(5 Last) "Measure It To Manage It"

16.     Number of local stories on your website with listener comments/reactions

17.     Number of blog posts by every personality ranked by page view and responses.

18.     Open rate of your weekly e-mail (to determine effectiveness of subject lines, etc.)

19.     Text Club subscriber rate and unsubscribes

20.     Website Metrics: 

           a.  Unique Users

           b.  Total Pageviews

           c.  Top 5 Most Viewed Pages

 - a final set of numbers from some smart managers willing this week to share what they watch to be sure their stations pace toward their goals.

No doubt, you can think of many more.

So can I, but if you have 20 priorities, do you have any priorities?

Start with this 20 and focus on the handful of them where you find your farthest from where you want to be that will move you forward fastest to where you need to be.

Once you ingrain the levers on them in your daily execution, pick another five and repeat until all 20 metrics are positive.

Only then, start to look for more metrics to measure and manage.

(More) Simple Stats To Track

Readers have been sharing the numbers they watch like clockwork to be sure their stations pace positively.

A few more:

11.     Number of public appearances per week by each on air personality/estimated number of people who attended each appearance

12.     Number of cold calls per week by salesperson

13.     Number of spec spots presented to new prospects per week

14.     Number of irritating commercials which harm listening levels per week

15.     Number of advertisers per month (and names) on your competition, not you

Thanks to BCAB for inviting me to moderate their research panel which featured Chris Byrnes, Warren Kurtzman and Sean Ross, providing the idea for creating a list of key objective management data.

Gauging Your Growth

I started the list with just five.  Now, thanks to many readers, you're going to want to start a table or a spreadsheet to track these numbers on the same date each month:

6.     Annual survey of email database: how satisfied are you 1-10? (% "very vs % not)

7.     # of Facebook friends + gain/loss + followed by # of people

8.     Twitter followers (gain/loss)

9.     Total number of units available for sale per week/revenue = average unit rate (track for total and also by sales person)

10.     Number of different advertisers per month by business category

Radio Management Vital Signs

Crucial (but no-cost) numbers to track to make sure your station is on course:

1.     Call your station’s business office phone.  How many rings before someone answers?

2.     (if you have ratings) Weekly cume (daily cume if PPM) trend

3.     Target demo TSL (daily sessions if PPM) trend

4.     Track streaming hours tuned monthly.

5.     Contacts in your listener email database (grown/loss)

Write these numbers down on the same date every month.  If they're not consistent or even better, growing, you're dying.

What else do you trend to be sure you are on pace toward your goals?
 

Country's Gen X (Conversation)

My Country's Gen X Problem post initiated a Facebook dialog:

Bob McNeill:  Of course country has a 35-44 problem. The average age of a country listener has been right in the middle of that demo for decades and now, with the influx of pop, they're disenfranchised. We never learn.  Country has always been the only adult format that's sustained by current music. Balance is always the issue. And with that, the development of core artists that aren't disposable as they are in pop formats. Disposable songs and artists are a danger to the country format. I fear we're allowing the music business to drive the direction of the format which is problematic since radio and records do have divergent goals at some point.

Ralph Cipolla:  Classic Rock PDs (and Sales folk) have been lamenting the inevitable march of time... now, they face what traditional Oldies stations did 15 years ago. The cell they owned - 35-44 - is now a secondary demo, as the format is firmly rooted 45-54. And each year, it gets one year older. The "newest" legitimately fitting songs in the format are now 25 years old, Led Zeppelin I is 44 years old and was the music of those who are now 60+ years old. Throwing in a category of polarizing Grunge & Metallica songs works for some stations with Rock roots and little competition, particularly in The South, but can be a disaster for others. I've always been interested in the Country airplay vintage v. audience age connection that appears to defy the typical music vintage to listener age if/then equation.  Is this a potential opportunity? A difficult-to-reach young cell appears to be coming along and could be welcomed into the fold, while a traditional core demo sees the ever-growing distraction of Sports/Talk & Talk & time-shifting tech that Arb can't yet measure - but they remain in attendance and need to be the object of a re-doubled engagement effort - assuming its not just a music issue (is it ever?)

