Don’t Do It; It Won’t Test. But It Won’t Test Because We Don’t Do It

In 2020, Christian AC has been having fascinating conversations about our format’s lack of diversity in texture, style and skin color, as well as our lack of tempo. Could be my own confirmation bias, but I sense there’s a growing consensus we could do better. Yet there are lots reasons to not change a thing. Non-coms are hitting fundraising goals like there’s no such thing as Corona; commercial and non-commercial stations are weathering the COVID-19 ratings storm too. If you’re in the group of folks who doubt our format’s lack of (whatever) isn’t a big deal, this may not be for you. It’s for those who see room for improvement, but aren’t sure what a first or next step might be.

Listen to your local mainstream AC station who shares your target demo. You likely have a lot of cume overlap with them too. Chances are they’re upbeat and wander through pop, rhythm (even mild Hip Hop), and rock that would have seemed aggressive for the format a generation ago (as in the early 2000’s). Meanwhile, Christian AC is programming from a recipe that got locked in a generation ago. Our sonic variety often goes no further than white and variations of it (beige, ivory, cream, etc.).

“Variety (in texture, color, etc.) isn’t why she comes to us” is a valid argument. We do a lot of things “she” doesn’t come to us for though. I don’t have a shred of research to prove she wants to hear the jingles I play between songs on JOY FM in St. Louis. Just a guess, but there are things on your station you do because it’s part of your art, or even part of the reason the station was founded. Things in the latter category should never be abandoned simply because “she” doesn’t want them, or because “they don’t test.” If those items were important enough to launch your station in the first place, perhaps the focus should be on how to get them right so they matter to “her.”

(By the way, if you’re wondering why I keep putting quotation marks around “she” and “her,” it’s my not-so-subtle way of suggesting our format’s laser focus on a single, imaginary, female target listener is how we backed ourselves into this present corner in the first place. The idea of “Becky” was originally intended to help CCM Radio find common ground between her and the rest of the market. Instead, we zoomed in on her like precision snipers and ignored the rest of our markets. Not why we’re here today, though very closely connected. Our stations in STL have female target listeners, FWIW. Far be it from me to tip over the apple cart and then torch it. Getting back on topic….)

I’m not here to convince you to add more color, more tempo, more whatever to your playlist. Those cases have been made by me and others in a variety of industry spots. We’re here to look at HOW you could make changes in ways that strengthen your station instead of in ways that might put everything you’ve worked for at risk.

1. Don’t sweat bad research. If you’re successful in the ratings and/or with donors, it’s because of your P1s. The folks your research database is full of. By and large, they love what you already do. It’s why they’re P1s. To put it another way: they like what they know, and they know what they like. Almost any time any station researches things their P1s don’t know, they conclude their P1s don’t like those things. They don’t like what they don’t know. So, you’re going to have to grow some thick skin and help others on your team to grow some. That’s IF you’re going to quickly research any changes you make. Personally? I wouldn’t pull the research trigger so fast. At least not the kind of research our format has married itself to: we’ve created a feedback loop that continually narrows our appeal.

   Mark Ramsey once said: “In the literature they call it a ‘filter bubble.’ The stream of filtered content chokes off serendipity, chokes off surprises, chokes off unexpected delights. It sends you down a rabbit hole of self-satisfying sameness.” (Sound familiar?)




2. Make pragmatic changes. There’s a danger in rapidly over-correcting. Prioritize what matters most, and work on each item for a season. Real life example: At JOY FM, we tackled the tempo/energy challenge a few years ago. Didn’t matter that our top 10 testing Currents at the time were all ballads or chill worship songs. Our president, Sandi Brown, said, “If ‘JOY’ is in our name, shouldn’t it sound and feel that way when people listen?” We redid our sound codes and Powergold rules. We added new slow songs, well, slowly. We tweaked, listened, and discussed over a number of months until it intangibly felt like we had begun to dial it in. (Side-note: you’ll never have it truly dialed in, because audiences change. Tastes change. But you’ll sense when you’re close, if you have the right gut for the job. Shot out to APD/MD Bobbi Mason for doing the heavy lifting in our changes!)

   Our research didn’t instantly follow, but our ratings did. We spent seven months of that year as the #1 station in our market, ages 6+. We’re grateful to have held onto most of those gains to this day. But even if the ratings didn’t budge, this was a crucial ingredient to strengthening our brand. Oh! And as I type this, about half our top testing currents are now NOT BALLADS! I’d contend our P1s followed our lead, because we took them there gradually.

   • Side-side note: we tried a similar approach with the whole “women don’t test” thing too. Half of our top 10 songs are by ladies now.
   • Side-side-side note: next on our agenda is the diversity of texture and color issue. 8% of the songs in our active library at JOY FM are by People of Color. 8% of our cume is non-white. 45% of the city of St. Louis is black. We believe we can do better at serving our entire market without chasing our existing cume away.



