Confusion

2/11/1994

I was talking music with a programmer last week. When I asked about a particular record, he told me he couldn’t play it because “…it would confuse my core.”

Say what?

This programmer is a male, in his late 30s, programming a radio station that targets 16-26 year-old Hispanic females. And he’s making conscious decisions about what will confuse his core? Excuse me, but I’ve got to believe that he is probably a more confused than his core.

More often than not, we have people in programming positions who are not only older than their target audience, but haven’t a real clue as to what their target audience does and doesn’t like. Don’t get me wrong, I don’t believe that you have to be a part of your demo and psychographic group to program to it. I do, however, believe that you have to be familiar with your core’s habits, lifestyles and emotions to make objective decisions about what they like and don’t like.

If you are not a part of your core audience in age, sex and lifestyle, you have to spend a lot of time among them to connect. And if you’re male, white and middle-aged, you’re not going to be able to hang in the hood with 16-26 year-old Hispanic females. Not without getting jacked up by somebody. So if you can’t make up-close and personal observations, you must have people around you who do. And those people must have the power to make decisions based on what’s popular within your core audience.

Too often we depend exclusively on audience research to tell us what our core likes. Relying on that research, we begin to reason accurately to inaccurate conclusions. When we have to use computer print-outs to answer lifestyle and emotional questions about our audience, we’re in trouble.

Why? Because audience research is all to shallow and impersonal. Audience research doesn’t have the time or ability to delve into the true lifestyle of the respondents. Radio must do that, because choosing and listening to a radio station is an emotional experience. You must connect with their emotion or they won’t connect with you.

Too often in research, we ask the wrong questions. As with all computer programs, if you put garbage in, you get garbage out. How many programmers design their own questionnaires? If you talk with members of your audience, you ask the questions. If you’re commissioning the research, should you design the questions? Many times, we’re getting the right answers to the wrong questions.

Case in point: When the aforementioned programmer told me a particular record might confuse his core, I doubted his ability to know his core. I think a lot of program directors truly believe they know what their audience wants, but they don’t. So, The Network Forty commissioned an audience survey of our own. See, I believe in research. I’m just adamant that it be used properly.

We chose Power 106 and The Beat in Los Angeles for several reasons: They’re both programmed by people who are not part of their demographic core; they’re both programmed to an ethnic audience most perceive to be narrow in their musical tastes and they’re in Los Angeles, so I am familiar with each station and how the stations are positioned. What’s more, programmers Rick Cummings of Power 106 and Keith Naftaly of The Beat are both in tune with their audiences, both here and in stations they’ve programmed before. They are rarely guilty of “confusing” their core. Although they both do a lot of research, they are intensely aware that emotion plays a large part of a winning radio station. And neither was the programmer who gave me the “core consusion” answer.

I picked a record that neither had played and probably never considered playing: Meat Loaf’s I Would Do Anything For Love. Certainly not a record either station should play, right? Their audience wouldn’t like it, right? It would confuse their core, right?

You decide.

The facts are: 93% of the people who cited Power 106 or The Beat as their favorite station were familiar with Meat Loaf’s I would Do Anything For Love. Eight-one percent said they liked it and wouldn’t switch stations if they heard it. Forty percent said it was one of their favorite songs. Although over 50% said they wished their favorite station would play the song, nearly 100% said they didn’t expect to hear the song on Power or The Beat.

In a market the size of Los Angeles where positioning and image are often as important as the music, both Power and The Beat were probably right not to play Meat Loaf or other Rock songs. Audience slices in major markets are so slim that formats must be narrowcast in many instances. It also must be noted that Rick wasn’t surprised at the results of this survey.

But, if you’re in a less competitive market, don’t be too quick to make an objective decision based on what you think your core audience wants. Especially if that decision is based on your perception of research that is further and further away from your input and control.

Don’t think. Come to a decision based on several factors: research, input from your staff who interacts with your core, your observations of your core, specific research outside the norm and your own, professional opinion. Do not become a victim of your own limited environment and perceptions of what you think your audience wants…especially when you’re programming to an audience whose lifestyles are so different from yours.

Anyone for tennis?