Clearing out old e-mail and came across the following from Pinacle Media Worldwide…
Have you ever wondered why radio stations all present news at the same time? How about traffic and those annoying ads? Sometimes it seems like every radio station is playing commercials at the same time. If you haven’t thought about counter-programming lately, you need to know that savvy radio listeners are raising these questions in focus group after focus group. And it doesn’t matter whether we are moderating a focus group with listeners in the United States, Canada or Europe.
When I was first started learning about programming in the late 70s and early 80s, programmers were obsessed with counter-programming. Programmers stressed to disc jockeys how important it was to hit breaks on- time so they could beat the competitors back to music, or be playing a power song during their competitions ad breaks.
Today, counter-programming just doesn’t seem as important to radio programmers as it does to radio listeners. Maybe since consolidation has eliminated most of the head to head format battles, programmers just don’t think it is necessary anymore. Perhaps the lack of counter-programming today is partly responsible for the declines in Time Spent Listening, too.
Nowadays, many radio stations and radio markets, regardless of the music format, sound more or less the same. For instance, how many stations in your market or cluster air news around the same time, play ads at the same time, have big ballsy station voices, and only have female DJs on air in midday or as sidekicks? In the U.S. this past December, two to three stations in many markets claimed to be “The Official Christmas Music Station”.
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