Jocks Into Breaks

[freqdev]

When do listeners tune out? Is a Station Promo into commercials better than content from the personality? Are phoners into breaks engaging? Are teases necessary? What do listeners want who choose terrestial radio?

 

[upstate29651]

Since the short attention span youths have already abandoned radio, seems to me it's best to market to those still listening. Those people grew up on radio from the 50's to the 80's which was personality driven. Jocks are expensive, especially live and local ones but back in the day, especially in mid to larger markets where there were two or more CHR's that were battling each other, personality made the difference. So why fix what wasn't broken?

As for the content from the personalities, again, it was local. Talking about local events and advertisers. Telling relatable stories about the song or artist that was just played (or about to air). None of this rip and read garbage about the latest tik tok trend they read about on yahoo news. Phoners are absolutely engaging! To hear the excitement of someone being aired for winning a contest or for offering a quirky or silly opinion for a "question of the day" brings the listener in closer to the jock and by extension, the music and advertisers. Teasers are still a great wat to encourage listeners to hang around. If you're a big Swiftie, won't you linger if you know her newest hit that you adore is coming up in ten minutes?

Too much station/ownership content into a commercial is a HUGE turn-off for me. When listening to an iHeart owned rock station, the last thing I want or need to hear is yet another pitch for one of their self made "music festivals" that feature artists that aren't even represented on the format I am listening to.

My two cents.

G

 

[Mikey Radio]

Since the short attention span youths have already abandoned radio, seems to me it's best to market to those still listening. Those people grew up on radio from the 50's to the 80's which was personality driven. Jocks are expensive, especially live and local ones but back in the day, especially in mid to larger markets where there were two or more CHR's that were battling each other, personality made the difference. So why fix what wasn't broken?

As for the content from the personalities, again, it was local. Talking about local events and advertisers. Telling relatable stories about the song or artist that was just played (or about to air). None of this rip and read garbage about the latest tik tok trend they read about on yahoo news. Phoners are absolutely engaging! To hear the excitement of someone being aired for winning a contest or for offering a quirky or silly opinion for a "question of the day" brings the listener in closer to the jock and by extension, the music and advertisers. Teasers are still a great wat to encourage listeners to hang around. If you're a big Swiftie, won't you linger if you know her newest hit that you adore is coming up in ten minutes?

Problem is, there's way more competition for listeners of traditional OTA radio, even on the radio dial in many markets, than there was "back in the day". Media and entertainment landscapes are far different than they were 20 years ago, there are many more options for people to listen to everything from music to news/talk to things like podcasts, and it's not just young people who are moving away from terrestrial radio. Couple that with a sharp decrease in available advertiser dollars for broadcast radio and it's tough to bring radio back to sounding that way it once did, though I agree, I enjoyed listening more back then and found the live jocks, contests and involvement in the community helped create a bond and relationship with their listeners.

It's been mentioned in other threads that, many station owners, especially in mid-sized markets and smaller, didn't necessarily want to move to satellite or computer automation with voice tracking, but due to the nature of the radio business, it's what they felt they had to do to survive in many cases. While I agree there is more that even voice tracked stations could do to sound more local, it must be noted that, to really get involved in the community, show up at events, do remote broadcasts from advertiser locations, do live shows with callers on the air, contest giveaways and all of that, it takes significant amounts more money than many stations have or could generate. The exceptions seem to be smaller mom and pop stations in smaller communities that are still hanging on and where the station owners are known in the community and their relationship with listeners and advertisers is long-standing, but even most of them are struggling and those owners are themselves wearing many hats at the station to make ends meet.

 

[TheBigA]

When do listeners tune out? Is a Station Promo into commercials better than content from the personality? Are phoners into breaks engaging? Are teases necessary? What do listeners want who choose terrestial radio?

My least favorite word in radio is 'content.' Because it assumes that it's all equal, and it's not. Useless talk from a host before a spot break is a bad idea, because it's more reason for someone to tune out. if I'm listening to music, and the music stops, I tune out. It goes back to what your mama said, if you don't have anything good to say, don't say anything. Teases can be good if they're more than 'Another 10 in a row.' If you have something good happening, such as a ticket giveaway or a big interview, sure. A quick triplet of artist names can be good, because one of them might be the listener's favorite. If you just give one, and it's someone I can't stand, then I'm gone.

Phoners into breaks are probably going to be too long. If you can pull 5 funny seconds from the phoner and use it as a tease for the next segment, that's a good way to promote it. It comes down to what your doing. If all you do is play music, then that's what you do. If you do more than that, you have to promote it. But don't do content for the sake of content. Unless it's funny or memorable in some way, just do the station positioner and into the spots. Because anything else becomes part of the spot break.

 

[101tm]

On WFBC and WSPA-FM, Audacy in recent times has frequently just done cold segues from songs straight in to commercials and a cold segue back. IMO that's too jarring when you could put a 5 second liner with the station name in there before the commercials start/stop. Since WSPA-FM moved to 106.3, they run a 30 second liner/music bed/jingle teasing the morning show, or a jingle/liner in and out of the break back in to the music. I haven't listened to WFBC around a commercial break recently to know if they've changed anything. The Block normally runs community event promos going in to breaks.

I believe WROQ still has jock breaks in to the commercial breaks, or at least one of them per hour. Earth FM has very long jock breaks with a lot of times a commercial read then segue in to the weather, and DJ comes back and gives the temperatures and preview of what's coming up (I think?) before a stopset.

 

[vchimpanzee]

Just talking about my experience, WBRF DJs, when they are on, talk about the artist or the music. The station I listen to most in the car is a Good Time Oldies affiliate and I'm not even sure what the point is in having DJs. If we're lucky they mention the artist or song just played. But mostly they talk about stuff they believe to be interesting.