A lot of radio people, especially ones on the programming side, get into radio in-part because they really like the idea of discovering the next big thing before everyone else. Being in the know and ahead of trends is important to them and a part of who they are as a person. That certainly helps talent on the air. When that becomes problematic from a business-standpoint is when those people get into management positions where they are choosing the music and that desire to discover isn’t properly channeled into what’s best for the radio station instead of what’s best for a record label, individual bands or artists. Here’s how to identify when that’s happening at your radio station and how to coach and manage around it.

Many first-time programmers, and veteran programmers who haven’t been coached or managed for years, default to discovery mode. They spend an inordinate amount of their week listening to music, going to shows, talking to bands, record reps and labels in search of their next dopamine hit from uncovering a hidden gem of an artist. I can tell you from personal experience, the rush you get from helping a nobody become a somebody is real and addictive. Programmers get a lot more pats on the back for breaking someone than for continuing to support an artist who’s already a superstar (unless that superstar is in decline). The idea isn’t to coach programmers out of discovery mode, because that just makes them miserable. Our approach is to empower that programmer with market-level song data specific to their market and format. This data-driven approach narrows down the pool of new music and new artists that their audience is already into, because social media and online platforms don’t wait for radio release dates to play new music. They play it right away and everyone listens to music on at least one of their devices every week. So, the sample base for our data is essentially everyone within the market. Then we teach the programmer to combine that data with their gut and programming experience to decide what category to put that song into and how to code it for separation. 

The downside of not addressing a programmer’s desire to discover the next big thing is a playlist that gets weaker, more niche and less mass appeal by the add. Because those kinds of programmers often underplay the real superstars as well. The longer someone has been programming this way, regardless of genre, the harder they are to coach out of it. They’ll argue with the data, they’ll throw out how long they’ve been doing it their way and mention the handful of artists they have personally broken over the years. But, they’ll conveniently leave out the hundreds and hundreds of artists they’ve championed who have gone nowhere. I always say you don’t get credit for picking the winning Super Bowl team if you placed bets on all 32 teams. Plus, the real credit for any artist or band blowing up belongs to the artist or band themselves for all the blood, sweat and tears they put into their grind to the top.

But, retraining the programmers is just part of the equation. All on-air personalities and most people that work at any radio station, regardless of their role, have a lot of opinions on the music. That’s why I share the data we use to make our add and move suggestions with anyone whose interested. Then I encourage the programmers we work with to be transparent about our shared process for determining what we do and don’t play on the radio station. I also coach them on how to use an audio logger and the automation to make sure no one is changing the music in real time, which is especially critical when making any changes. Requests hours are fine as long as there are parameters set and every request played is accompanied by listener audio asking for that request and all requests are recorded and documented to see if trends are emerging.

To be clear, I am a huge advocate for radio stations playing and breaking new artists. In fact I feel like radio has gotten away from that in recent years in an effort to play it too safe and in doing so has largely ceded the mantle of new music discovery to other platforms. However, there are now modern tools and data that help us be safe and strategic about those adds so we don’t lose the megaphone that comes with being a mass appeal, free media that’s easy for everyone to use. There is still a lot of value in playlists curated by radio professionals but only if those professionals are more interested in what their audience wants than what they or their friends in the music business want.

What do you think? How have you learned to resist the desire to discover the next big thing or coached that out of another programmer? Comment below or email me at Andy@RadioStationConsultant.com.

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