Forward Promotion (You can't do that!)

At least that's what I was told. It's too commercial! 
(Heaven forbid we generate increased time spent listening.)

Reliving An Old Argument

I heard some forward promotion this evening on a commercial station. Most of the announcers on this station say goodbye with our any thought about what comes next. It's an invitation to tune out. Not this time. I was impressed. She mentioned the artist coming up after what promised to be a lengthy break. She even tied in the tidbit that the artist would be touring and stop in area this Summer. The break was, indeed, lengthy. I got out of my car after five minutes and the spots were still rolling out of my speakers as I turned off the radio. But still, the effort was there. I also learned something I might not have otherwise known which added value to my time.

So What's The Big Deal?

For the commercial station the increase in Time Spent Listening (TSL) promotes increased share. Something that can be taken back to the advertisers. Increased share for public radio can be taken to the underwriters, but it also promotes loyalty, increases the size of the core audience and helps generate member dollars. Now that there is a lot more competition for listener ears, and we're more dependent than ever on contributions from non-government sources, increasing TSL doesn't seem so bad.

Barriers

The length of the break led to my tune-out. The tune-out wasn't only about the commercial interruption, it was more about my listening habits. If I had been in the car longer, I might have stayed wit the station longer to hear the music of the artist and the consistency of format.

What happens when that consistency of format is no longer there? In the case of public radio, what happens to the audience when we switch programs or programming. For example, what happens when Morning Edition ends and another program starts. Audience figures suggest a large port of the audience tunes away. Then an hour later another program starts. The seams created by this continuous shift in focus creates more opportunities for tune out. The only tool immediately at the programmers disposal is promotion.

There's a public radio network in the Midwest that runs a daily line-up of locally produced talk shows. It was assumed that since they were all talk shows on the same network that the appeal of each program would be similar. Unfortunately, they were not. At each program shift, the audience would depart. As the two hours of the next program unfolded, n news audience would grow. Then at the next seam (program shift), that audience would depart. The the process would start again. The roller coaster effect was made worse by shifts in content within the programs.

Meeting Expectations

Forward promotion can help offset some of these. It does not offset inconsistency in appeal. If the content is not appealing to the target or core audience, The expectancy set up by the forward promotion has not been met. Content providers and show producers should always be prepared to present their best to meet audience expectations. If they do not, listeners will go elsewhere. That's not a happy thought in a highly competitive market. Nobody said this was going to be easy.