It’s normal to freak out a little when a new station, personality, or show signs on. The radio pie is already sliced pretty thin, and head-to-head competition is more common than ever. Somebody new just pulled up a chair to a table that was already crowded. So how should you react when a competitor attacks? There are 6 ways to win a programming battle when you’re attacked, and here’s the part nobody tells you: a new direct competitor can actually grow your share if you play it right.
Wait. That can’t be right. Every direct competitor cuts into your numbers, doesn’t it? Logical. Just not necessarily accurate.
Yes, a new show in your format will probably share listening with you. A good chunk of your audience will find them and check them out. Curiosity is undefeated. But sampling doesn’t disappear. Losing a few listening occasions is not the same thing as losing a listener. So step back, evaluate strategically, and let’s win this programming battle.
How To Win A Programming Battle: First, A Reality Check
The most important thing to remember when a new competitor launches is this: you are far more aware of them than your audience is.
To you, sitting in the trenches, it’s a seismic event. It’s all anybody in the building can talk about. Trade press. Group texts. Somebody’s already made a spreadsheet.
To the listener? It’s a new button. Maybe.
They are not following the radio wars. They don’t know your format strategy, nor do they care. They’ve never seen a perceptual study, and they could not name your program director under torture. They just want the drive home to not suck.
So before you launch an aggressive campaign that confuses the audience you already have, step back and take a breath. A deep one.
Remember the math: up to 90% of your ratings share comes from roughly 10% of your cume. You don’t lose your P1s, your ride-or-dies, the people who set your station as the alarm clock quickly or easily. Those fans do not flip because something shiny showed up on the dial.
You may lose some TSL as listeners discover another option that fits their taste, and probably will. Such are the consequences of war. Most listeners are button-punchers by nature. Short-term erosion is possible and mostly unavoidable. Plan for it emotionally so you don’t panic when it shows up in a monthly.
But quarter-hours come from a lot of places. As long as your brand is strong, your cume holds. Just because there’s another option your audience enjoys doesn’t mean they like you less. It means there’s another option. That can dent you. It can’t cripple you.
And here’s the upside nobody puts on the whiteboard: as the new competitor pulls cume from multiple stations across the market, they become a new source of cume for you. They’re out there doing marketing, buying billboards, and stirring up interest in your genre — and some of those newly interested people are going to end up on your station. Pepsi has never once put Coke out of business. If anything, they keep reminding everybody that cola exists.
Every competitive situation is different. But there are guidelines.
Start by making sure you avoid the three ways to lose a direct battle. Then turn your attention inward and go dominate your own brand position.
Here are 6 ways to win a programming battle.
1. Know Yourself
New competition is nothing to fear. Play your own game.
Don’t let a new station dictate how you program yours. If you’re locked into your target audience, have a clear vision for holding that audience, and have kept adjusting as their preferences shift, a new competitor shouldn’t move you an inch.
Every station should be constantly evolving anyway. If you’ve kept pace with your listeners, congratulations: you were preparing for this battle before you knew there was one. Bring it on.
Now the warning. Be extremely careful about making changes in reaction to another station. When you start tinkering with your brand because the new guy showed up with something shiny, everything gets unsettled, and that goes for activity inside the building and outside of it.
Here’s why that’s dangerous. Anytime you make a significant adjustment, listeners tend to hear it as a negative at first. Not because it’s worse. Because it’s different. Familiarity is an important ingredient, and when you start changing things, you’re inviting your audience to reconsider their choice. So they start pushing buttons.
Think about that. The very moves you make to fight the new competitor could be the thing that delivers listeners to them.
Restaurants don’t change the recipe the week a new place opens across the street. They make sure the kitchen is sharp, and the regulars feel like regulars.
Know Your Enemy
In today’s world, it’s easy to know almost everything about a competitor, often before they ever hit the air.
If it’s one of the major companies, odds are strong the new station will follow a playbook they’ve already run in other markets. Find those markets. Listen to those stations. You can map out most of what’s coming and prepare for it.
If they hire high-profile personalities, do your homework. Listen carefully to their previous work. What are their strengths? Where do they get lazy? What’s been the key to their success? Who do they really appeal to, and is that the same person you’re targeting or just a similar-looking one on paper?
The most valuable question: are they good at something that’s a weakness for you? That’s the gap they’ll attack. Close it before they find it.
None of this means changing your strategy. It means not being surprised. There may also be some blocking tactics you can put in place. Knowing your enemy turns a shock into a scheduled event, and scheduled events are much easier to manage.
