Your Show Is Under Attack

Broadcast radio is sharing more and more audience with streaming music and podcasts. You will share more in-car audience in the future with video, books, and games as self-driving autos take the road.

Consider moving away from old-school tactics for a greater return on investment.

1. Designated caller or text contests.  Study Nielsen data and you will see that radio giveaways have little or no effect on audience behavior.  Instead,  play interactive games with entertainment value where the audience can play along in their head or just enjoy others having fun, like in these examples from  Ellen  or  The Tonight Show  with  Jimmy Fallon.
2. Remotes and appearances.  If you are shaking hands and kissing babies to get ratings, stop. Do the math on your market population and the minuscule number of Nielsen respondents in play, and you will see that it might take 10,000 street hits to have any effect.  Instead,  take the station van out  only  to get compelling content for your on-air/social media, or if your brand will be introduced to large (5000+) groups of potential P1s. Reclaim that time in traffic to work on your podcast. The exception is paid remotes, which drive revenue and run in commercial time. Do those  often.
3. Resort broadcasts.  It is tempting to give your show over to a week-long infomercial in exchange for a free vacation. Avoid looking at your ratings for that week because it will spoil your trip.  Instead , stay home and negotiate with the resort to give away all the trips to listeners through interactive games, or offer trips to support a worthwhile charity. Give the resort promos instead of show time. Then, buy a  better  trip with your ratings bonus.
4. Traffic reports and weather.  Listeners have apps for that. Instead,  cover weather forecasts only for the next 8-12 hours, unless there is a storm. If you have sponsored traffic updates, cover only major accidents and run it late in the commercial cluster.
5. Celebrity and show business news.  TV viewership is at an all-time low with young adults, and there are fewer celebrities that everyone cares about today.  Instead,  run “Hollywood Sleaze” type features less often; do one or two stories instead of three or four. Consider airing them only when you have dramatic stories –  and audio .

Photo Credit: Flickr.com/photos/emmandevin/