll come out on top! Start changing to counter the also-ran and you just might end up being the also-ran. Start changing to compete with stations you were never meant to compete with and you'll most definitely end up an also-ran.

I recall the 94Z Raleigh story. They came out of the box around 1984 or 1985, guns blazing, big marketing budget, hipper, cooler and fresher than the market's legendary format leader, G105. 94Z was also riding the crest of the Z100 wave, complete with a very funny Morning Zoo, while G105 was hanging with market legend John Van Pelt. With each book, the challenger drew closer to the champion, finally pulling even. Then, the master stroke. 94Z hired Van Pelt away from G105, putting him in afternoon drive, while leaving their very impressive Morning Zoo in place. The pale of death was in the air...until the next ratings came out. G105, sans Van Pelt, still bounced up. 94Z went down for the first time ever. And the trend continued. The last time I checked, G105 still dominates the format in Raleigh/Durham/Chapel Hill. 94Z was out of the format before the end of the eighties.

For second tier stations, effective counter programming can serve a purpose, in small doses. Primarily it helps to create an association with the format leader in the format listener's mind. Oh, Station B is doing that like (or because, or instead of) Station A. Ahh, Station B must be like Station A (as in, a station for me to consider). Let's be honest, all counter programming can be categorized as either imitation or insulting. You're trying to do something they do, or putting down something they do. Either way, you're really just drawing a comparison for the format's listeners. (Again I ask, why would a format leader do this?)

Even with second tier stations, counter programming has it's limits. Ultimately, you have to establish your own identity, legitimate reasons for listeners to be passionate about you. Being like your competitor isn't going to do it, unless you're content being the first place they go for a song when their favorite station happens to be playing something they don't like.

For whatever reason, most of my programming career has found me taking the reigns at fallen heritage stations, where I was then charged with restoring them to their past glory. On more than one occasion I arrived on the scene to discover a station that was nothing more than a collection of counter programming tactics. Everything they were doing was in response to something that was happening on another radio station in the market, often in a different format. (On a positive note, if you find yourself in this situation, it's incredibly easy to fix it, and make yourself look like a genius!).

I've known GM's and programmers who revamped the station's music library and position based on the website of a non-format competitor. I've known PDs who'd add any "classic" song they heard on a competitor. I've known stations who's entire promotional campaigns were always duplicates of their competitors campaigns by design. I've known of one market leading PD who would make changes to his station anytime the brash upstart made fun of something they were doing on the air. In his case, he was played by his challenger like a violin. The more logical something he did was, the more likely his competitor was to lampoon it, and every time, he changed it...until his station fell in the ratings and he lost his job.

If I've got the market's format leader I'm not counter-programming anyone, ever! Period! If I'm occupying a different rung on the ladder, I will use counter-programming tactics carefully and infrequently, when it's been well thought out and it truly helps us blunt the strength of the market leader. And my format's market leader is the only station I'd ever consider counter-programming. And I don't mean a related format (Classic Rock isn't Active Rock isn't Mainstream Rock isn't Alternative; Traditional Country isn't Modern Country; CHR isn't AC isn't Hot AC, etc.). To do otherwise, I'm convinced, is to counter-program yourself out of a job!

PROGRAMMING PEOPLE, KNOW WHO YOUR FRIENDS ARE

I remember when MTV was new on the scene. As exciting as it was to have a 24/7 cable channel showing non-stop music videos, hosted by veejays, trying to add the video dimension to radio (remember that? MTV was like that once, right?), many of my peers in radio saw it as doom and gloom. (I guess it didn't help that they launched the channel with the Buggles' "Video Killed The Radio Star"). When Sirius and XM launched their first birds a few years back, the reaction in the terrestrial radio world was the same. I wonder why?

Oh, I get that they're new competition. But radio is all about time spent listening, so anything a prospective listener spends time with - another radio station, Sirius, MTV, NBC, the latest Harry Potter book, the toilet, or a quiet car ride in the country - is competition.

First of all, competition should make us better. It should drive us to rise to the occasion. Has it? I don't think so, at least not yet. We've let the accountants take the wheel, and they've reacted to increasing competition and a shrinking slice of the pie by cutting cost, and our ability to compete in this bold, new world. But that's not the point of this blog. Still, homogenized music playlist, the same, old boring imaging, jump through hoops promotions and liner jocks who are nothing more than schills for the station (or, worse yet, the advertisers) don't create a very compelling radio station. It's been years since I listened to the radio for pleasure when I was traveling. It has seemed like homework for two decades or more.

