I’ve listened to eight brand new radio stations since last Friday. Holiday format changes are always a key moment when you write about or work in radio, and it’s a positive sign of radio’s reopening that there are even a few more than I’ve gotten to already. Two of the changes were to Classic Hip-Hop-based formats, and you can read about them here. One of them was WHKF (Real 99.3), which made me happy because it was bringing R&B/Hip-Hop back to Harrisburg, Pa., a market that keeps getting and losing R&B radio.
I heard new stations I liked over the Memorial Day weekend. I heard stations that pleasantly surprised me. But I have notes. I always have notes. A new radio station comes with new challenges on a new landscape. A new radio station comes with new responsibilities: Along with the music, it needs to sell radio itself, not just its own frequency. If our summer of guarded optimism continues, there will likely be even more format changes on July 4. Here are some thoughts on making them great ones.
A change won’t promote itself. As far back as 2007, I wrote an article on how format changes could no longer expect to be noticed by osmosis. With everything but the best, most galvanizing, most badly needed format change, the existing cume is more likely to complain about the old format than do the work of promoting the new one for you. Even in 2007, those format changes supported by TV were more likely to be noticed, something reinforced years later by the success of KISQ (the Breeze) San Francisco. But July 4 weekend allows so many reach-the-beaches opportunity, especially in a reopening North America, that there’s got to be some form of outside marketing.
Tell people what’s coming. You might have particular reasons for not wanting to tip your hand, but KHJ Los Angeles, perhaps the most famous format change of all time, survived rival KFWB’s attempts to pre-empt it, and an earlier-than-planned start.
Be the station of summer, especially this summer. Listeners want a summer. They want a relief valve. It’s good to be the station of summer (even if you’ve missed the first few weeks of it), and the station of a fresh start.
Make those launch promos count. Some stations are happy to just show up and run the new ID into the new format. I like the launch promo, if only to give the listeners an explanation of what’s happening, and offer a handshake. Some are loaded with portent and sound like they’re written for the station sales presentation, not the on-air moment. All should be written so that the version you run throughout the launch weekend isn’t longer than a spot and still makes sense out of its original context.
Begin as you mean to go on. New radio stations should be hosted from the beginning. Two of the eight radio stations I heard were hosted when I listened. Both were seemingly voice-tracked. One did a good job of not sounding overtly canned. (And, truthfully, it’s probably best to assemble that first hour in advance so it can be everything you want it to be.)
Being hosted at this moment is a radio station’s superpower, but being hosted in that first hour is important because it helps make the policy statement for, and explain the intended usage of the radio station. They can also be the ones making sure there’s localism from the beginning. Listener calls may not be the same issue they once were, but having somebody to field them is a good thing. Also, if you can get that authentic “I love your new station” audio, it will be far more valuable than the canned-sounding one in your imaging package.
But starting with the morning show is not ideal. After more than 15 years of helping launch new formats, I can say with confidence that nothing derails more station launches than starting at 6 a.m. with the morning team held over from the old format on their regular morning-show clock. Morning teams feel a need to do morning-show things, which runs counter to the purpose of explaining how to listen to the radio station. I’ve heard morning shows:
- Give far more weight to their existing bits and benchmarks—“brand-new radio station this morning, but we’ve still got celebrity gossip coming up”;
- Do the usual first-day-at-a-new-station bit about who’s going to mess up and say the old call letters first;
- Undercut the newness of the radio station by reminding you that nothing has really changed. “We’re like cockroaches; they can’t get rid of us.” Broadcasters typically aim for continuity in this situation, but maybe it should be, “We’ve made the switch to this new station and you should, too.”
Begin with a reasonable, sustainable music-quantity promise. It’s been nearly 40 years since WAPP New York taught us what happened after your Commercial-Free Summer, which did nothing to discourage stations from 10,000 Songs in a Row for launch after launch. Playing a lot of music on an ongoing basis needs to be part of the sell now, unless you are launching a station that so transcends the need for one. Doing this is a key in allowing you to …
Begin with a serious commitment to a positive online experience. Artifacts of the old format are the bane of every station’s change these days. I hear plenty of those on many new station launches, as well as songs from the old format. The length of the stopsets needs to be bearable, and they need to avoid starting with a hard-sell spot cutting off the song I’m grooving to. I still believe that “no bad commercials” is a valuable selling point for a new station, and that includes competing with online stations. If there’s a commitment to music quantity, that should be evident right away as well.
You have to fix the stopsets anyway. It’s a regular occurrence now that format changes fail to catch all the leftover promos, remnant references to previous stations, departed talent, and fill songs from the previous format. Maybe better to run with the real stopsets, at least at the outset, and not deal with the bulbous walrus (of the Progressive insurance spots) washing up on listeners’ beach weekends.
Make those app promos count. “Download our app and our skill” means nothing this weekend. “Take us to the beach this weekend, because we’ll look for you listening to our app” means a lot. KRTY San Jose proved that it’s possible to get listeners to talk about app and smart-speaker usage in an authentic-sounding way.
Put listeners on the air everywhere, except in those first hours. Nothing more typifies what’s wrong in the business than the phony-sounding listener drop (“I love it! I listen all day!”) that appears on the air over the second record of the first hour. But despite the issues of finding authentic-sounding listener drops now, they need to be on the air relatively quickly to confirm to the listener that something is happening here, and so that listeners can vote yes by thanking you for the radio station. Having listeners is a logical “phase II” for any sign on and it ratifies your decision, especially if you aren’t hosted.
Program music boldly. On July 2, 1982, the then-AM-Top-40 version of KKBQ (79Q) Houston became my station of the summer with the best of the new, including the new-wave novelties that not everybody was yet playing, the R&B crossovers that many would not, and “Seasons in the Sun” and scores of other goofy novelties from the ‘70s. During Top 40’s last boom, KAMP (Amp Radio) Los Angeles made a point of having 2-3 secret-weapon currents from the outset, both to distinguish itself and to have some gauge of whether KIIS was reacting. KAMP might not be aspirational for you now, but it was an effective launch and the excitement it created over the current music was part of it.