There’s an interesting argument against classical music radio here today. Reacting to the reactions of Sacramento listeners at the loss of some classical programming, classical music blogger Greg Sandow writes about the reasons classical radio listeners shouldn’t be upset when stations cut back on or cut out classical music on their stations. And why do these stations cut back? Because people aren’t listening. The Sacramento station offers these numbers, based on hour-by-hour surveys of what people listen to: 400,000 people listen to its news broadcasts each week, and 130,000 listen to classical music. So … Continue Reading
I had a friend years ago that hired a decorator to come in and arrange his living room furniture. Mind you, nothing new was purchased, the consultant just re-arranged the room with the same pieces of furniture and accessories. Surprisingly, it actually looked really good. I was astounded, as was he. All this familiar stuff was pulled from the room and re-assembled in a way that looked completely new. Vision. Steve Jobs did that with technology. If you haven’t seen the recent Malcolm Gladwell piece on Steve Jobs “real genius,” it’s worth … Continue Reading
A great batch of new classical radio research came out from Walrus Research in June. You’ve probably seen it already, but I’d love to hear your comments on it. This is an update to the research done in 2008, and it’s based on the new Arbitron data collection via Portable People Meters (ppp).
Here’s the link to the 2011 report.
When is the right time to pull the plug on a radio program? When is a good thing, too much of a good thing? If one show goes away, do we revert to format (DJ and great tunes) or do we plug in another program…locally produced or off the shelf from one of the big distributors. National or local, brand new or long in tooth, the answer lies with square one, adequate concept development. If we apply start-up program criteria to existing programs or those we want to acquire, we end up with the same result – relevancy.