Programming Strategy

In today's rapidly changing landscape, radio broadcasters must evolve and adapt to maintain relevance and engage their listeners. At the heart of this evolution lies the crucial element of authenticity. Just as a chameleon...

If a radio station could reduce listener erosion, it could sustain ratings without marketing, promotion, or increased costs. Eliminating tune-out would cause listeners to become fans and rating nirvana would be within reach. The...

A headline like Double Your Ratings immediately seems like it will be followed by a comment like, "Get twice as many listeners." It doesn't seem possible, or at the very least it's unlikely. But...

Program Directors are notorious for establishing rules for their air staff. Programmers love to make programming rules. It makes things easier to manage, but programming rules suck the life out of the sound of...

Every year, more and more stations flip to all Christmas music. And they do it earlier and earlier. In many markets, multiple stations battle to win the position as the All-Christmas station. It seems...

A fundamental step in creating a show strategy is defining a target listener. A poorly defined target has caused many stations to fail. Stations should try to get to know the audience on a...

Details matter. Many small things add up to a big impact. Each individual small thing may not even be noticed by itself, but add them together and small things mean a lot. And often,...

The Holy Grail of radio programming is to convert cume to fans. After all, fans have infinitely more value in affecting TSL (time spent listening). Stations spend a lot of time fine-tuning a strategy...

Most programmers follow traditional programming thinking when setting up format clocks. They play The Ratings Game by stacking commercials in most advantageous positions (the Bow-Tie theory) and clear out certain quarter-hours when the most...