The Magic of Radio and Making It Work for You

As I progressed through my radio broadcasting career I often wondered what made some radio stations sound really great and why other radio stations sounded very mundane and ordinary. It was only when I started to ask the questions of those who worked in those stations that it started to dawn on me that the process of making the station sound great was a strategy undertaken and implemented by the management of those stations. The stations that weren’t sounding so good also had something in common. They had no strategy on how the station was perceived by their listeners and left that process to chance.

It is my view that radio is very special. It is intrusive, it is respected and it is valued. It is a medium that can be manipulated in ways that can really affect those who listen to it and can do so on many different levels. Let’s look at radio from a listener point of view, someone who is not interested in the inner workings of a station, someone who is not interested in how radio broadcasting is achieved but is only interested in the result in terms of information and entertainment. This listener is the person who believes in what we broadcasters like to call ‘the magic of radio’.

The Movies

To understand ‘the magic of radio’ you need to understand that it is a creative process. So let’s look at a different industry that uses a creative process to make a product that people buy into on a worldwide basis. The movie industry is built on simple theory. The success of the industry is based on the fact that people watch movies to be entertained, have a bit of fun, to get away from their real life, to forget about their problems for a few hours. They enter a world that is not real. A world they know is not real but they go anyway. Movie experts call this ‘the willing suspension of disbelief’. Moviegoers willingly leave their ordinary, analytical, cynical minds behind and pay to enter an unreal world created by the moviemaker … why? They want to be entertained. These moviegoers are not interested in the multi-million-pound process used to make the movie. They are only interested in the result of that process. They are willing to believe the story the moviemaker is telling them (willingly suspend their disbelief) while they watch the movie… why? They want to be entertained. Is it a coincidence that the two biggest movies ever in terms of creativity, TITANIC and AVATAR, were created by the same person…? James Cameron. When he was asked what he does he answered... 'I entertain people'

Create Good Radio

Radio is a creative process too and the extent of that creativity changes the perception that listeners have of your station. Listeners respond to radio in the same way as the respond to the movies. They want to be entertained and the vast majority of your listeners are willing to believe in what you do on air if you are entertaining them. So why do some stations sound great and others don’t? It is down to creativity, the magic you produce on your station that allows the listener to feel good about what you do; enjoy what you do for them and how special you make them feel. Here's the difference between a station sounding great and a station sounding mundane. If you are a radio manager its one area where you can have a huge impact on listeners and make money at the same time. Give them something extraordinary, something different, and something that will affect or change their lives for a short period of time. Loads of radio stations run competitions on air, tickets for this, tickets for that, win this CD, win that CD and so on. These competitions and prizes are mundane and boring and usually run at programme level as opposed at station level. They do not impact on the audience as a whole and do not get them talking about your station. Promotions must run at station level and affect the audience across all time segments and culminate in one big event on air to have the required impact.

Sounding Big

Once, I ran a promotion over one month that culminated in two big on-air events on week two and week four of that promotion. It was called FLY TO WORK FRIDAY. The promotion was a station event and every programme was involved. Trails were made and broadcast every hour saying that instead of the usual drudge to work on Friday, 102FM will get you to work in style …by helicopter.
There was also a script created for presenters instructed to talk about the event and mention the extras like picking the winner up in a Ferrari and taking them to the airport via the local racetrack and how they would be treated to a top-class breakfast before the flight. One winner was nominated each day of week. Each winner was picked by being first on the phone when they heard a particular song that was related to flying played sometime between 6am and 6pm. The culmination of the event happened on the breakfast show live with each stage broadcast on the show throughout the morning. As far as the listener was concerned it was a two-week promotion with one prize. It wasn’t until the Monday of week three that we ran trails says that it was so much fun the first time, we are going to do it all… again.
This promotion sounded fantastic on air, listeners talked about it and took part in their droves, presenters loved it and an advertiser paid to be associated with it. All of this was based on the fact that the station had access to a company who had a helicopter and arranged the two flights required and also was able to have the use of a Ferrari and driver from a local enthusiast club.
Now… before you say that you are a small community station and can’t do this sort of stuff, this promotion ran on a small rural station in Ireland with a single town broadcast area with a population of 21000. It was very successful in growing the stations’ goal of ‘being small but sounding big’ and reinforced that perception in the listener’s mind. Feel free to use this promotion concept because I know it works.