Dayparting

[jsu5381m]

I can't believe WZYP is actually playing MIA's Paper Planes in the evening despite not being top 10 yet. Man that's got to be a candidate for most annoying song of the year. I can't stand that song.

 

[lowpower]

I agree regarding MIA being annoying but then again I'm a guy and not in the demo so what do I know?

 

[butlerguy03]

WZYP has taken dayparting to a new extreme on Fridays. Now, you can request an 80s hit anytime during the daytime on Friday, and not just during the retro lunch at noon.

WZPL Indianapolis has an "All Request Friday" -- which I think is only certain hours of the day, but it sounds good. It can be completely random too...but of course, they don't stray too far from the Hot AC crowd.

Also, as far as imaging goes...

Would you change "Today's Hottest Hits" to "Your Hottest Hits"? Does that make it more personal, more like we are playing what you like, not what we think you are listening to?

I am General Manager / Teacher of a over-the-air high school station in Indiana (Indy rim-shot) and have a more Hot AC sound during the day and at 3 go to more of CHR. We do avoid urban, mostly to avoid conflict with urban-leaning CHR WNOU & Urban WHHH both out of Indy. We try to be "hotter" than HotAC WZPL (Indy) and WLBC (Muncie).

Everything seems to be working good. We had some lean years as other GM's tried Oldies & CMJ/College Rock. We are 2 months into the HotAC/CHR sound and have a ton of P1's and are the talk of the new school year in the hallways...talk about a built in audience! We VT everything out of school, and to be honest, I (being biased) believe we are taking listeners away from poorly run stations around us. Think of all the places high school kids work and now think, hey they are chaning the station to us when they are there at night!

Oh yeah, the MIA song is a hit here...and is climbing. The jocks love it & the hallways are buzzin' about it.

When I say we avoid "Urban", I don't mean we don't play anything. If I can make it work, I will. Kardinal Offishall & Ne-Yo don't work. MIA & Rihanna do. Most Kanye wouldn't work for us, but the new one will. I take it song by song. Oh yeah, we have had really good response to Kevin Rudolf "Let It Rock", even though I was hesitant to add a song featuring Lil' Wayne.

 

[Roger That]

Also, as far as imaging goes...

Would you change "Today's Hottest Hits" to "Your Hottest Hits"? Does that make it more personal, more like we are playing what you like, not what we think you are listening to?

If you're looking for opinions, I'd say neither. Positioning statements are really nothing but noise to the listener. You've got the right idea, in trying to make it about them, but there's still an underlying current in most positioning statements that makes it about us. For example, "Your Hottest Hits" still smells of "We play the best music...we're awesome...pick us." Mostly, it's because who actually says "hottest hits" in real conversation? That's radio vernacular more than anything.

Instead, I'd try to find something more conversational. Something your audience would actually say to describe you. People have used examples like "Songs to sing along to," and "Make today a great day" which are much more unselfish (but probably too AC for what you're doing). And they not only fit the audience, but fall under the category of "sentences they would say on their own."

Hope that helps.

 

[porkythepig]

KZIO, the historic CHR in Duluth, MN, used "102.5 KZIO - Northland's Home for Music & Fun" as their positioning statement.  That sounds like a pretty conversational positioning statement, perhaps except for the "Northland's Home for..." part.  Alot of stations, particularity those without competition, use no positioning statement since everyone knows who they are.