What Makes a Successful Standards Radio Station

Let's play with the idea that you own your own AM radio station and its going nowhere in billing and audience.
You tried talk, sports, country and nothing has worked because your competitors are on FM or have a better signal.

So you decide to go Full Service radio with local news, sports, community involvement and Adult Standards. Would you voice track, go all Dial Global or go local in some key dayparts?

How would you program the station and market it?

The real question is, "what is your plan for selling local advertising on the station?"

Nick Summers

Nick,
I like the way you think. I operate two AM stations and like everybody else in the business, I'm sure that my format and my stations are the absolutely best on the planet, but the bottom line is. . . how can I pay the electric bill? How can I sell one more spot. It is my experience that a well tuned and updated adult format is an comparatively easy sell because it usually draws the kind of listeners that merchants want to do business with. (pardon the preposition.) Beyond the music, I also am convinced that "getting into the community" is essential. We show up at animal rescue events, small town festivals, etc., alway trying to be a good neighbor and offering coverage to all kinds of non-profit groups. If there is truly one BIG key to success, it is this. . . your commercials have to be every bit as good as the last song you played. You must do whatever it takes to engage and persuade the listener to shop at your customer's store. You can't air anything that comes close to boring people or they hit the button before you can blink. If you're going to be on AM and at the top end of the dial, you better be good. You better create the perception that you, like a great restaurant, are a destination. Hope this is helpful. Craig, WYTH / WKVQ

ps give us a listen:

http://radio.securenetsystems.net/v4/index.cfm?stationCallSign=WYTH&pgmStart=true

Nick great question and Craig really enjoyed your post.

I agree there has to be more care to the spots are engaging too. It is critical for you to have enough people on the streets.
However, they have to understand the value of AM and can relate to those in the demo. The revenue stream, for the most part, will come from local buys and not an agency one.

Also, offer a package that will truly give the client the kind of high frequecny that is needed to make the campaign work. Another thing is to sell programming elements where the client can own it such as the Morning Anniversary club, Brainteaser, Wall Street report etc. I also believe in having Billboards that offer something and not what WLW does such as the & 7 AM Report is a service of Bob's Seafood. It should be a Billboard such as the 7 am News is a service of Bob's Seafoof featuring the Shrimp Feast in Blue Ash.

Craig you are right on being out in the community. I have done a ton of these and can tell you first hand it works. On remotes, don't have a talent just stand by the van and do a drop. Create an event and get the client on the air to talk about their sale and not just the talent. Also, the talent must engage with those coming out to the remote and offer a registration for prizes or the old true and proven prize wheel.

And, the GM/Sales Manager must be out on on the street selling too so they can relate to what their sales reps encounter.

Thanks Radio25,
You are SO right. The one thing I neglected to mention was getting the merchant on the air. We always write the copy but just about insist that the merchant reads the spot. For this to work, you must coach the merchant and work with them making sure they sound great on the air. This is key. . . always record them at their place, NOT your production room. If it's a gas station, let the audience hear the bell ring. Usually, within a day or two, people begin to tell them "Hey, I heard you on the radio". Now, you have a happy client that knows people are hearing them and they are finally getting something for their money. Here's another secret weapon. I have almost NO trade deals, but I have one with an excellent florist. Whoever buys an ad always gets a potted plant with a thank you card within a day or so. Never a blooming flower, always a plant. Every time they have to water it, for the next 10 years, it reminds them of me and my station. Nobody else does this. It will put you way ahead of the other stations and the local paper. (if it's still in business.) Now, if my client is having a big sale this weekend. . .That's when I send them a large fresh blooming arrangement for their counter with a 'Hope you have a great sale" card. Go get 'em. CB

ps: give us a listen:

http://radio.securenetsystems.net/v4/index.cfm?stationCallSign=WYTH&pgmStart=true

Radio 25 said:

How would you program the station and market it?

Click to expand...

This discussion from a few years back provides some good answers to that question...

http://radiodiscussions.com/smf/index.php?topic=81863.0

craigbaker said:

Whoever buys an ad always gets a potted plant with a thank you card within a day or so. Never a blooming flower, always a plant. Every time they have to water it, for the next 10 years, it reminds them of me and my station.

