“Seeing the data from ‘What Women Want’ is what makes me feel good about radio lately,” says longtime radio consultant Alan Burns. “Women are still very positive about radio, even Generation Z. Those future 25-54s aren’t yet lost to radio, but they will be if we don’t start taking care of them.
“Generation Z isn’t listening as much because we aren’t giving them much to be excited about.” His Alan Burns & Associates is “talking to a bunch of Gen Zs right now about,” Burns adds. “One large part of it is that there’s not enough of their cohort actually on the radio.”
Burns celebrates the 40th year of Alan Burns & Associates in 2025. After seven years, Burns is relaunching “What Women Want,” a 1,000-woman online study now in conjunction with Westwood One’s Audio Active Group. Originally launched in 2010, the fifth edition will be presented in a free webinar, Wednesday, May 15 at 2 p.m. ET. Free registration is available here.
The survey “covers a range of subjects from women’s personal values and priorities to what topics they want from your morning show.” (“There was one [major] surprise there.”) Other questions include in-car behavior, earbud/headphone usage, and how “we’re overdoing one aspect of contesting and ignoring a big one.”
Despite his optimism about the survey results, Burns cites a long list of concerns about the state of radio now: overleveraged stations, lack of marketing, stations undercutting each other on advertising rate. Nearly two years ago, Burns commissioned another survey, on Canada’s highly successful CKNO (Now 102.3 FM) and its “join the conversation” format, in hopes of bringing that approach to the U.S. That’s where we began our conversation.
You’ve tried to bring “Social FM,” your version of Canada’s “join the conversation” stations, to the U.S. How are you feeling about it now after two years. “It’s a great format that makes the audience the star. It’s been wildly successful in some markets and not in some others [but] it needs to be seriously looked at by anyone in a crowded market looking for something different. It needs one owner with the foresight and gumption to be first in the U.S. and give it the resources it needs in terms of talent and marketing.
What small and medium market stations of yours should readers check out? KLTA Fargo has been working with our Jeff Johnson for over 30 years. They have a local owner, a great market manager, and they invest in talent and marketing and have built a culture of winning.
I’ve worked with WRSA Huntsville, Ala., for over 20 years. It’s a local, independent owner. There aren’t a lot of resources, but they have smart, dedicated people. GM Nate Adams and PD/mornings Abby Kaye have been there the whole 20-plus years and really do a great job.
Are you hearing any contesting you like anywhere now? The best contests are those that are fun to listen to or play along with, like The Fugitive or the Taylor Swift contest KMXV (Mix 93.3) Kansas City ran last fall — ID two songs correctly for a chance to win a trip to her concert in Paris. It was fun to play and a hugely popular incentive.
There’s talk recently about how contesting is getting better. Really? Why? I hear some great incentives on the national contests, but otherwise not a lot of creativity [compared to] Europe and Australia. Maybe I’m listening to the wrong stations.
What about all-time favorite contest? “Listen for the cue to call” doesn’t work anymore” but the most successful contest I’ve done was the first one we did at WRQX (Q107) Washington, D.C., which was call when you hear ‘Hey Jude,’ which was still [the No. 1 image oldie] in 1979, to win $10,000. We didn’t know this at the time, but our contest line was on the same circuit as the White House’s phone system. We got so many calls that it shut down the White House for about an hour. Needless to say, they were not pleased.
I’m not sure I can tell some of the other best stories from Q107. We had a great fun staff, and some wild parties, and I don’t know that the statute of limitations has expired on some of the things that happened off the air. But at one staff meeting, I was trying to impress upon the airstaff how important it was to “make noise” — that is, do things that get people to react. So in the middle of my talk, I surreptitiously lit a pack of firecrackers and threw them under the table. It got the staff’s attention, plus everybody else in the building came running, which proved my point.
Before Q107, you were at WLS Chicago. WLS-FM, which is now playing many of the same songs as a Classic Hits station, just made headlines for putting jingles back on the radio.
Working at WLS was one of the greatest experiences ever, and I’ve always thought the WLS jingles were the best ever done, and the melody they established has been around for decades on stations like KIIS Los Angeles. It’s nice to see the WLS jingles back on the air on their original home.
This story first appeared on radioinsight.com