3. Warm it up! (Not to be confused with the second hit from Kris Kross. That’s right—“Jump” wasn’t their only hit.) Basically, get comfortable keeping songs around your research panel doesn’t like (the thick skin thing). Lauren Daigle, for King & Country, Mandisa, Blanca, and others are all artists whose early singles didn’t test well for us. But they added flavors to our mix nobody else brought. Instead of totally writing them off by name or by sound, we carefully included them in rotation, over and over. As you know, at least two of those four are core artists for our whole format now. All four of them have some of this year’s top testing songs here in St. Louis. The audience came around. It’s not going to happen 100% of the time. But it’ll happen a lot less if you don’t even try in the first place.




4. There is no direct correlation between great testing songs and great ratings. We should stop pretending we’ll increase our market shares by leaps and bounds if only our libraries were just a bit tighter or better researched. All kinds of things influence your ratings, many of which are out of your control. Diary/PPM placement. Nielsen response rates. What your audience’s other options have done. The strength of your brand. What you’re doing between the songs. And biggest of all: how your listener lives their life. The biggest reason they tune away from you isn’t because you played a crappy song; it’s because they got to their destination and turned the car off. Or, they got a phone call. Or, the kids in the backseat were fighting.

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   From Coleman Insights: "There are two numbers in the ratings share of every station. The number to the left of the decimal (as in the 4 in a 4.3 share) and the number to the right of the decimal (as in the 3 in a 4.3 share.) The number to the right is impacted by the things radio stations spend the vast majority of their time on. Tweaking the music. Adding or removing a talk break. Giving away concert tickets. These are the tactical things.
   
   What moves the number to the left of the decimal point–that is, what gets your station to make big improvements in its ratings? Strengthening your brand. Major marketing. A big format debut. A morning personality crossing a threshold of impactful connection with the audience. Large, momentum-shifting, buzzworthy things."

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   Get this: The Country format recently, forcefully added more females to their music mix. They had the “women don’t test” challenge, much like Christian AC. A few months ago, CMT announced they were ignoring charts and research and would commit to a 50/50 blend of male & female artists in rotation. (Yes, CMT still plays music videos.) Many Country stations followed suit. Over in the Country section of AllAccess, Sean Ross noted the format’s ratings have risen since the changes. To put it plainly: Country Radio blatantly ignored research, made a big picture change, and reaped better ratings. Whether the better numbers are directly connected, who can say? It seems clear the changes didn’t hurt though.

   This isn’t a suggestion to never follow good research. It’s an awesome tool, and generally speaking, stations who play lots of songs their audience loves will do better than stations who don’t. Use research to serve your vision, not to define it.




5. Don’t play tug of war with yourself. Moving forward will require some things to be left behind. Otherwise, you’ll sabotage your own efforts. A few years ago at JOY FM, we lowered the top age in our research filter by 15 years. Those listeners and our ages 45+ ones did not share a lot of the same favorite songs. To try pleasing both groups would have been counter productive. The music flow could have easily become inconsistent and unlistenable. The person who came to us for Jars Of Clay and the person coming to us for Lauren or Tauren largely aren’t the same. So, while JOY FM lived in consensus territory as much as possible, we had forks in the road as well. We chose to gently lean forward. Songs and sounds working against the lean had to be dealt with.

   Think of it like driving: you wouldn’t have your foot on the gas pedal and the brake pedal at the same time. Unless you’re my 15-year-old trying to be silly when we do driving lessons in the mall parking lot.

   Thoughtful (but don’t get trapped into overthinking). Pragmatic. Cohesive. Those are the best words to describe how any change for the future should be handled. The changes you attempt won’t live in vacuum. Like, if you try to bring the energy level up your music, but don’t address the tempo and pacing of what’s between the songs, that’s a version of being at tug of war with yourself.

   One last thing on research, since it has played a huge role in how our format has grown. And since it’ll be the biggest friend or foe in moving forward, depending on how it’s viewed, used, ignored, etc. This is from Lee Abrams, cofounder of XM:

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   “RESEARCH: It’s great. AFTER THE FACT. On the creative/programming side, you cannot research before creation. Certainly you can identify trends, but the creative process needs to be free from data.
   
   How we could screw it up: Start ‘testing’ programming or anything dealing with eye, ear, brain before the public sees it and lives with it. It’s called DEATH BY DATA. Kinda like Star Trek. In 1966 it tested poorly and took a while to grab on….but once it did….the rest is history. Star Trek would never make it on the air today because of DEATH BY DATA. It would be researched too early.”

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   (The same thing was said of Friends and Seinfeld, probably among countless other legendary pieces of our culture.)

   Finally, bounce your thought process off stakeholders, who you report to, and peers you trust. Accept that not every change you attempt will succeed, but don’t let that scare you from trying again. Be smart, humble, and teachable.

   “Change is difficult. Not changing is fatal.”