Click to expand...

The tougher the seed at the sowing, the sweeter the fruit at the harvest.

To craigbaker---

Do you play your music locally? I am pretty sure it doesn't come off a satellite. Is Starstation a concept sold by a programming service?

Just wonderin' I couldn't find anything about a programming service, but I saw that there were other stations also using that concept. I listened to your stream, but not to the others.

Please and thank you.

Here's a suggestion Craig....use vertical saturation spot scheduling. You'll get tremendous reach and frequency:

*a 30 or 60-second commercial per hour, from 12:01am-11:59pm on a specific day of the week.

*run 24 spots, or 18 spots, or as low as 12 spots....maximum one spot per hour. So, even a small 12 spot a day schedule got a pretty nice rotation a spot every-other-hour for 24 hours...not bad.

I recently retired from nearly 30 years of radio selling and had a lot of strong success with this plan. Spot cost in our medium market on our oldies/fullservice AM was $10.00 per spot. My typical client spent about $600-720/month. So, they got 5 to 6 days per month with 12 spots per day.

i.e.: week one: Mondays and Wednesdays
week two: Tuesdays and Thursdays
week three: Fridays (and in some cases Saturday).
week four: off.

Obviously you can mix up the weeks and days per week. But, I'll tell you this...my clients who used this plan after a few months said it sounded like they were on "all the time".

Hope that helps.

Tim (in Akron, Ohio)

My Dial Global station is owned by a man who had worked in radio for years and came back to town to discover one of the local radio stations for sale. He does the morning show himself (though someone else does local news which is part of the show) and has various contests like Name That Tune. Sometimes he interviews local people. He also calls football and basketball games for one of the local colleges and some of the high schools, and I think he does American Legion baseball, or at least the games air there. The station has games for one big college, and our NFL team. Church services, some local, air on Sunday morning. Twice a day someone connected with the school system will use an entire commercial break to talk about a school or something the school system does. There are job listings twice a day. The man in charge of the senior center does "Senior Moment" during a commercial break and there is Broadcast Bingo at the end. That means they call one number, and occasionally they say "on the new card". Lots of local businesses advertise, though they do so more on the morning show and the sports events. Most commercial breaks have a weather forecast by the meteorologist on the Fox affiliate.

To vichimpanzee - Would please pass along the call letters of the station and the market they serve that you are talking about.
I would like to check out their website and see if they are streaming on line.
I would love to run a station like and should you can combine being local, serving the community and bring in Dial Global programming and make money too.

Radio 25 said:

Let's play with the idea that you own your own AM radio station and its going nowhere in billing and audience.
You tried talk, sports, country and nothing has worked because your competitors are on FM or have a better signal.

So you decide to go Full Service radio with local news, sports, community involvement and Adult Standards. Would you voice track, go all Dial Global or go local in some key dayparts?

How would you program the station and market it?

Click to expand...

Almost every answer depends on the size and demographics of the market, the deficiencies of your signal and what other formats targeting adults are airing in your market.

I programmed full service AC/Oldies in the 90's and I'll tell you a little secret....the music is just filler. That's it. You're making your money on other programming....local news, weather, sports play-by-play, local talk shows, features, specialty programming on the weekends, remotes/events etc. Just program a pleasant mix of songs that the majority of the target demo likes...because that's the glue between all the other saleable features. You're welcome.

To fmradio1 - I only agree with you to a point. There is no question music was not the driving force behind a listener's choice on the type of station you are talking about. BUT it is much more than a filler. The local news, sports play by play, specialty programming and special NTR bring in very important revenue and are strong hooks. Still, the music must be well mixed and hopefully not a very tight play list that makes a station boring. Remember you need a strong balance to get the ROS schedule. I have seen stations sell only the features and were not getting the revenue because the main over all music mix or talk line up was off target.
You need to make the entire station a plus to sell.

Give me the chance to run an Oldies station with the important elements added and it would be a great ride and be a successful radio station in terms of hitting the targeted revenue bench marks and hitting on the nose with the desired demo.

