In May, KMVQ (99.7 Now) San Francisco PD Jim Archer told the CHR panel attendees at Radiodays North America that “the people who are left [listening to radio] are the people who want to be here.” That allows him to program to people who are “listening closely,” rather than “the lowest common denominator.”
Of the things said about radio recently, the notion of programming to radio’s actual superfans is the one that has most stayed with me. (Archer’s panel continues to ripple; Hubbard Radio EVP/programming Greg Strassell brought it up at MSBC in Austin last week.) I thought about it again Tuesday when the July PPM ratings came back for Triple-A WXPN Philadelphia as that station was celebrating Vinyl Day on-air by going even more eclectic than usual.
On the air, WXPN was letting not just its air staff but Triple-A artists, local record-store owners, and a winning listener dig in the crates. When acting PD Jim McGuinn devoted the last hour to 1966-68, he played one of the era’s ultimate oddities, “An Open Letter to My Teenage Son” by Victor Lundburg, and two answer records. He also hit on enough relatively obscure faves of mine — “Shake” by Shadows of Knight and “(I Wanna) Testify” by the Parliaments – to the point where I wondered if we had somehow discussed them before.
Off the air, WXPN was up 3.6-4.3. Despite being adventurous even during regular programming, it was eighth in the market, ahead of Country WXTU, both Classic/Adult Hits stations, and both the Mainstream and Adult CHR. I write a lot about both KMVQ and WXPN. I’m coming back to them again this soon because Archer’s comments resonate now.
WXPN is very much a station for people who have chosen radio. Over the last five years, nearly every PPM monthly seems to bring one success story involving a station in seeming violation of conventional programming rules. If that doesn’t turn out to be WXPN next month, it will be somebody else. (Check out this success story from the spring diary markets.) That got me thinking about what else you would do if you were programming through a filter where everything was “for people who choose radio.”
If we were programming deliberately for people who love radio, we wouldn’t be afraid to curate music and advocate for us. It’s one of the things they expect from us. Top 40 in particular has tended to view its audience as “the people who are left listening to radio.” In an effort to meet that audience where we think they are, Top 40 has ended up in a place of being slower and more recurrent/library-based than ever. Now, ratings are showing us daily that neither passive nor active CHR listeners are happy. We’ve tried to use streaming alone as a proxy for active listeners, but that alone isn’t providing enough hits either, in part because plenty of passive listeners have become streamers as well.
It has been amply documented for years that older songs remain popular after they peak, we shouldn’t misinterpret that as “so I want nothing new from you.” Pop listeners aren’t necessarily expecting CHR to bust out “Breakaway” by Big Pig or the Patti Smith double-play I also heard on WXPN, but they are coming with an element of trust. If you went to a the house of a friend with good taste in music, you would probably look forward to hearing something new and be disappointed if they put on the exact same album every time.
If we programmed for people who love radio, we would make sure they had the best possible radio experience when they listened, rather than an offhand, bare-bones presentation meant to replicate USPs. We already know the building blocks: companionship, humor, entertainment, community (whether geographic or otherwise), sense of place. They all mean more to the people who stayed. Also, we would thank them more often for listening.
If we programmed for people who chose radio, we wouldn’t mistake their continued interest for weakness. We would make sure that the radio experience was consistent across the dayparts, even if the weather emergency or artist passing took place on a weekend. We would still address both the quality and quantity of spots. We would want to be appreciated, not merely tolerated. “Program to the passionate and you will acquire the passive,” wrote RCP’s Ron Harrell, when I asked Facebook friends for their thoughts.
The best news is that super-serving radio’s fans isn’t more complicated than doing what we know to be good radio already. The challenge is doing good radio under our current circumstances. But we complicate it with the notion that maybe we don’t want to do good radio. Radio’s audience, we constantly remind ourselves, is siphoned but still substantial. Do we respect them the way they respect us?
This story first appeared on radioinsight.com