RELENTLESS RADIO

 

Author:	Jerry Williams
Published:	July, 2000

 

I took a vacation this summer, the first real vacation my family and I have had in years. We stayed in a condo on the beach at Surfside Beach, SC, just about 10 miles south of Myrtle Beach. It was tremendous. We slept when we were tired, ate when we were hungry. We splashed in the waves and lay on the beach in the sun during the day and walked in the surf under the moonlight at night. We did venture off the beach on a few occasions, and almost without fail found ourselves in one of those beach souvenir stores, the type that sell inflatable rafts, beach pails, sun tan lotion and little odds and ends with "Myrtle Beach" written all over them. There were three that we visited early on in the week. All had the same basic goods for sale, but there were some subtle differences in presentation. The first store was a cost cutter. I could tell this even before pulling into their parking lot. They had huge signs in the windows with red letters proclaiming "Up To 60% Off" and "Buy One, Get One Free". We were looking for beach chairs and boogie boards, and this place had both, as well as bargains on T-Shirts, sweatshirts, hats, and a wide selection of schmaltzy souvenirs. Quite a few people were shopping there when we visited, mostly young families and teenagers. The next store wasn't as easy to peg, though it turned out to be a mid range store. They had a few signs in the window too, though not as big, and the message of those signs wasn't as helpful. They said things like, "36 in. Boogie Boards, $5.99" and "Beach Chairs $12.99". True, the signs did tell me exactly what the store had and how much it would cost, but it didn't tell me how that price rated when compared to the other stores. And I knew, having just been at the cost cutter store, that $5.99 seemed to be the going price for 36 in. boogie boards, but that I could get a perfectly functional beach chair for $8.99. They had a little wider assortment of the same beachwear as the cost cutter, but for a slightly higher price. There were no other shoppers in the store when we arrived, and only one or two came and went the entire time we were there. The third and final store we visited that day was an upscale shop. They too had signs, but the lettering, what little there was, wasn't red. Most of their signs had pictures of beautiful people enjoying the sun and water with beach chairs and boogie boards. This store also had 36 in. boogie boards for $5.99, and $8.99. They had beach chairs too, for $12.99 and $24.99. The upscale shop also had shirts and hats, but of a far superior quality, with price tags to match. The store wasn't crowded while we were there, but those shopping with us, mostly couples and families with older children, seemed to be buying. And we did too; we got my daughter one of the $5.99 36 in. boogie boards and a couple of sweatshirts. We went back to the cost cutter for the beach chairs. We made one more trip to the stores that week. Well, to two of them at least. My son wanted a bigger boogie board and a sweatshirt, so we went back to the upscale shop. And my daughter wanted to buy a necklace (with her own money) so it was back to cost cutter. We never did go back to the mid range store, and whenever we drove by, their parking lot looked awfully empty. What does any of this have to with radio? Look at your own station, how you present it, image it, and how it's perceived in your market. Where are you on the price-value scale? Do you position yourself as more music? If so, you better be sure that you have the most music, or you'll wind up like the mid range store, with lots of sparsely populated quarter hours. Are you more service and personality driven? Then you need to constantly critique the quality of your product to make sure it's really worth the price. "What price?" you ask, "Isn't all radio free to the listener?" Yes, it may be free, but there's still a price the listener pays, whether that be commercials or jock chatter. And if you're doing more than just playing 10 songs in a row, you better be sure those non-music elements are as compelling as your competitor's 10 songs. This month's rant: The GMA has announced the dates for the annual Gospel Music Week through 2005. This is the week that includes the annual NCRS (National Christian Radio Seminar). And, for at least the next five years, will force Christian radio programmers, managers, sales people and other staffers to leave their stations for an entire week during one of the most crucial periods of the year, or miss out on the festivities. The GMA continues to schedule GMA week right at the beginning of the all-important Spring Arbitron ratings period. This conflict puts NCRS in the unenviable position of trying to encourage Christian radio to excellence and equip them to compete in their home markets while asking them to leave those markets for an entire week at the very time they need to be there the most. Several different scheduling options have been suggested. One would put the dates of GMA week into late March to stay out of the Spring book and actually give stations a little time to enact what they learn at NCRS for the Spring book. A second, probably more plausible option would be to have the week begin on Thursday (if the Dove Awards are moved back into GMA week permanently, Friday if not) and run through Sunday. That way radio personnel wouldn't be away from their stations for an entire week. But, at least for the next five years, GMA has chosen to disregard the concerns of radio. With the annual CRR AC Radio Seminar coming in early October, running Friday through Sunday, and featuring hour for hour the most intensive learning environment of any radio seminar, NCRS shouldn't be surprised if growth remains flat for the next five years.

 

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