I agree with you to a point as well. The music has to be spot on. Not too many titles, but not too few either. A focused playlist will not drive listeners away. The songs just have to be the right ones. One full service station I was at flipped the music from AC to standards...and a lot of listeners didn't like the change, or advertisers either. When I became the PD (and with the owner's begrudging approval) I transitioned the music back to oldies based AC. Things got better after that.

But, there was a reason most remaining full service stations went all talk in the 90's. The talk based elements were easier to sell than the music heavy hours...and there were no more ASCAP or BMI fees. I'm not totally discounting the music, but it is not as important as the other elements of the station. It doesn't take much thought to pick several hundred songs that work for a particular demo for full service. Stick to the hits, and you'll be fine.

fmradio1 said:

I programmed full service AC/Oldies in the 90's and I'll tell you a little secret....the music is just filler. That's it. You're making your money on other programming....local news, weather, sports play-by-play, local talk shows, features, specialty programming on the weekends, remotes/events etc. Just program a pleasant mix of songs that the majority of the target demo likes...because that's the glue between all the other saleable features. You're welcome.

Click to expand...

The music is not filler. It's what I came for.

VChimp, the originator of the thread talked about launching a full-service format. In that instance, I maintain that the music is not as important as the other elements of the station. The non music programming is the revenue generator, while the music is the "glue" between those elements. Keep the music mass appeal to the demo and you're set.

Now, if I was programming a STANDARDS format, which was more music intensive and there weren't a lot of non music elements, then that is a different conversation. The music would be the primary focus, so obviously programming would spend a lot more time making sure the music mix is correct for the demo, market etc.

Question for fmradio1:

A few posts back you mentioned a format change at a station you worked for to an "oldies based AC" -- can you tell me more about that format? What was some of the typical music/artists?

Reason I ask is that I'm helping a friend launch a new small market FM in a market with a lot of recent retirees and wonder if that would work for him. The competing stations play either Hot AC, Country or 60's-70s Oldies. Thanks.

This was back in the early 90's, so it was awhile ago. I ran a 50's-early 90's AC format with an equal emphasis on 60's, 70's and 80's with 50's and 90's (then recurrents and currents) as spice. I played one current and one recurrent most hours. For the most part, it was a mid to down tempo format. I transitioned from Standards, so there were some leftover artists that lingered, like Johnny Mathis, Jack Jones, Patti Page, etc. Not too many of those though.

The bulk of the format was the big artists you hear on Standards today and AC from the 80's & 90's, with cores like Billy Joel, Barbara Streisand, Elton John, the Beatles, Gloria Estefan, Rod Stewart, Fleetwood Mac, Simon & Garfunkel, Linda Ronstadt, Barry Manilow, America, Bette Midler, Neil Diamond etc. There were a few country crossover artists like Ronnie Milsap, Willie Nelson and Restless Heart, but not a lot. The station was not in an area where country music was dominant.

My biggest requirement for songs is that they needed to be a big Top 40 pop hit, not just an AC hit, country hit, or an oldie that mid-charted. Every song and/or artist had to be recognizable to the 25-54 demo (at that time.) No stiffs.

It sounds like an updated version of this format, maybe concentrating on the 70's through the 90's with a few selected titles from the 2000's would work, but not overdoing it on the newer material. It would depend on how young the Oldies station is. You'd probably want to stay away from the 60's and be selective on the 70's, maybe just playing the slower stuff and the mega hits. Is the Hot AC playing a lot of 80's? Is the Oldies station? It could be a hole that you can fill, while keeping the tempo down. Sounds like an interesting opportunity for a softer, gold based AC station!

This weekend a new store opens. I've been hearing commercials. They sell pet supplies and possibly pets.

The morning DJ, who is also the owner, will be broadcasting live from the store most of the day tomorrow, although this probably means just breaks in the regular programming. The last time he did this, I was hearing the station during "On the Beach with Charlie Brown" and the man was just on during breaks in that show.

Those remote breaks are what pay for what you're listening to. In a perfect world, the reason a station was "successful" was because they programed great music, but there are the economic realities of broadcasting which must be addressed. More often than not, a "successful Standards station" is one that makes enough money to stay on the air. Sometimes you run programming that you might not really like because it pays a lot of bills. As was said earlier, very often the music is just the filler.