Do your stations sound great – or just OK?  Consider the following tactics to improve programming and enlarge your audience.

Perform a Brand Audit

Conduct a complete evaluation of each station in your cluster.  Do it for your direct competitors, too.  This is what we do as consultants when we perform a Strategic Programming Evaluation.

Music

>   How well does the music flow?  Is each quarter hour representative of your format, day and night?  Classify the best-researched songs as “Powers” and schedule every other song.

>   Evaluate your music library size and quality and compare it to that of your direct competitor.

>   Do talents explicitly follow the music software log as scheduled?

Mornings and Other Shifts

>   Is the personality morning show fun and relatable?  Do the bits sound new and fresh?

>   What are the talents talking about?  Are locally relatable topics prioritized over national show prep content?

>   How do your talents engage the listener?  Does every content break begin with a hook to intrigue the listener?

>   Do voice-tracked shows sound as good as live shows?  If not, why?

Marketing and Imaging

>   Are there hourly promos for the morning show?  Do you promote your app and website, smart device listening, and listen-at-work hourly all day?

>   What is the station’s positioning statement, and how often is it promoted?

>   Is the imaging creative and fun?  Does it effectively reflect the brand?  When were the imaging liners last updated?

Formatics

>   Do you say the station name between every song?

>   When are the station name and dial position said hourly, and are they consistent with every talent, live and voice-tracked?

>   Is there consistent forward motion of promoting ahead going into every stopset?

>   Is each break and each show entertaining and focused?  How’s the flow?

>   Do you promote all contests and promotions often – on the air, on the website, and on social media?

Focus on Your Station’s Strategy

>   Make it Priority One.  Your goal should be to develop a strong brand by exploiting an available market position and making your station entertaining and focused.

>   Aggressively market for a larger audience and higher ratings.

>   Conduct a brand analysis and focus on your strategy.

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John Lund is President of the Lund Media Group, a radio programming consulting firm with specialists in all mainstream radio formats. Did you find this article useful?  You can leave a comment below or email John at John@Lundradio.com.