When longtime consultant Alan Burns was teasing the “What Women Want” study before its May 15 unveiling, he promised good news for radio, including that “women are still very positive about radio, even Generation Z.” The survey’s findings go even further: “Women love their favorite AM/FM radio station almost as much as their phone, and more than Amazon, Netflix, Apple, Spotify, and TikTok.”
“What Woman Want” was first conducted in 2010. This fifth edition, the first since 2017, and the first in conjunction with Westwood One’s Audio Active Group, was co-presented with Westwood One’s Lauren Vetrano, and targeted to both radio and advertisers. Among the other findings and recommendations from the online study of 1,000 women 15-64:
- 60% of respondents felt that “today’s music is not as good as it was 10 years ago.” That includes even 59% of 15-to-17-year-olds and 66% of 18-34s. Burns believes that represents a lack of stylistic variety at the format, and encouraged a return to the music enterprise once common among program and music directors.
- Broadcasters need to pay more attention to women who work at home through contesting, marketing, and even stepping up listener salutes as they once did for those workplaces playing radio. In addition, they need to more aggressively promote radio station streaming apps — to the point of modeling their usage on-air and rewarding winners for their first-time usage.
- Radio should better align its on-air features and contests to reflect women’s top priorities: family (92%), health (91%), relationships (85%), and friendships (83%). (One possible prize, Vetrano suggested: tying in with a tutoring center.)
- Asked about radio topics on “call-in AM/FM radio shows,” the leaders were “funny or unusual things people have done” (63%), news/current events (62%), and entertainment/pop culture (64%). “Bad date stories,” a current tentpole of many morning shows, was fourth (46%). Radio’s focus on entertainment news is controversial, and there was as sharp split between 15-34 and 35-64.
- “Engage with Gen-Z’s and give them something to connect with,” including making sure they were represented on the morning team.
Burns also encouraged broadcasters to “rethink commercial stopsets, ditch the bow-tie [the practice of nearly uniform stopsets at :15 and :45], and stop demonizing AM/FM radio ads” by promoting commercial-free sweeps and the like. WW1’s Pierre Bouvard, who also appeared on the call, suggested that at some point Nielsen will require fewer than five minutes of listening for a quarter-hour, allowing for greater stopset creativity.
(Bouvard also quoted Edison Research’s Share of Ear data on ad-supported media to suggest that radio’s correct representation on any audio ad buy should be 69%, compared to 19% podcasting and 9% Pandora/Spotify.)
Last week, Ross on Radio spoke to Burns both about the survey and about his assessment of radio today. 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 smaller-market stations of yours should readers check out that they might not have heard of? 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.