But the real point of this blog is, for those of us in the programming side of the business, these new mediums are opportunity. What? I'm supposed to be loyal to terrestrial radio? Like a Harris FM Transmitter is what got me all excited about the business in the first place. No, man. It was the connection. It was the relationships - the relationships between listener and station, listener and jock, it was the role that a really cool radio station played in your life. It was all the things about radio (mostly long lost things, I'm afraid) that made radio stations something people were passionate about. Come on, no one has a favorite TV station. 'Never did. TV stations, for all the power of that great medium, have always generated about the same level of passion among their viewers as insurance companies do with their customers. Yea, Allstate! Prudential sucks! Imagine hearing that cheer in a crowded bar one Friday night!

So, really, if you're driven to make that kind of one-on-one connection, if it's all about relationships with a listener and bringing out your personality, does it really matter if the deliver mechanism is an FM transmitter, an AM transmitter, a satellite, the Internet, a podcast or anything else. I'd rather do compelling radio on Citizens Band channel 14 than lackluster stuff on a 100,000-watt blowtorch.

The new mediums are just more opportunities for the talented people, and the passionate people, to work their magic. Welcome them. Embrace them. They're your friends. Ultimately, they still may drive over the air radio to get better. They also add to the potential employment market for good communicators. Either way, they well may empower you to do your thing more than terrestrial radio ever has on it's own.

ANOTHER NAIL IN OUR COFFINS

One of the common practices of modern radio is utilizing voice-track technology to share an air talent on multiple stations in the same market. Aside from the legitimate question of how high quality a performance one person can do when hosting multiple shows, there is another concern. These types of number-cruncher driven decision are easy to sell to management, but a real blow to the strength of the individual radio station's brand, and the given personality's credibility.

If we can get back to the real, long-lost meaning of the term "out of the box", I think you'll see my logic. Out of the box, by the way, doesn't mean "be creative". It means see things as your customers (in the case of radio programming, your listeners) see them. We work inside the box (the radio station, in this case). We see things from our perspective, "inside the box". Our listeners, on the other hand, are "outside the box". Their perspective is strikingly different from ours.

Listeners have favorite radio stations, but not favorite radio groups. Having a rock radio background, I've long known our core audience and the CHR core audience, even though they may share listening with each other, have an almost inverse definition of cool. Meanwhile, great radio stations have long been more than musical commodities - they've stood for certain things in their listeners minds. And they've stood against certain things. In the mid-80's, when we all were concerned about the famine in Ethiopia, a universal issue, rock radio listeners still didn't embrace USA For Africa's "We Are The World". Noble as it was, it was a cheesy pop song and the presence of some real rock stars on it didn't overcome the Lionel Ritchie/Michael Jackson association. Meanwhile, Nirvana's hits may have gotten airplay on the CHR stations, but their grunge lifestyle was toned down into a mere teenage fashion statement for that audience. Their anger, dispair and rage didn't cross over when their music did. These are just a couple of off the cup examples - we could do this all day.

The great personalities have always been advocates for the listener - period! They weren't schills for clients, they weren't voices for hire, they presented their station and the station's attitude and lifestyle with passion and conviction. They meant what they said and they thought like we thought (or at least they convinced us that they did). So imagine the devoted active rock listener discovering his favorite brother in arms air personality is simultaneously gushing over Lady Gaga's latest stunt on the local CHR station. Or the CHR devotee finding that "hot" girl on his station every afternoon is also playing Brad Paisley songs on the country station each night. Suddenly, our industry's greatest advocates, the air personalities, are reduced to schills, mere company men.

All actions and decisions have unintended ramifications. Part of good, long-term decision making is to try to think these through and anticipate them. Unfortunately, when budgets are tight and the pressure is on, we have an amazing (and self destructive) ability to talk ourselves into thinking anything is a good idea. (Sure, I'll stick my head in the oven. That should cut the cost of our natural gas bill, since my head will displace some of the gas, right?) These are trying times indeed, and we're all trying to cut cost in every way we can. But often times the money we save in the short term is spent on another nail in our own coffin. And where's the wisdom in that?