Drew Edmundson:  I've always been more of a variety guy (mixing the classics in with the new) in pretty much any format. People 35-44 like new songs (I'm 44 and love Lady A, Zach BB, Aldean, etc). I think there needs to be a healthy dose of older songs so as to not alienate that demo.  I do nights on a country station as well as afternoons on an AC station and I see many crossovers. Taylor Swift, Carrie Underwood, Tim McGraw, Jason Aldean, Kelly Clarkson, Lady A, Kenny Chesney, Faith Hill, etc.  I look at this as a good thing for the country format.

Leslie Humble As a DJ/Programmer of Country Music dating back even before my days at WSM and The Grand Ole Opry, I see several factors at play. A large section of the age group 50 - 65 hate the Pop country with the semi Country vocal over Rock/Pop instrumentation. The aforementioned 35-44 Cell is on the edge of being torn by the extreme fragmentation that is today's micro cell centric choices. Even 35-44 should be more incrementally targeted.  Two things: Going back to Jaye's original thought on capturing the 35-44 demo. Isn't it the same as it's always been? Lifestyle. Target your promotions, on air comments, remotes, to a 40 year old woman for that demo. Lifestyle. As far as the music....I must slightly disagree that Garth or 90's are as far as you can go. Even if it's testing that way. I do national voice over work mostly now and my shows are live ones. I see 20 year olds jumping up for Hank Jr., John Anderson, Mel McDaniel, Charlie Daniels and on and on. It reminds me of the story of how top 40 was discovered by Todd Storz by watching the same song played over and over on a jukebox. The music that demo and others will accept is also a self perpetuating thing. How many of us feel like we helped "break" or Make a hit record by playing it? Musically WE tell them what is a hit or good in many cases. The only distinction, to me, is that the PRODUCTION VALUES, must be of the level we expect today. 

Jaye Albright: Thanks, to all of you.  Personally, I don't think that it gets solved by playing 90's or earlier for a mainstream or a "new country" station, since the majority of 35-44 available to country radio today were not listening to country music when they were teens.  It's about balance, as more than one of you have noted. The great majority of today's A artists, almost all of which have emerged in the last five years aren't crossover acts.  Right now, country has 18 touring acts able to fill arenas, which is an unprecedented development in the history of the format.  We do have a handful of them you'd call "crossover" acts, but still the vast majority get played only on country radio.

PS:  If this piqued your interest and you want some specific advice on what to do next, click on the CRS 2013 session "Younger Country: Is 18-34 the New 25-54? and listen to very savvy panelists John Dimick/Lincoln Financial, Chris Huff/KSCS and Sean Ross/Edison Research share their perspectives on coalitions vs conflicts between tastes of the wide country  demographic targets.  It's an hour well spent, if you missed that session at CRS.

Country's Gen X Problem

Arbitron's full Radio Today 2013 annual update tracking all format quantitative and qualitative trends reflects both change and growth as my blogs of the last week have previewed.

It highlights something troubling that you're going to want to look at locally. 

Has recent under-30 growth hurt 35-44?

* All of the demographic proportions have remained relatively steady except for adults 18-24, which rose to its highest level in a decade, and adults 35-44, which declined to its lowest.

*  The country and new country formats are a strong performer in TSL, regardless of age group. Among the 16 top formats, it was tied for No. 1 among persons 12+, and was No. 1 by a full hour among persons 12-24. It ranked No. 2 by a wide margin among adults 18-34, was also No. 2 among adults 25-54, and third with adults 35-64.

Suggestion:  look very carefully at 25-29, 30-34, 35-39 and 40-44 in local perceptual and music test data.  Arbitron's data tracks actual PPM and perceived diary usage data, but isn't designed to be used to choose your most effective target, but 35-44 is going to be with us for too long as a marketing target for our clients to ignore any weakness there.

It's the only target cell in 2013's national averages where it appears that country radio is failing to get its fair share of the total population.

* Radio Today 2013 (get the full client exclusive report at "my.arbitron.com" (the Arbitron customer site where you download data). 

Scarborough Surprises

Radio Today 2013 was posted on "my.arbitron.com" this week (that’s the customer site where you download data) and it's full of fascinating facts about every format.  The country format data is  especially interesting, as it reflects both change and growth.

Where do country radio listeners go when they are on the Internet? 

Really, no big shocker in those stats, given that when you look at country listeners in 2013 you're looking at a very large mass audience, but what did surprise me is this comparison of country listener behaviors compared to the average radio format:

"Take college courses?"  Who knew?

Just another indication of powerful positive info on our busy and engaged audience today, just the kind of people advertisers want to reach.